Seaweed | Sybaritica

When I was a kid growing up in England, I had a great-aunt in Northern Ireland who used to send ‘care packages’ comprising things like Oatcakes, Soda Bread, Fruit Cakes heavy with Irish Whiskey, and an unusual delicacy, almost  unheard of elsewhere, known as ‘Dulse’. This last item, I should hasten to inform you, is actually a variety of seaweed and, in England, in the 1960’s, seaweed was not even recognized as being something that could be eaten, let alone a substance that normal people would voluntarily consume.

When I tried to share dulse with my school chums way back then, the reaction was not much different than had I tried to extoll the virtues of eating toe-jam. Essentially, my attempts to convert others to the pleasures of dulse eating ended up with me looked upon in the same way as the kid who snacked on library paste and, thus, it was nothing short of amazing to me when I moved to eastern Canada, at age 12, and discovered that dulse, at least in that particular corner of the country, is a well known treat… Read more