Gathering in the sea spaghetti

Maybe it’s just old-fashioned nosiness, but I’ve always had a thing about other people’s bookshelves. A recent rummage through my younger sister’s, for example, turned up a battered, early edition of the British writer Richard Mabey’s book on foraging,

Food for Free, that has been in the family since our childhood. A small, slim paperback, its tattered pages are filled with the well-known botanical illustrator Marjorie Blamey's delicate pen-and-ink drawings of many different wild edibles – hazelnuts, horse mushrooms, salsify, wild strawberries, medlar and water mint amongst others – and are stained by family fingerprints sticky with the juice and sap of wild foods foraged many moons ago.

The only part of the book we left untouched was the section on seaweeds. Perhaps it was the thought of the briny whiff that these plants (or algae, to be precise) exude, or maybe the unspoken fear of what strange oceanic life forms might lie hidden beneath their slippery forms. Whatever it was, despite the author’s mild request to “give them a fair chance; they are an intriguing food, and quite undeserving of their freakish, joke-book reputation”, the idea of foraging for edible seaweeds was, for us, somehow , a step too far.

Not any more. Recent books such as Irish Seaweed Kitchen by Prannie Rhatigan and Extreme Greens: Understanding Seaweeds by Sally McKenna are proof that the culinary and health-giving properties of seaweeds are once again being widely appreciated and enjoyed.

But perhaps the biggest challenge for those new to the idea of foraging for edible seaweeds is identifying the tastiest species from amongst the 600 or more seaweeds to be found growing along our Irish shores. The answer, as I recently discovered, is to go on a seaweed forage with a recognised expert such as Darach Ó Murchú, an experienced, knowledgeable outdoor guide and the man behind InMyElement, the small west Kerry-based business that runs a range of foraging/cookery courses tailored for small groups.

Nine years ago, Dublin-born Ó Murchú , who previously worked as an engineer in Silicon Valley, moved to the tiny townland of Ceann Bhaile Dháith outside Dingle, where his mother had grown up. “This place,” he says, “is in my blood.” Since then he has pursued a variety of environmental and nature-based interests, including a passion for edible seaweeds that he shares with people through his foraging courses.

Which is how I came to be in his company one golden early autumn morning a few weeks ago, as we scrambled along a sun-bleached, windswept cliff-top west of Dingle, one eye on the distant landmass of Great Blasket Island, another on the rocky shoreline and vast turquoise-blue ocean spread out far beneath us.

Very soon, Ó Murchú was gently plucking heavy handfuls of sea spaghetti (also known as Haricots de Mer, its Latin name is Himanthalia elongata) from the salty water, explaining how its slightly nutty flavour and asparagus-like texture makes a delicious addition to a salad or a pasta dish. "Harvested early in the season you treat it as a spaghetti, while later in the year it's more like a tagliatelle."

Another of his favourites is the common, and easily recognisable, seaweed known as sleabhac, nori or laver (Porphyra and Pyropia species). “One of my childhood memories is of my father chewing it dried, but it’s also used freshly harvested to make a tasty kind of traditional flatbread known as laverbread.”

I didn't much care for its almost overpowering flavour, but I did enjoy the smoky, peppery taste of the seaweed known as pepper dulse (Osmundea pinnatifida). Other edible seaweeds harvested that morning, all within a small area of the shoreline, included the reddish-brown dillisk (also known as dulse, its Latin name is Palmaria palmata), which can be eaten raw or used as a tasty ingredient in stews, soups or champ; wide ribbons of protein-rich kelp, and emerald-green sea lettuce (Ulva sp).

Another was carrageen, or Irish moss (Chondrus crispus). Like most seaweeds, it is very rich in vitamins and trace elements but is also, as Mabey points out in his book, an important source of alginates (vegetable gelatines) traditionally used for thickening soups and setting jellies and blancmanges. Interestingly, in England during the second World War, the agar jelly derived from Chondrus crispus harvested by a government-appointed body known as the Herb Committee allowed the early development of penicillin to continue unhindered, despite various wartime embargoes. Its culinary qualities aside, Ó Murchú values carrageen highly as a traditional remedy for coughs and colds.

As well as highlighting the importance of safe, environmentally-responsible harvesting, Ó Murchú taught me that the very best time to pick most edible seaweeds is from spring to early autumn while growth is still tender. He also dries different seaweeds for use throughout the winter months, spreading them out along a sunny windowsill before storing them in carefully labelled glass jars. “I might sprinkle dried, crushed seaweed into a cooked dish, a soup, or hot drink,” he says.

Even used dried, he is adamant that these health-enhancing sea-foods boost his sense of well-being far beyond the effects of their nutritional value. “It’s that connection with the wild, and the ritual of going to the shore to harvest them, which is also deeply nourishing.”

As for myself, the expression ‘eating your greens’ has taken on a new and deeper meaning, one that now goes far beyond the traditional kitchen garden.