black smear on exposed rocks, but don’t let its unappetizing appearance deceive you. This favorite of sea vegetables commands a premium price, and for good reason. Alaska has a dozen Porphyra species (photos can be seen on the Seaweeds of Alaska website, seaweedsofalaska.com). Though classed as a red alga, colors are variable with species from greenish to brown to reddish. All are safe for foragers.
DERIVATION OF NAME: Porphyra is from the Greek for “purple.”
OTHER NAMES: laver, black seaweed, purple laver, tsaqałqaq (Yup’ik).
RANGE: Southeast Alaska to the Aleutians to the Bering Sea.
HARVESTING DIRECTIONS: Collect nori at low tide, snipping the plant an inch above the holdfast. Rinse with ocean water to remove sand and grit. To ensure regeneration, avoid yanking up the entire plant.
FOOD USE: Called “black seaweed” in Southeast Alaska, Porphyra is an important subsistence and trade item for Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian people. Dorothy Garza in Common Edible Seaweeds in the Gulf of Alaska recommends drying outdoors on a sunny breezy day, taking care to keep separating the bundles as they dry. They are then finished by dry roasting at 175°F for 10 to 20 minutes. They are a fantastic snack! Food and Wine magazine suggests such trendy Porphyra delicacies as fish on fried nori crackers, nori vinaigrette, Japanese popcorn, nori-granola, and nori-crusted sirloin. I’m salivating dreaming of nori-crusted silver salmon, potatoes with nori gratin, nori chips, nori and beetroot veggie burgers, and nori and seafood chowder. My favorite wilderness “mock oysters” were fresh nori, rolled into a ball, dipped in an egg-milk mixture, then dusted with flour and ground oats and seasonings, and fried.
HEALTH USE: According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, nori is “among the most nutritious seaweeds, with a protein content of 30–50%, and about 75% of that is digestible. Sugars are low (0.1%), and the vitamin content very high, with significant amounts of vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, B12, C, niacin and folic acid.” Researchers McHugh and Dennis add that vitamin C shelf life is short in the dried products. Alaskans are fortunate in having ready access to fresh and freshly dried nori.
OTHER: To make seaweed wrappers for sushi, nori is harvested, dried, minced, and, in a process somewhat akin to papermaking, processed into flat sheets. Japan alone produces an average of 400,000 tons (wet weight) of Porphyra per year, which is processed into approximately 10 billion nori sheets with a market value of over $1.5 billion.
CAUTION: Check with your doctor about recommended consumption if taking thyroid medication or blood thinners.
SEA LETTUCE
Ulva lactuca Ulvaceae (family) Green algae (division Chlorophyta)
Sea lettuce is a globetrotter ranging along Arctic Alaska coasts to sunny California, China, Russia, and New Zealand. Go to your favorite beach at low tide and look for paper-thin, green, transparent blades growing on rocks. These broad blades can grow to 2 feet in length, though the Alaskan specimens I’ve found have always been less than a foot. Edges may be ruffled, resembling frilled lettuce on a rock; sea lettuce may bear tiny holes in their blades. (Botanists used to consider Ulva fenestra, the sea lettuce bearing holes or “windows” in its blades, a separate species from the common Ulva lactuca, but now tend to lump them as one.)
DERIVATION OF NAME: Ulva is a classical Latin name first used by Virgil; lactuca means “lettuce.”
OTHER NAMES: water lettuce, green laver, tātsch (Tlingit).
RANGE: Southeast Alaska to the Aleutians and Kamchatka Peninsula.
HARVESTING DIRECTIONS: Gather sea lettuce in spring to early summer, when blades are bright green. Pick free of shells. Remove areas bruised by the tide and rocks. If sandy, rinse with cool saltwater. (If you see sea lettuce with white edges, this indicates that the mature plant has released its free-swimming reproductive cells. Harvest early in the summer before this occurs.)
FOOD USE: Chop young sea lettuce for salads or boil briefly (1 to 2 minutes) as a potherb. Add to salmon dishes, and noodle or stir-fry meals. Sea lettuce is my favorite powdered sea vegetable seasoning. Its bright green color and salty flavor make it a colorful and tasty garnish for rice, and even popcorn. Students in my classes have substituted sea lettuce for nori in wraps for sushi. A blog by forager Louise Fawcett details step by step a method for making your own sea lettuce wraps: seaweedrecipes.co.nz/make-your-own-seaweed-wraps-its-easy.
HEALTH USE: Sea lettuce contains protein, the alphabet of vitamins from A to K (including B12), and bone-strengthening calcium, magnesium, and other trace minerals. Beach campers can apply sea lettuce as a poultice for soothing windburn or sunburn. In France, a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial showed that taking a sea lettuce water extract daily for 3 months continued to significantly improve depressed patients with anhedonia (the inability to experience pleasure in normally pleasurable activities). Authors Allaert, Demais, and Collén underscored the high potential for using sea lettuce in everyday clinical care “particularly as it would avoid the undesirable effects of medicinal drugs currently used.” They emphasized that “depressive symptoms continued to improve in subjects taking the water-soluble Ulva L.L. extract.”
OTHER: To dry sea lettuce, place on a hot sunny windowsill or in a vegetable/herb drier.
CAUTION: As always, harvest only in clean areas free of contaminants. In France in 2009, 2,000 tons of sea lettuce washed up on Brittany beaches, emitting toxic hydrogen sulfide gas during decomposition. Sea lettuce is the algae most linked to “green tides” caused by human agricultural activities and sewage outfalls. Though previously viewed as problematic, science is revealing the potential of algae blooms to produce renewable gaseous fuel. Dried, washed, macerated Ulva from an estuary algal bloom was shown, in a PubMed study, to be sufficient to provide fuel for 264 cars on a year-round basis.
BLADDERWRACK
Fucus species Fucaceae (family) Brown algae (division Phaeophyta)
Bladderwrack is an easy-to-recognize sea vegetable, found attached to rocks along ocean shores of Alaska and most of the world. The olive-brown blades, which grow to 18 inches in length, divide in twos and have prominent midribs. The distinctive inflated tips are mucilaginous. These bladders contain the male and female gametes (eggs and sperm) that have propagated these algae for over 400 million years.
DERIVATION OF NAME: The botanical name Fucus is from the Greek phykos, meaning “seaweed.”
OTHER NAMES: rockweed, popweed, old man’s firecrackers, caritet (Alutiiq).
RANGE: Southeast Alaska to the Chukchi Sea.
HARVESTING DIRECTIONS: Collect the inflated tips and tender ends of fronds from late winter to early summer. Clip above the small disc-like holdfast that anchors the sea vegetable to rocks. Remove any snails or debris. Rinse in ocean water.
FOOD
