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Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#141

Post by Dowwie »

dpflan wrote: post #8

Just watch survival shows like Alone or Life Below Zero , the fact that people ate things in their environment to survive, and that the things that didn't kill them and helped them survive were continued...is not news, it should actually be considered more an ongoing assumption that they did versus astonishment that they did. Nevertheless, aside from that slight rant, it is good to see scientific techniques and analy…

Igor Limansky, from Alone Season 9, didn't do well living off of just seaweed. He grew very weak and developed heart palpitations from malnutrition.

Including seaweed in one's diet may have worked for people but living exclusively on seaweed seems to have problems.

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#142

Post by [deleted] »

HeckFeck wrote: post #17

Some of us still do! In Northern Ireland, we have a lesser-known seaweed dish called Dulce. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20180522-the-renaissance-... It's tricky to find it fresh, you usually only get it in small greengrocers or at the Auld Lammas fair. Used to be quite cheap for a bag. Very salty but quite edible and said to be nutrient-dense.

[deleted]

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#143

Post by thinkingemote »

HeckFeck wrote: post #17

Some of us still do! In Northern Ireland, we have a lesser-known seaweed dish called Dulce. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20180522-the-renaissance-... It's tricky to find it fresh, you usually only get it in small greengrocers or at the Auld Lammas fair. Used to be quite cheap for a bag. Very salty but quite edible and said to be nutrient-dense.

Can also be found in some health food shops in the UK. Its lovely

I've also seen it sold in little bags in pubs in the Republic of Ireland!

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#144

Post by pimpampum »

HeckFeck wrote: post #17

Some of us still do! In Northern Ireland, we have a lesser-known seaweed dish called Dulce. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20180522-the-renaissance-... It's tricky to find it fresh, you usually only get it in small greengrocers or at the Auld Lammas fair. Used to be quite cheap for a bag. Very salty but quite edible and said to be nutrient-dense.

How do you cook it?

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#145

Post by declanjfleming »

huron wrote: post #124
tecleandor wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of funny it's salty but it's called dulce/dulse (Spanish for 'sweet'). I'd love to know the pronunciation for 'Duileasg'

West coast of Clare we call it Dilisk. Pronounced, more or less, dilishk.

My mom came from the West coast of Mayo and called it Dilisk (dilishk).

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#146

Post by opportune »

winter_blue wrote: post #100

Seaweed is one of those incredibly delicious items[1] that for some strange reason isn't more popular. I'd love it if it became more common, and more cuisines (outside Japan) incorporated it into their existing dishes. I'm imagining like an Indian curry with seaweed mixed in, or an Italian pasta with seaweed mixed in (in addition to existing ingredients)..... [1] if you buy it from a good brand, so YMMV.

My mostly-uninformed hypothesis is that seaweed’s relative lack of popularity outside of East Asia stems from the industrialization timeline of Asia vs eg Europe. People in Europe could and did farm seaweed, but with the technology of the mid 19th century it was not possible to do so in a mechanized way, while they did have the technology to produce grains, get wild fish, and farm animals in a mechanized way. The double whammy is that as populations grew and the amount of available foraged/small-scale-farmed seaweed per person decreased, seaweed culturally lost relevance and importance in people’s diets.

Because Asia industrialized later, they had access to eg plastics and efficient diesel engine boats to make farming seaweed easier. So they could avoid or reduce going through a period where seaweed lost relevance.

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#147

Post by datameta »

h2odragon wrote: post #95
anigbrowl wrote: post #88

Lots of people eat seaweed without even knowing it; carrageenan, an ingredient derived from seaweed, is used as a filler in many food products.

carrageenan causes me some digestive distress; its amazing how many things its in. There's a couple ice cream brands without it, for example, but you'd better check ingredients anyway.

Carageenan gives me inflammation. There's now plenty of research out there about all sorts of issues it causes in the body.

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#148

Post by BizarreByte »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #20
HeckFeck wrote: post #17

Some of us still do! In Northern Ireland, we have a lesser-known seaweed dish called Dulce. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20180522-the-renaissance-... It's tricky to find it fresh, you usually only get it in small greengrocers or at the Auld Lammas fair. Used to be quite cheap for a bag. Very salty but quite edible and said to be nutrient-dense.

"Dulse" is also still commonly eaten in Atlantic Canada (originally settled by Gaels). Actually an export product, too. https://www.dal.ca/news/2017/08/03/nova-scotia-s-best-kept-s...

Yep, in the summertime you'll see driveways covered in it. Turns out the black driveways in the summer sun are an excellent and free way to dry it.

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#150

Post by dpflan »

Dowwie wrote: post #141
dpflan wrote: post #8

Just watch survival shows like Alone or Life Below Zero , the fact that people ate things in their environment to survive, and that the things that didn't kill them and helped them survive were continued...is not news, it should actually be considered more an ongoing assumption that they did versus astonishment that they did. Nevertheless, aside from that slight rant, it is good to see scientific techniques and analy…

Igor Limansky, from Alone Season 9, didn't do well living off of just seaweed. He grew very weak and developed heart palpitations from malnutrition. Including seaweed in one's diet may have worked for people but living exclusively on seaweed seems to have problems.

Yes...living off of just seaweeds seems...like a pretty bad idea and incomplete nutrition. In Alone participants are constrained to a specific plot of land -- I'll assume if Igor could go to other locations he could have augmented his diet and improved his living situation (not kept to that boggy area) like a good hunter-gatherer.
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