AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.

Nutritious seaweed surfaces as the new veggie on American dinner plates.

Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL)

| September 17, 2007 | COPYRIGHT 2007 Chicago Tribune. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)Copyright

Byline: Bill Daley

The way Americans are going gaga for sushi rolls, seaweed may one day be as American as apple pie or corn on the cob.

Nori is the seaweed star, derived from a marine algae called porphyra. Processed into paperlike sheets, nori may be too stylized for most people to think of it as seaweed. Certainly, nori doesn't look or smell like the stuff you steer clear of on the beach.

But more and more Americans are eating the stuff, whether they know it's seaweed or not. And some more adventurous eaters are exploring other types of seaweeds, whose flavors range from bland to briny to smoky.

"People do get (seaweed)," said Shelley Young, founder of The Chopping Block Cooking Schools in Chicago, who uses seaweed in her cooking. "People are more open to those flavors."

Funny thing is, seaweed has always been there, hiding in plain sight. Commercially made ice creams often contain carrageenan, a thickener made from dried carrageen, or Irish moss seaweed. Agar agar, a dried tasteless seaweed, often is used instead of gelatin by vegetarians.

Seaweed can be found sprinkled on salads, floating in soups and even rolled in oats and fried in hot bacon fat.

Kombu, a dried seaweed, is an essential element of dashi, a stock used in most Japanese recipes. There are even regional favorites. In Hawaii, a signature dish is called poke and it's made with sushi-grade tuna and wakame, a seaweed colored a deep green. In Maine, there's dulse, a slightly chewy and pungent red seaweed often used in soups.

Larch Hanson of Maine Seaweed Co. of Steuben, Maine, has been hand-harvesting seaweed for 35 years. He has seen an uptick of orders as "more and more people are starting to feel the benefits of eating seaweed."

While Hanson does have some Chicago and Midwest customers, most of the orders come from people living along the coasts.

"It's more difficult to sell to someone from Wisconsin raised on Cheddar cheese," he quipped.

Hanson got into the business out of a love for the ocean and a desire to be physically active.

"It's a happy combination of fitness and play," he said of the harvesting, much of which takes place from mid-May to the end of June. He dries the wet seaweed by setting up lines at the high tide mark and hanging the harvest up like clothing.

Hanson harvests and sells all sorts of seaweed, from kelp to bladderwrack to alaria (also known as "winged kelp") to nori.

Across the nation, though, nori rules, thanks to the upsurge in sushi consumption. So commonplace has nori become that chef Cat Cora, the "Iron Chef America" celebrity, uses it as a tool for family…

Related articles from newspapers, magazines, journals, and more
Seaweed's making an out-of-the-blue splash in beauty products this summer.
News wire article from: Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, TX) July 31, 2007 700+ words
...Stephanie Allmon FORT WORTH, Texas _ Seaweed has washed up as one of summer's trendiest...used widely in salon and spa treatments, seaweed has made its way into shampoos, face...You will find all three major groups of seaweed represented in modern health and beauty...
Seaweed swims upscale. (restaurants serving dishes with seaweed)
Magazine article from: Nation's Restaurant News Parseghian, Pamela September 13, 1993 700+ words
...who are riding the Asian cuisine wave are sprinkling seaweed on everything from sashimi to hibiscus soup. Rita...in all types of seafoods, from fish to shellfish to seaweed. "Seaweed has a healthful connotation to it with a vegetarian...
Seaweed industry sees 2001 export earnings rising 20%.
Magazine article from: BusinessWorld (Philippines) October 6, 2000 700+ words
The Seaweed Industry Association of the Philippines...increased international demand for local seaweed products. SIAP chairman Lee Hiong T...showing renewed interest in Philippine seaweed products because of softened local prices...
Seaweed Systems Distributes 3Dlabs' Visual Processing Units in Embedded...
Press release article from: PR Newswire October 13, 2003 700+ words
...Wash., Oct. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Seaweed Systems, Inc., a leading developer...defense and medical device markets. Seaweed has developed and provided drivers for...several years. This agreement enables Seaweed to become a unique single point of supply...
Seaweed Systems Announces Award of Major Contract for Its DO-178B Certifiable...
Press release article from: PR Newswire September 7, 2004 700+ words
...WOODINVILLE, Wash., Sept. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Seaweed Systems, Inc. (Seaweed), a leading developer and supplier of OpenGL...Rapids, MI (Smiths). The contract calls for Seaweed to deliver to Smiths its DO-178B Level A certifiable...
SEAWEED SYSTEMS UNVEILS CERTIFIABLE EMBEDDED GRAPHICS DRIVER.
Newspaper article from: Computer Workstations October 1, 2005 700+ words
Seaweed Systems, Inc. (Seaweed), has unveiled the OpenGL ES SC 1.0 profile, which specifically...device; automotive; and industrial process control communities. "Seaweed has been fully behind the need for OpenGL ES SC and has taken a...
MINDANAO SEAWEED INDUSTRY TOLD TO FOCUS ON SUSTAINABILITY.
News wire article from: AsiaPulse News December 16, 2008 700+ words
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Dec 16 Asia Pulse - Seaweed industry leaders said Mindanao can't afford...ensure the long-term competitiveness of the seaweed sector, although Mindanao exports of seaweed may have doubled this year. Officials of the...
Seaweed Systems Announces the Selection of Its DO-178B Certifiable 3D OpenGL...
Press release article from: PR Newswire March 12, 2003 700+ words
...SEATTLE, March 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Seaweed Systems, Inc., a leading developer...Rockwell Collins for the F-35 program. Seaweed will deliver its DO-178B Level A certifiable...Collins' Kaiser Electronics business. Seaweed Systems' software will form an integral...
Seaweed at your service. (harvesting of marine algae results in employment)
Magazine article from: UNESCO Courier Bequette, France November 1, 1997 700+ words
...Today, this definition is out of date. A seaweed or alga may be either vegetable or animal...roots or vein systems. They included seaweed, mushrooms, lichens, mosses and even...seaweeds move about, like Spirulina (a blue seaweed) or diatoms (brown planktonic seaweed...
Mindanao seaweed growers, traders organize to prop up industry.
Magazine article from: BusinessWorld (Philippines) September 18, 2000 700+ words
The Philippine seaweed industry has taken a giant step toward...increasingly thorny problems besetting the seaweed industry lies in joint action by all...of the industry, a cross-section of seaweed growers, traders and processors recently...
For more facts and information, see all results

Source: HighBeam Research, Nutritious seaweed surfaces as the new veggie on American dinner...

©2010 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. About us | FAQs | Contact us | Privacy policy | Terms and conditions
Other Gale sites: Encyclopedia.com | HighBeam Research | Acquire Content | Books & Authors | Goliath | MovieRetriever | Smart QandA

The AccessMyLibrary advertising network includes: womensforum.com GlamFamily