Spice it up with seaweed

SEAFOOD:'NEVER PULL a seaweed," Prannie Rhatigan warned a rapt crowd gathered for a "Seaweed Walk" that was part of this year's inaugural SÓ Sligo Food Festival. Strolling along the strand, she invited the 50 wellied and waterproofed walkers to pick specimens for her identification. "But to pull is to kill," she said, with the passion of one who understands how fragile the maritime infrastructure is. "Use a very sharp knife and give it a haircut, but never pull."

Rhatigan, a GP and foraging enthusiast, has published a cookbook, Irish Seaweed Kitchen, which has been beautifully produced by Booklink, with photographs by Yumiko Matsui and Romas Foord, among others. Rhatigan has been harvesting seaweed since she was a child, and her father – a GP and dentist – brought the family to the beach every week when the tides were low to harvest from the shore.

As a practising GP (although she has taken a career break to get the book off the ground), she offers a medical basis for the oft-touted idea that food and health are inextricably linked.

With a high vitamin and mineral content, each seaweed – and there are countless varieties native to our shores – has its own nutritional and medicinal properties. Rhatigan, taking the lead from Japanese cuisine and research, is keen to promote seaweed’s nutritional benefits.

Current research suggests seaweed may have antiviral, anticarcinogenic, and anti-inflammatory properties, as well as being useful in lowering blood pressure and lipids and in boosting the immune system.

Rhatigan believes the way to eat seaweed is little and often. Dried, mixed seaweeds will spice up any meal – from a dried duileasc mix (a sort of seaweed salt and pepper) and salty, stock-friendly kelps, to exotic-looking sea spaghetti (which itself can be the basis of a meal). The recipes have been designed by Rhatigan and her husband, Johnny Waters, with contributions from a number of well-known chefs including Rick Stein, Darina Allen and Richard Corrigan.

For the uninitiated, the duileasc and cheese scones, the moist triple ginger and Guinness cake, and the seafood paella, use seaweed in a subtle way. And for the hardcore seaweed eater there is Prannie’s addictive green smoothie, made from alaria, banana, pineapples, and six green leaves.

Seaweed harvesting in Ireland has changed since the days when shore farmers loading creels high with seaweed were featured in John Hinde postcards. EU regulations mean seaweed harvesting is now strictly licensed, even when it is not for commercial gain. Once harvested, the seaweed can be dried or frozen, so it’s best to pick it at the height of its nutritional capacity (just after January frost for sleabhac; after spring storms for kelp). Though foraging is half the fun, dried seaweed is also available in most health food shops. Both in flavour and in medicinal terms, a little goes a long, long way.

Irish Seaweed Kitchencan be ordered from prannie.com (€25 plus pp)