[Sca-cooks] Period Seaweed Recipes?

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Susan Fox-Davis:
>On Mar 6, 2004, at 5:02 PM, Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:
>>The Cantonese use dried laver in soup, with pork or chicken stock 
>>and egg flowers. It comes in sheets a little like processed nori, 
>>but is coarser, and when soaked in water (before adding it to the 
>>simmering soup), it dissolves into little, fine shreds with a 
>>slightly gelatinous texture which thicken the soup.
>
>What is this product called?  I would be interested in experimenting with it.
>>
>>The only vaguely period reference to people eating seaweed that I 
>>can think of Malachi McCormick's assertion that Saint Colmcille ate 
>>a lot of dulse... no info on how it was prepared. Will have to go 
>>back through Adamnan's Life of Saint Columba and see if it's in 
>>there.
>>
>
>In the Florilegium, in a post of yours from 1997, go on about that 
>dish, called Brotchan Foltchep, with a modern recipe which seems to 
>omit the dulse.
><http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BY-REGION/fd-Ireland-msg.text>

That's because they're two separate dishes. McCormick gives a recipe 
for Brotchan Foltchep (a.k.a. Brotchan Roy), saying this was 
apparently eaten by Colmcille, and he also mentions, sort of 
peripherally, that he ate a lot of dulse. I haven't been able to find 
any specific references to either food in documents even remotely 
contemporary to Colmcille (his bio by Adamnan is quite a bit later 
than Comcille himself). It may have been a tradition on Iona, I don't 
know.

>Tangentially:  I happened to be watching the movie THE SECRET OF 
>ROAN INISH the other night, and the grandmother was cooking a 
>special soup of seaweed and water which was supposed to be extremely 
>good for you.  Gaelic kombu dashi, anybody?

Well, they obviously didn't check the Laverbread web site I posted 
earlier, or they'd have known just how unhealthy this can be ;-)

Adamantius (trying to remember the sauce he used for the lamb 
medallions wrapped in laver and steamed -- probably a caper butter 
emulsion...)