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Herb of the Month

Seaweed

by Louise Dunlap

Seaweed, in all its succculent shapes and colors, was one of the many discoveries that, as a child on nature walks, I was forbidden to put in my mouth. But, lo and behold, this ancient plant-a specialized form of algae-turns out to be not only a favorite food in seaside countries but also prized for its vitamins, minerals, and general healing properties worldwide. When I finally got up my nerve to cook some, I developed a taste for it that approaches a craving. For many people, maybe not all, the odd salty, gamy, crunchy, mythic experience of eating seaweed is a mineral high.
A friend who is an Alaska native of coastal Tlingit/Haida ancestry is searching for ways to help her generation learn what their people knew about seaweeds before hamburgers came to their land. Just enough knowing elders remain in her community to pass the knowledge on. Those of us who have no link to our ancestral relationship with plants must start with books, and just about all I can tell you comes from the seaweed chapter in Susun Weed's knowledgable and inspiring Wise Woman Herbal.

Weed reports seaweeds have wonderfully high levels of A, C, E and B complex vitamins, including B6 and B12-not easy to find in land-based foods. They are also remarkably high in minerals like iron, calcium, potassium and magnesium as well as a rich assortment of trace minerals (so often leached from the soil that grows our food, but still available in the ocean). But I don't want to pass on any hype: we all know that "trace minerals" such as chromium, lead, mercury, and strontium are toxic in larger doses, and, tragically, the ocean has ended up with these residues of our wars and industrial processes. We should be aware that Australia prohibits the sale of Japanese seaweeds due to their high toxic metal content. Yet Weed reports research proposing that the human body may be unable to assimilate heavy metals from seaweed. And Canadian researchers have apparently found that sea vegetables help eliminate radioactive strontium 90 from the body (also reported in the other source I consulted).

In fact, protective qualities lead Weed's list of the benefits of eating sea vegetables. These include protection against radioactive and other environmental toxics and healing after radiation or chemotherapy, as well as antibiotic and antibacterial properties. Citing Japanese research, Weed recommends seaweed for the heart (despite high sodium, which she claims differs from that in processed table salt). She says it stimulates hormonal, lymphatic and urinary systems, helping with prostate enlargement, menopause and menstrual complaints, osteoporosis, allergies, stress, irritability, and general lack of vigor. She claims it soothes digestive complaints, inhibits yeast infections, helps metabolize fat in weight-reduction plans, and is an ally in dealing with cancer. (My other source cited research from the 70s and 80s showing that seaweed inhibits brain and other tumors, leukemia, and sarcoma.)

Weed concentrates on only three of the many kinds of seaweed. (1) Dulse (Palmaria palmata), a beautiful red-purple, palm-of-the-hand-shaped alga found on tidal rocks in all Pacific and Atlantic waters, is harvested locally. I have purchased it from children with hand-lettered signs along small coastal roads in New Brunswick and snacked on it dry, like healthy potato chips. (2) Kelps, which include not only the long rubbery ribbon with the bulb on the end that we play with on the beach but also Alaria (also known as Wakame), Kombu, and Fucus-most of which are available collected in our region and for sale in our store. (3) Hijiki (Hizikia fusiforme), which comes from Asian waters and is Weed's favorite way to "hook" people on seaweed. She says anyone brave enough to try it-she admits, it looks like black worms-will love the taste.

I have to admit that I don't cook as much seaweed as would be good for me. (Weed says we should eat it at least once a week.) It takes time to learn your way through the many types. I am taking seaweeds one dish at a time, so I'll share my two favorites.

The first is one of Susun's soups, which I felt emboldened to try last spring, though it would be a delicious, hearty cold-weather soup.

Mother Earth/Mother Ocean Soup

3 onions, chopped, sauteed in 3 Tbsps olive oil

6 potatoes, cubed

2 carrots, sliced

2 parsnips, sliced

(2 turnips, cubed, my addition)

1/2 cup dried, wild greens

(I used dried nettles, which have lots of iron and vitamin C and can be found in our dried herb section. They have an interesting rich taste, a little like spinach.)

1/2 cup dried seaweed

(any kind you want to try)

12 cups water

Cook in a large pot until vegetables are done, adding salt to taste at the end.

My second dish comes from a creative friend, Simran Skie, in California. She combines the informal idea of a serve-yourself taco or pita bread sandwich with the formal idea of sushi (the elegant sliced creations rolled in thin sheets of dark nori seaweed in Japanese restaurants). Not so strong-tasting as hijiki, nori is also delicious as a garnish broken or crumbled on top of soups or salads. (As far as I know, all nori is processed in Japan.)

Nori Wrap-ups

Serve the following as a beautiful buffet for people to "roll their own."

Sheets of nori (paper-thin dark seaweed available in our seaweed section)

Cold brown rice (can be cooked with sweet rice which is stickier)

Ginger pickles (thin slices of fresh ginger soaked 1-10 days in umeboshi plum vinegar-very easy, amazingly good, and you can reuse the vinegar)

Green onions and tops, sliced paper-thin on the diagonal

Shredded lettuce

Water cress stems or leaves, cilantro leaves, and/or arugula leaves

Carrot, yam, and/or daikon radish roots, cut into long, thin fingers and lightly steamed until they're about to lose their crispness.

Avocado, sliced into thin fingers

A squeeze of lemon or lime

A sprinkle of tamari

Spread the fillings down the center of the nori, roll it around them, making as tight a cylinder as you can, then eat.

So this is as far as I can take you in getting acquainted with seaweeds. Don't start collecting your own without learning more than I know and without knowing something about what heavy metals might be in your part of the ocean. A few seaweeds are poisonous, though almost all are said to be edible. And maybe, if you're beach-walking with children-just to be sure-you'd better not let them put those appealing green and brown streamers in their mouths.

Works consulted: Susun Weed, Wise Woman Herbal: Healing Wise (published by Ash Tree in 1989 and also available in our store.) and Alex Jack, Let Food Be Thy Medicine, One Peaceful World Press, Becket, MA.

Louise Dunlap has taught writing at MIT and is working on a book called Writing for Social Change.