Stop calling it seaweed.

February 20, 2018 7:40 AM

From Overfishing to Sustainable Farming. The innovative 3D model for ocean farming employs hurricane-resistant anchors on the seafloor at the edges of the farm, connecting with ropes to buoys on the water’s surface. Another rope runs horizontally about eight feet below the surface. The kelp is grown on ropes hanging down off the horizontal rope, creating a vertical growing space. “Next to the kelp, we’re growing scallops and mussels, also vertically, and then further down, we have oysters in cages, and then clams actually down in the mud,” Smith explains. “The vertical-water-column approach reduces the farm’s footprint, and the multiple species create a diversity so that a farmer is protected should anything cause one of those crops to falter or fail in a given season.”
posted by emjaybee (25 comments total)

Gastropod had an episode with Bren Smith! It was really interesting and I keep waiting to be able to find kelp in the stores.
posted by backseatpilot at 7:59 AM on February 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

This is really getting popular as a sustainable income generation option.

Seaweed farming in Zanzibar – the women of the Indian Ocean

adn the formal version

I really like the way they've framed the need for diversity to mitigate the risk of any one harvest failing
posted by infini at 8:03 AM on February 20, 2018 [3 favorites]

NYC is doing some of this as a storm surge shock absorber protection with oyster beds, after all the toilets in city buildings had to be upgraded to water saving, the old porcelain was used to make new oyster beds. But yes, more seaweed, more bivalves, more reefs!
posted by The Whelk at 8:19 AM on February 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

Bren Smith mostly wants you to call it kelp because "Johnny Appleseaweed" sounds really awkward.
posted by a halcyon day at 9:18 AM on February 20, 2018 [6 favorites]

Kelp is the next kale. Ten years ago, nobody really heard of kale or was cooking with it or eating it, and now it’s in so many homes and all over restaurant menus. That’s what’s happening now with kelp.

I know how to cook (or just open) and eat oyster and mussels and clams, but what do you do with kelp and other sea greens? Other than wrap it around sushi and onigiri or make seaweed salad, that is.
posted by carrioncomfort at 9:20 AM on February 20, 2018

You put it in miso soup.
posted by leotrotsky at 9:25 AM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

what do you do with kelp and other sea greens? Other than wrap it around sushi and onigiri or make seaweed salad, that is.

We put large pieces of kombu (thick Japanese kelp) in our asian or seafood-based soups for flavor and to give the broth body (or as a main ingredient: miyeokguk is essentially just seaweed and beef; it's light but great).

We've also started poaching fish with kombu in the pan. Current favorite are Costco cod fillets with a big piece of kombu laid on top (and butter, a splash of milk, and a teaspoon of miso stirred in). Our 16-month-old daughter LOVES the cooked kombu.

We take kim (the korean version of nori, I guess; thin sheets, salted & roasted -- this is the kind you'll see most often in the snack aisle of grocery stores) and cut it up in little bits and mix it into rice, with some sesame seeds, and roll rice balls (which our daughter also loves: a perfect daycare snack).

And we just eat it plain as a super lowfat salty snack. Yum yum.
posted by alleycat01 at 9:47 AM on February 20, 2018 [7 favorites]

From the Zanzibar link:

Animals like cattle, sheep, and horses that live near the sea munch seaweed washed up on the shore because it has minerals and some vitamins. In 1974, the American Gas Association started looking for a renewable source of methane and started a project that produces seaweed on farms in the ocean, harvesting it and then converting it into methane by a process of anaerobic fermentation. Face, hand, and body lotions often contain an “extract of seaweed”. It’s sold in bath salts and algae treatments for relief of rheumatic pain or the removal of cellulite. Removal of toxic metals from industrial wastewater is another famous use of seaweed. Many species of it are edible and contain calcium, copper, iodine, protein, fiber and vitamins, specifically vitamin K and folic acid while being low in calories and fat.
posted by infini at 9:53 AM on February 20, 2018

I used to eat a lot of kelp, kombu, and dulse as a 70s hippie vegetarian. My wife, growing up with Japanese cooking, uses kombu as a flavoring agent and discards it. Wakame is that more delicate stuff you see in miso. And everybody loves nori.

I'm starting to eat the stuff again. Especially dulse, a reddish brown variety of "sea greens" which you can buy as a powder for spice, or whole. (I gather it for meals when I'm up in Maine in the summer, too.) Kombu/kelp you have to cook for a while. Hijiki, that more delicate seaweed you typically find in seaweed salad, if you shop at the kinds of stores that sell it, doesn't need a hell of a lot of cooking time.
posted by kozad at 10:03 AM on February 20, 2018 [3 favorites]

99% Invisible did a podcast on reviving the New York oyster beds: Oyster-tecture
posted by jazon at 10:19 AM on February 20, 2018

I've called it seaweed since I was a wee bab and I shan't stop now. Whether it's haitai or haidai, seaweed is delicious.

Ways to eat seaweed in addition to sushi or salad:

Roasted, salted seaweed sheets (whatever you want to call them), you eat plain as a snack, or with rice or some plain bread (especially steamed buns like mantou or guabao). When I was small I would sometimes have peanut butter and seaweed sandwiches, which were a lot better than they sound.

Korean supermarkets might sell a snacking seaweed that's all ready-chopped into little fragments, often with additional flavoring or sesame seeds, which has absolutely zero purpose other than snacking (I have found these to be the oiliest of the bunch, in my experience).

If you're feeling lazy and can't be bothered to soak the whole dried stuff for soup, you can substitute snacking seaweed in the soup instead (although of course you would put less salt/oil in addition). I have done this with noodles of various sorts in lieu of actually making soup (or instead of using flavor packets), because I Can't Be Bothered.

If you want to Actually Make Soup, both the thick kind and the thin, dissipatey kind are good for it. The thin kind goes well in egg and corn soup, for example. Both can work in sparerib soup or as an extraneous addition to a lighter/clearer rendition of luosong tang. You could probably put the thick kind into hotpot, although I haven't tried that personally.

The thick kelp you can cut into broad ribbons, roll and secure with a toothpick or tie into bowties, then braise the same way you'd braise pork belly (lu haidai/滷海帶). You can have them alongside meat and tofu braised in the same sauce, probably over rice or noodles because it's too salty otherwise. I propose that the English name of the rolled form be "fruit of the sea roll-up" or something :P
posted by inconstant at 10:42 AM on February 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

I really like that these 3D farms help deal with the excess nitrogen in our run-off and waste water. It doesn't negate the fact that we use too much fertilizer but at least mitigates some of this problem with it.

Are there marketing boards out there to create demands for foods we could eat for environmental reasons? Things like sea greens, jelly fish, asian carp, insects, or anything else that'll help reduce the impact of what we eat. They could give top chefs grants to develop recipes for them that could then be snuck onto menus, tv shows and instagram feeds.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:07 AM on February 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

We eat seaweed in all sorts of salads and soups - it just goes in with the other vegs.
posted by mumimor at 11:09 AM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

Actually now that I think about it, maybe its already happening. We took our daughter out for lunch at the CN Tower for her birthday and my meal came with a liberal dose of sea greens. 100% of the clientele of that restaurant is either tourists or people having some kind of special meal - both prime targets for posting food pictures on social media.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:36 AM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

Korean supermarkets might sell a snacking seaweed that's all ready-chopped into little fragments, often with additional flavoring or sesame seeds, which has absolutely zero purpose other than snacking (I have found these to be the oiliest of the bunch, in my experience).

You mean the ones that are about the size and thickness of an index card? You can buy in basically any grocery store in the US. Seaweed salad is what needs to become more commonly available pre-made - it's a cool color and it's delicious!
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:02 PM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

You mean the ones that are about the size and thickness of an index card? You can buy in basically any grocery store in the US. Seaweed salad is what needs to become more commonly available pre-made - it's a cool color and it's delicious!

No, I mean like completely shredded up so it can't be called "sheets" of anything anymore. Also, the snack-sized sheets in the Western groceries are often way overpriced -- I think Costco might be the only exception, but of course it's Costco. (That being said, it's pretty easy to burn through a lot of snacking seaweed, no matter what form it takes.)
posted by inconstant at 12:11 PM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

Here, to clarify --

Full size sheets: http://nj.hmart.com/84603400264/ (about the same size as what you'd use for sushi, but do not use these for sushi)
Snack size sheets: http://nj.hmart.com/761898689240/ (the "index card" ones you mentioned)
Shredded: http://nj.hmart.com/880939575040/
posted by inconstant at 12:23 PM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

The sushi place next door to me adds some blanched seaweed/laver to their seafood salad and the slight saltiness really zings up the salad.

Those snack sheets (they used to come in 1" x 4" sheets in a flat packet - the 'index card' sized ones are becoming a lot more common) are a fantastic medium for consuming uni (sea urchin roe) - plop a chunk of uni in the middle, fold in half, enjoy!
posted by porpoise at 12:43 PM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

Beer + roasted nori squares i: even better than Beer + beer nuts.
posted by Fupped Duck at 2:48 PM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

Kelp is tasty. Just throw it in whatever. Slow cooking a stew? Dump some kelp in there, who cares.
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:10 PM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yeah, MSG is basically distilled kombu, so if you want to add umami to your food then throwing in sea weed is a good way to do it.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:51 PM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

It would be good if kelp could be genetically engineered to grow on land and specifically, systemically strangle out coriander fields around the world.
posted by turbid dahlia at 5:18 PM on February 20, 2018

traditional Brussels beer broth mussels is even better and brine-iner with some dried seaweed/dulse and dried seaweed chips or flakes are excellent above some rice with a side of whatever.


I like seaweed what can I say. I was making a traditional mushroom and cabbage stew tonight (didn't want to go to the store for meat) and thought about crunching in some dried seaweed squares for flavor.
posted by The Whelk at 8:39 PM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

does anyone ever have trouble with the iodine or heavy metal content of sea vegetables? (i get freaked out because of all the warnings i see)
posted by lumnar at 7:36 AM on February 22, 2018

I've never personally heard of anyone having problems with eating lu haidai or whatever, which is the most concentrated kelpiness that I can think of. I sometimes eat an entire packet of the full-sized roasted/salted seaweed sheets in a single meal, accompanied not only by white rice but also by an egg (which is even more iodine!).

That being said, I'm sure it differs from person to person. Maybe this paper would be helpful? The reference to how "soy isoflavones" "inhibit incorporation of iodine into thyroid hormone" is interesting, because soy sauce is definitely a major component of the braising liquid for lu haidai. (I can't say I've ever seen anyone put any kind of seaweed together with broccoli, cabbage, or bok choy before, though. Maybe that's a Japanese thing.)
posted by inconstant at 7:57 AM on February 22, 2018 [1 favorite]