SEAWEED FOR THE PEOPLE!
That’s what John and Kerryann Fitzgerald’s little girls cheered as they licked their carrageenan ice pops. John And Kerryann operate walk, talk and taste workshops on the Ring of Kerry – John guides the students along the shoreline; Kerryann serves up sea vegetable feasts at the end of the walk. They want us to get to know seaweed. To harvest it sustainably. To cook with it. And perhaps even make ice pops made with seaweed.
Seaweed for the people.
Across the Atlantic, here in Nova Scotia, similar seaweeds are also swirling beneath the ocean. The ocean is a slate grey today, but deep down is a rich garden of plants holding on to the rocks below. They are shades of browns, greens and reds, all with varying shapes, names and flavours. Some are peppery, some are mild. Some taste of parsley, others are as gentle as Bibb lettuce. What they all share is a common history of sustenance. Seaweeds sustained the Vikings on their open boat voyages. They fed monks living on a craggy island at the end of the earth. They fuelled political leaders, families, fish and sea birds. They even fed Nova Scotians on long car rides…
These are the stories we explore in this episode of The Food Podcast. Our guides are John Fitzgerald and Taylor Widrig of Mermaid Fare, a Nova Scotian company that distributes wild and cultivated seaweeds. It’s a salty, briny, wild episode full of vitamins, minerals and trace elements, today on The Food Podcast.
Things we talk about in this episode:
- Atlantic Irish Seaweed
- Kerryann’s recipes
- Mermaid Fare
- Luke Skywalker’s Island Getaway, The Skellig Islands
- Mermaid Fare Colouring and Seaweed Recipe Book
- Dulse | Sugar Kelp | Sea Lettuce
- Cooking with Seaweed
- Nutritional Benefits of Seaweed
- Litfest – A Food and Drinks Literary Festival at Ballymaloe
Listen to Episode 21 of The Food Podcast HERE.
*Above photo – from top moving clockwise: Nova Scotian dulse, Irish pepper dulse, sugar kelp flakes, sugar kelp, dulse, more sugar kelp and A Beachcomber’s Botany, a lovely little handbook I found on a dusty shelf in my parent’s cottage on the Northumberland Straight.