Tonight I wanted to take a slight change of course before continuing on with Porphyra abbottiae. Just so that it wouldn't seem that the only interesting things about edible seaweeds are their edibility or their ethnoecology (or their ability to translate well into knitting), you'll be in for a little treat--if you like poetry. In fact, people have been praising (or despising) seaweeds in writings and songs for a very long time. There's hundreds of examples of edible seaweeds in art and history, if you only know where to look! Being from the Maritimes, I'd like to share some of the research I've recently done on a local product: dulse.
Dulse, that delicacy for some in the Maritimes, is also found in most of the North Atlantic. The scientific name is Palmaria palmata. One of the earliest references to this seaweed is as søl in a 10th-century Icelandic saga! This saga focuses on a man known as Egil Skalla-Grimsson whose son, Bodvar, died in a boating accident (Eddison, 1968). Egil tried to starve himself to death out of sorrow, but his daughter, Thorgerd, had a plan. She tricked Egil into eating søl by telling him that she too would fast and die with her father. The søl would remind them that they were alive longer than they should be (possibly because it came from the sea, where Bodvar died?). As those of us who have tried dulse know, it can be very salty. Thorgerd also knew the dulse would make Egil thirsty and want to take a drink. Egil expected to be given a cup of water. To him, this wouldn't count as breaking the fast. Instead, he was given milk (!). The death-fast was broken, and Egil was once again quite miserable after realizing the trickery. Thorgerd convinced her father to channel his renewed anguish into composing an epic funeral song in honour of Bodvar. Unfortunately, there is no more mention of the søl in the rest of the epic. But, the oldest law book of Iceland, the Grágás, contains regulations concerning the collection of søl (Madlener, 1977; Hallsson, 1961). Written in the 12th-century, the book affirmed the right to collect søl wherever they wished, and the right to eat it while it was still fresh on another man’s land. You couldn't be punished for wanting your dulse fresh--who can blame them?
As I promised earlier, there would be poetry! A poem recorded from a shepherd, Fearachar Beaton, in 1870 in the Scottish Hebrides also mentions dulse. The shepherd told the recorder that he was told the song by a ‘Cailleach bheag an f hasaich’, or ‘little old woman of the wild,’ when he was a young boy (Carmichael, 1928). The woman told the young Fearachar that she was an old woman when his great-great-grandfather was a boy, meaning that she was practically part of the land itself. I love this poem, and hope that you enjoy it too (the original Scottish Gaelic is followed by the English translation in blue]:
'Duair bha an f hairge mhor [What time the great sea]
'Na coille choinnich ghlais, [Was a grey mossy wood,]
Bha mis am mhuirneig oig, [I was a joyous little maiden,]
Bu bhiadh miamh maidne dhomh [My wholesome morning meal]
Duileasg Lioc a Eigir, [The dulse of the Rock of Agir]
Agus creamh an Sgōth, [And the wild garlic of 'Sgōth,']
Uisge Loch-a-Cheann-dubhain, [The water of 'Loch-a-Cheann-dubhain,']
Is iasg an Ionnaire-mhoir, [And the fish of 'Ionnaire-mor,']
B' iad siud mo ragha beatha-sa [Those would be my choice sustenance]
Am fad ’s a bhithinn beo. [As long as I would live.]
(Carmichael, 1928)
Actually, tonight may not be wholly free from P. abbottiae--I just found an interesting story that mentions edible seaweed and the Kwakwaka'wakw (formerly referred to as the Kwakiutl). It's not clear whether the algae is actually P. abbottiae or not, but it's very interesting all the same. The following is a quotation from Franz Boas' (remember Boas, 1921? This is the same man) Kwakiutl Tales, 1910:
Hâ'dahô was camping on the beach at the place Sea-Otter-Cove,--he who was the harpooneer of the chief of the ancestors of the Divided tribe. The steersman of Hâ'dahô was Unsurpassed; and in the middle of the canoe was sitting the prince of the chief, whose name was Moon-in-Sky. In the morning, when the harpooneer wakened his crew, it was very fine weather. Immediately they arose and carried their hunting-canoe down to the beach. Then they steered for Right-Distance. They were going to hunt sea-otters there.
They had not gone far out when it began to be foggy. They did not know where they had come from. However, many sea-otters were seen by them sleeping on the water, and also many laughing geese. As soon as the harpooneer tried to get close to the sea-otters, the geese would fly up and flap their wings over the sea-otters, thus driving them away. Therefore Hâ'dahô became angry. Then Hâ'dahô spoke, and said to the geese, "Oh, you little ones who eat any kind of food! probably your good food is the reason that you make so much mischief, you without ancestors, for you eat only seaweed and sand on the sea." Immediately the geese disappeared.
(you can read the full story here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/nw/kt/index.htm)References
Carmichael, A. 1928. Carmina Gadelica: Hymns and Incantations Collected in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland in the Last Century, Vol. 2. Oliver and Boyd: Tweeddale Court, Edinburgh. Pp. 281-283.
Eddison, E. R. 1968. Egil’s Saga. Greenwood Press: New York. Pp. 86-189.
Hallsson, S. V. 1961. The Uses of Seaweeds in Iceland. Fourth International Seaweed Symposium 1961 France. http://www.noamkelp.com/technical/iceland6.0.doc
Madlener, J. C. 1977. The Sea Vegetable Book. Clarkson N. Potter: New York.
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