From Famine to feast: the Irish seaweed revival

Irish Times

4 hours ago

My 10-year-old niece, born and raised in Shanghai, snacks on grilled seaweed rolls the way I munched on Sam Spudz smoky bacon crisps when I was her age. My Chinese sister-in-law was raised on the marine vegetable, consuming it daily in soups, sushi and as a light bite between meals. But my brother, despite living in Shanghai for almost 25 years and embracing traditional dishes from hot pot to dim sum, still views seaweed as particularly Asian fare.
In Ireland we have struggled to equate the dark, leathery-looking straps of seaweed on our local shorelines with a mineral-rich superfood. And for good reason. It was a Famine food, harvested and hauled from rock pools by starving peasants to boil or dry, then eat. Seaweeds replaced soil vegetables at one of the most catastrophic points in Ireland's history, and that association with desperation and deprivation has been difficult to shake.
Prannie Rhatigan, a GP and the author of Irish Seaweed Kitchen, who has been giving seaweed walks, talks and workshops in Sligo for the past 26 years, agrees. She vividly remembers as a child the side eyes and sympathetic looks her father received while harvesting the edible seaweed sleabhac (similar to Japanese Nori) for his family from the local shoreline.
Dr Prannie Rhatigan
'People would say to my father: 'I saw you on the shore yesterday ... Times must be tough.' They thought if you were looking for seaweed you couldn't afford to buy a white sliced pan, that you were making do. But at the back of it, they'd be dying for a bit themselves to simmer and eat with onions and potatoes. They wouldn't want to be seen on the beach looking for it, though. My father thought this was hilarious.'
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Rhatigan says Asian people consider seaweed the most nutritious form of vegetation on the planet. 'That's a big reputation for seaweed to live up to, but in my opinion it does.' She eats seaweed every day – sea lettuce, nori, sea spaghetti, dillisk and truffle seaweed – and says she couldn't live without it.
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'It's like a magic wand in the kitchen. I mix it with some olive oil and a touch of garlic and have it for my 11 o'clock snack, or I pile it on to a rice cracker. I'm making cakes for my daughter's birthday this weekend: chocolate cake and nori is a magic pairing. But I've met plenty of people with packets of seaweed in their larders and great intentions, but they don't know what to do with it; I tell them to snip it into stews.'
Despite being a 'powerhouse of nutrients', we're still some way off viewing seaweed as a store-cupboard ingredient, yet mindsets are changing, and harvesting seaweed for culinary and cosmetic use is a burgeoning business in Ireland. Anne O'Hagan founded her seaweed pestos and sprinkles company Ebb & Flow four years ago, and has noticed an enormous spike in interest since. 'Seaweed has gone from a novelty product to mainstream,' she says, adding that this is, in part, thanks to TikTok. 'Young people are hugely interested in seaweed, especially sea moss, since it started trending online.'
Ebb & Flow seaweed pesto
To date the #seamoss hashtag has more than a billion views on the social media platform, as celebrities and wellness influencers eulogise it as a cure-all for everything from gut health and acne to high cholesterol and lethargy. Rhatigan says that although research into the benefits of seaweed 'isn't really at the races', seaweed is medically proven to be antiviral and to shift phlegm from the chest.
Ten years ago, O'Hagan was suffering from serious kidney problems and high blood pressure. She was told to cut out salt entirely from her diet and that's when she became involved in 'the wonderful world of seaweed'. Today she describes herself as a healthy, energetic, curious 60-year-old and her goal is to 'introduce people to this extraordinary superfood'.
O'Hagan, who is based in the coastal suburb of Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, buys bags of dried seaweed hand-harvested from the Quilty shoreline in Co Clare, where the waters are deeper and colder than on the south Co Dublin coastline, then rehydrates it to make her sprinkles, hummus and dairy-free pestos, which have won two Great Taste Awards from the Guild of Fine Food.
Ebb & Flow is stocked in several local fine-food outlets in Dublin such as Cavistons in Glasthule and Robbie's in Goatstown, but O'Hagan still sets up at farmer's markets in Dún Laoghaire and Killruddery House in Co Wicklow because 'there's nothing better than having your customer right in front of you ... When they taste the product, their reaction is extraordinary.'
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O'Hagan feels there's a strong enough market here for a more diverse range of seaweed products, and she travelled to Japan in January to investigate how she might broaden her range. 'Seaweed crisps are huge over there, and I'd love to get into the snack market, but I'm not sure the Irish palate is ready for that yet.'
Maybe not. Bantry-based Claire O'Sullivan, founder of Wasi, swapped seaweed pesto for seaweed skincare because she felt food was a harder sell. 'I started off making seaweed pesto, but it's more difficult to get it on shelves. People are much happier using seaweed on their skin and hair.' Sligo brand Voya, based in Strandhill, has had enormous success in the wellness arena with its seaweed baths and skincare products; last year it collaborated with luxury airline Emirates on a bespoke fragrance for the airline's first and business class passengers.
Claire O'Sullivan and her mother, Margaret O'Sullivan. Photograph: Andy Gibson
O'Sullivan grew up harvesting seaweed with her mother and grandmother for their own domestic use as a cough medicine, fertiliser and horse feed. She attributes her lineage of centenarians – her great-grandmother lived to be 103, her grandmother 100, and her mother is healthy and strong and still helps out with the harvesting – in part to their simple diet, which included spring water and seaweed.
She trained as a holistic therapist in her 20s, working in spas and on cruise ships all over the world, performing seaweed treatments while making her own body oils. She later qualified as an architect, but coming from a farming background, she found the office 9-5 anathema to her personality. 'I just needed to be outdoors.' Now, instead of fighting traffic, the 45-year-old works in tandem with the tides, harvesting from September to April and taking her cues from the fullness of the moon. 'When there's a full moon or a new moon, the tide goes out a very long way,' she says. 'Sometimes you're up at the crack of dawn and out on the water while everybody else is still asleep. It's a beautiful way to live; it feels so natural.'
At a time when storytelling has never been so important to a brand's ability to capture the imagination of consumers, this narrative of saltwater, sea air and moonlit forages is seductive and evocative, which O'Sullivan says is resonating with customers. 'People love the heritage of it all, especially Americans. Many of them remember their own parents talking about Irish seaweed and how great it was.'
Wasi began as a cottage industry at the kitchen table, but now O'Sullivan has a dedicated workshop to keep up with demand. She infuses seaweed into barrels of sweet almond oil and jojoba oil, where it absorbs all of the vitamins, minerals and trace elements seaweed is rich in. Wasi
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and is stocked in Avoca and Meadows & Byrne, and there is interest from Germany, the UK (from the prestigious Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew) and the United States. But O'Sullivan says interest is growing among Irish consumers, too. 'They're specifically looking for Irish seaweed because it's considered a premium product.'
Claire O'Sullivan in Bantry. Photograph: Andy Gibson
Evan Talty, founder of Wild Irish Seaweeds – one of the country's biggest seaweed success stories, exporting its food, skincare and wholesale products all over the world – agrees. 'There's a demand right now for high-grade seaweed and Ireland is seen as having clean, green, pristine waters,' says the fourth-generation Co Clare harvester.
'The Atlantic is nutrient-dense with untapped waters that are naturally better quality, plus not every country producing seaweed is governed by the same standards and regulations as we are. Our seaweed is seen a bit like our exports of beef and dairy.'
Talty believes the demographic of people who love to cook and eat seaweed is still quite niche, so the company is transitioning from food into food ingredients and nutraceuticals such as electrolyte drinks and nutritious gummies. 'We're moving away from selling packets of seaweed and saying to people, 'See what you can do', to creating an everyday product that everybody uses.' Sea moss capsules and seaweed smoothie blends are already available on the website.
The company is expanding its facilities too – the difficulty it faces is not demand but labour. 'Hand-harvesting is hard work and our average worker is mid-40s to early-50s. West Clare isn't a hotspot for attracting young talent and we're competing against local industry and tourism.'
To encourage the next generation of harvesters and entrepreneurs, Rhatigan says education is key. She also believes seaweed should be among the gifts given to foreign dignitaries along with the Aran jumper and pint of Guinness. 'We're an island, for goodness sake. We should be promoting the amazing biodiversity of rich seaweeds and their fabulous-tasting profiles,' she says.
We may not be there yet, but seaweed has become the beating heart of businesses up and down the country and at a time when quality, authenticity, sustainability and traceability are culinary and cosmetic buzzwords. The future looks bright for Irish seaweed, despite its dark past.