Marks and Spencer (M&S), an upmarket U.K. retail chain, recently launched a number of food products containing seaweed. They are part of its Tastes of the British Isles promotion where artisan foods from around the United Kingdom and Ireland are being introduced into the retailer’s stores.
The seaweed products include Mara Dulse seaweed flakes from Edinburgh-based Mara Seaweed, and Stornoway Water Biscuits with Seaweed and Stornoway Oatcakes with Seaweed from Stag Bakeries on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.
The dried dulse (Palmaria palmate) flakes are used to season foods and apparently impart Umami taste notes. Mara Seaweed advocates them being sprinkled on salmon, among other strong tasting protein foods. One of the Marks and Spencer packs states: “Shake on Seaweed instead of Salt.”
Dulse may also be eaten raw or cooked, as well as dried, and in former years was often served up alongside potatoes.
“Launching as a branded product in Marks and Spencer is a huge step for us,” said Mara’s CEO, Fiona Houston, “and shows that seaweed is now firmly on the British menu. Mara has moved from novel to mainstream.”
Stag Bakeries is secretive about the seaweed it uses to make its seaweed biscuit ranges, just saying that it uses a blend of red, brown and green seaweed sourced from nearby sea lochs.
Stag Bakeries recently won a three-star gold in the 2015 Great Taste Awards for its Stornoway cocktail oatcake with Hebridean Seaweed and this product is also now being stocked in the retail outlets of the nationwide National Trust, a charity that works to preserve and protect historic houses and parts of the British countryside. There it is being sold for GBP 3.00 (USD 4.68, EUR 4.20) for a 125-gram pack.
So seaweed could be moving from the novel to the mainstream in the U.K. retail market as Houston said. According to Melissa Webb, M&S product development manager, Mara Seaweed and Stag Bakeries “are tapping into a trend we see growing through 2015, as shoppers start to understand how seaweed is used and search it out to use when baking, or to season dishes.”
Seaweeds have been eaten in the British Isles for centuries, of course, but were virtually forgotten and it is only now that they are slowly making a comeback. This is partly due to the renewed interest in local foods. British “foodies” are extolling the virtues of these sea vegetables as they’re sometimes called, particularly as foraging for wild foods has become fashionable.
There are about 500-600 seaweed species found around the coasts of the British Isles, although this pales into insignificance compared with the 9,000 or so found worldwide. Some of the British seaweeds have been eaten in the United Kingdom for years without people realizing it. Carrageen or Irish Moss (Chondrus crispus), for example, is a gelling or thickening agent used in various food products.
While the British are somewhat lagging behind in their appreciation of edible seaweeds, other cultures around the world embrace them. The Japanese are fond of wakame (Undaria pinnafitida) and kombu (Saccharina japonica), and also consume Porphyra yezoensis. In Indonesia there’s a huge trade in Euchema cottonii. Worldwide various species of Euchema account for around 70 percent of the world’s carrageenan supplies.
In Hawaii there’s a traditional local dish called limu which can variously be made with the edible seaweeds Gracillaris coronopifolia, Enteromorpha prolifera, Asparagopsis taxiformis, Grateloupia filicana, Ulva fasciata, Sargassum echinocarpum and Dictyopteris plagiogramma. It is said that lightly roasting Enteromorpha brings out a better taste.
There is a definite benefit to human health from eating seaweed. Seaweed is one of the best food sources of iodine, which the body needs to make thyroid hormones. These hormones control the body’s metabolism and many other important functions.
The body also needs thyroid hormones for proper bone and brain development during pregnancy and infancy. Getting enough iodine is therefore especially important for infants and women who are pregnant.
Meanwhile research has shown that a tropical seaweed (Callophycus serratus) may provide scientists with a new weapon against malaria.
