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The Food Programme

Seaweed, a Forgotten Food?

The Food Programme

BBC

Arts, Food

4.4943 Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2012

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Despite a long history of use in coastal areas of the British Isles, and with a well-established role in folklore and traditional medicine - seaweed is not an ingredient currently found in many British kitchen cupboards.

The raw ingredient is something of an acquired taste, and knowledge of different seaweeds and their uses is not widespread. However, as Sheila Dillon discovers in this edition of The Food Programme, things are starting to change.

In food cultures such Japan's, seaweeds have long been an important and treasured food. Through the work of people such as Prannie Rhatigan, author of Irish Seaweed Kitchen, people are starting to rediscover how to cook and utilise seaweeds and are looking again out to sea.

With a rise in scientific interest into the unique compounds within seaweeds, appreciation of its unique flavour properties, and trials of its uses as a food fortificant, Sheila asks if seaweed is a food of the future?

Producer: Rich Ward.

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about the

0:03.8

podcast I work on. I'm Dan Clark and I commissioned factual podcasts at the BBC.

0:08.6

It's a massive area but I'd sum it up as stories to help us make sense of the forces shaping the world.

0:15.0

What podcasting does is give us the space and the time to take brilliant BBC journalism

0:20.0

and tell amazing compelling stories that really get behind the headlines.

0:23.7

And what I get really excited about is when we find a way of drawing you into a subject

0:28.3

you might not even have thought you were interested in.

0:30.2

Whether it's investigations, science, tech, politics, culture, true crime, the environment,

0:36.1

you can always discover more with a podcast on BBC Sounds.

0:39.7

Hello, I'm Sheila Dylan and welcome to this BBC download of the Food Program.

0:45.8

For information on the BBC's terms and conditions of use, visit

0:49.4

W.W. dot B.C. dot co-

0:52.6

UK slash radio four and now enjoy the podcast

1:05.0

it's great for your sex life. It's great for your sex life.

1:08.0

And underwater they glowed blue, they're iridescent blue, they're fantastic, beautiful little plants.

1:14.0

The trends of interest in seaweed for food and health is increasing massively.

1:18.0

Suddenly, you get a whole new dimensional flavor.

1:22.0

Seaweed is a completely unexplored food resource in the

1:25.7

Western world and it has a lot of interesting features not only is very

1:30.7

nutritious but it's also very tasty and it's a very interesting source for food

1:35.8

when we're looking for sustainable food resources in the future for a much larger global population

1:40.8

and now. So it's exciting for many points of view.

...

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