Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years • Hacker News Board

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#151

Post by bboygravity » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 8:52 PM UTC

AlecSchueler wrote: post #78

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.

Haha, I clicked on comment to be the token Northern Irishman bringing this up, but you beat me to it! I didn't know seaweed wasn't a common food until I moved to the Netherlands and started enquiring about the local seaweed, only to be met with blank looks or people pointing me to the sushi nori at Albert Heijn. I've been here for years and I still don't understand how such a seafaring nation with such an intimate co…

I suspect Dutchies used to eat quite a bit of seaweed and aquatic plants (and that some still do, zeekraal is fairly popular), but that it was just forgotten by most Dutch people/culture.

If you're interested you might want to look for hiking/walking tours into the dunes with some nature-freak and/or chef. Or do some internet searching. I recall going on walks with guides as a kid with the family and they would point out tons of stuff that was edible, but somehow ceased to be popular food.

This reminds me of some other losses of Dutch identity/tradition: Dutch folkloric dances (almost no Dutch person will be able to tell you what they where) or the fact that only Japanese seem to know what "Dutch coffee" is.

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#152

Post by perihelions » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 8:53 PM UTC

deaddodo wrote: post #119

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.

In the Republic, they have carrageen; which is a seaweed in the Irish Sea. It's used as a natural thickener and ingredient in foodstuffs like Carrageen Moss Pudding: https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/carrageen-moss-pudding

That one's used in many other things too! Very popular gelling agent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrageenan#Food_and_other_dom...

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#153

Post by ssnistfajen » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 9:11 PM UTC

JAlexoid wrote: post #86

eftychis wrote: post #54

And still do? It is still eaten in the Mediterranean. (e.g. salad.) Is the article supposed to be surprising or just keeping us updated on the oldest findings? It seems it thinks the former.

It's news for the "modernized" people, that scoff at offal, weird mushrooms and "unusual" foods. Only a few peoples stopped consuming traditional foods, as one might expect.

It's the consequence of the food industry becoming hyperindustrialized in which uncommon ingredients and "off-cuts" no longer fit with the goal of pursuing economy of scale. Ultraprocessed food is efficient to produce and distribute and formulated to specifically target innate human cravings (high sugar/sodium/carb/fat) in ways that were not possible before.

This is a trend that started in the U.S. and gradually spread out across industrialized nations in the post-WWII world as globalization accelerated. However even for Americans, offal used to be a common ingredient before and during WWII: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gidc5a/when_...

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#154

Post by Thedarkb » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 9:15 PM UTC

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.

In Waterford we call it Dilisk with a normal S.

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#155

Post by pvaldes » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 9:19 PM UTC

dboreham wrote: post #7

crazygringo wrote: post #6

Maybe it's a dumb question, but how do we know these biomarkers weren't from eating fish that are the seaweed? If the biomarkers are able to remain detectable for thousands of years without breaking down, perhaps they're also able to accumulate in fish? I don't know anything about it so my idea is probably wrong, but I'm surprised the article doesn't mention it since it seems like an obvious thing to wonder.

Do fish eat seaweed?

There are a few coastal fishes In Europe with a diet of mostly seaweed. They are very common but often discarded because their taste is awful and they don't preserve well. People that eats them assures first to remove most of the blood.

The taste depends a lot of the type of seaweed.

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#156

Post by aaron695 » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 9:25 PM UTC

gimbap007 wrote: post #46

Sushi rolls (Japan) and Kimbap (Korea) are wrapped with Nori (seaweed). Historical accounts as far back as year 702 mention the taxation of seaweed. https://marutaka-nori.co.jp/en/nori1.html#:~:text=The%20hist... .

[dead]

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#157

Post by ssnistfajen » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 9:29 PM UTC

soco wrote: post #48

adrian_b wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most important benefit might have been the high content of iodine, which is usually insufficient in terrestrial food. Obviously they did not have iodized salt, like us, to provide the required iodine. They might have noticed that eating a little amount of seaweed will prevent illness. For omega-3 fatty acids, they had much better food sources in bone marrow or in fish (the multicellular algae have very low conten…

Which makes me think that seaweed was staple food at some time right? We wouldn't have evolved to need more iodine than we can get in our environment otherwise...

Goiter is usually not immediately lethal so for most of human history, people afflicted with it just kind of lived with it which likely meant there wasn't that much selective pressure against it. Consuming thyroid glands of terrestrial animals (usually ruminants) was an effective treatment of iodine dificiency before the modern nutritional sciences discovered the relationships between goiter and iodine deficiency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goitre#History

Ruminants are more efficient at absorbing nutrients from plant material due their digestive system, and this is how they get iodine in non-coastal areas.

All vertebrates have thyroid glands and there is a very similar organ in marine chordates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endostyle. So this is an organ that likely emerged when our biological ancestors still lived in a iodine-rich environment.

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#158

Post by wongarsu » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 9:30 PM UTC

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.

My understanding is that there are very few foods that are fine to live off of exclusively, especially vegetarian ones. Potatoes are the most famous example where it is possible, but even there it only works if you eat both white potatoes and sweet potatoes, which come from quite different plants from different taxonomic families.

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#159

Post by dexwiz » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 9:31 PM UTC

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.

I have started to use this in some soup stocks instead of anchovy paste. Very tasty. Throw a few strips into boiling water, strain out after 15 minutes, and you have a decent broth. You can also sub chard out of recipes for it in some cases. Its still seaweed, so I would only serve to those who already eat it. If someone doesn't like sushi rolls because of seaweed, I wouldn't push it.

Re: Early Europeans ate seaweed for thousands of years

#160

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 9:31 PM UTC

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.

[deleted]