Cooking with the Delicious, Nutritious Dulse

After thumbing through stacks of whole foods cookbooks, searching for a way to help her family eat more healthfully, Pittsburgh native Amy Gunn concluded that the sea vegetable dulse could improve their diets as well as maintain their slender waistlines. The former college librarian and mother of two had first stumbled across this edible seaweed two years ago while perusing Christina Pirello’s Cooking the Whole Foods Way. Dulse’s low calorie content, absence of fat and cholesterol, and preponderance of minerals spurred Gunn to try a recipe. Sold in leaf, flake, powder or granule form at whole and health food markets, its facility of purchase and use encouraged her to incorporate dulse into her family’s dinner menus.

“Just soak it in water for two minutes then dice and add it to your other ingredients. It’s easy to use, subtle in taste, and high in protein and other nutrients,” Gunn says.

What this health conscious, stay-at-home mom learned only a few years ago, residents of Canada, Ireland, Scotland, Norway, and Iceland had discovered as early as the 10th century -- that the reddish-purple, palm-shaped, 8 to 16-inch sea vegetable provides highly concentrated nutrition and flavor with relative ease. Its popularity remains steady in Canada and Europe where it continues to be grown commercially for human consumption.

In recent years the allure of dulse has spread to the United States, prompting coastal farmers from Maine to New Jersey and Alaska to California to produce and harvest it for an ever growing population of healthful eaters. Considered the most delectable edible seaweed, it is also the most widely distributed red sea vegetable.

As with its geographic range, its culinary history and applications are vast and varied. In the 13th century Icelandic sagas men drank a mixture of dulse, also known by its Latin name palmaria palmata, and milk to induce sleep. Medieval Scotsmen added “Neptune’s girdle” to hearty stews and used it to combat digestive complaints. Eighteenth century Dubliners chewed it like a tobacco, consumed it like chips at the local pub, and employed it as a hangover remedy.

In the 18th century Scottish and Irish immigrants introduced dulse to North America’s Eastern Seaboard. From Canada through New England it became a culinary staple in seaport towns.

Bars in the Canadian Maritimes still serve it as an accompaniment to beer and improvement upon the potato chip. Called “sea parsley” in modern day Nova Scotia, consumers buy it fresh from their greengrocers and incorporate it into salads and sides. It also appears in nutritional drink mixes and dietary supplements where it is referred to as “Nova Scotia dulce.”

University of Maryland administrator Gregory Johnson typifies how most cooks in the U.S. utilize dulse. Johnson employs it more as a condiment than a main ingredient. For him it often functions a salt replacement and is sprinkled on as he finishes cooking. A fan of its “marine flavor,” Johnson spices up steamed rice and fish dishes with it.

“I like the flavor and think that the mineral content is a good addition to the diet,” he says.

As a main ingredient, dulse proffers a host of cooking options. With its piquancy it easily replaces bacon in a club or B-L-T sandwich. Combined with turnips and carrots, it makes a quick and delicious sauté. Mixed and deep fried with ½ cup rolled oats, 1 cup diced onions and 2 tablespoons of flour, it creates tasty croquettes.

A chameleon in the kitchen, dulse’s flavor changes with the method of preparation. Eaten on its own, it possesses a slightly salty taste. Fried or roasted, it takes on a smoky, bacon-like aspect. Boiled or sautéed, it evokes a savory fish dish.

No matter what the cooking technique, dulse’s nutritional benefits remain intact. One cup contains almost five times as much iron as a cup or 20 grams of cooked spinach and three times as much potassium as a cup of raw banana. The same amount also meets the maximum recommended daily intake of iodine, 1000 micrograms, and acts as a natural source of fluoride. Additionally, one cup provides roughly four to six grams of protein.

Dr. Eric Brumwell, a physician with the U.S. Navy in Patuxent River, MD, points out that dulse’s protein content depends upon the season in which it is harvested. “If vegetarians are relying upon dulse for protein, they should try to eat dulse that is harvested in the winter or spring months,” he says.

Winter-spring protein content supplies 22% of the recommended daily value of protein. Summer-fall harvested dulse yields approximately 12% of the daily value.

Brumwell adds that dulse, along with other digestible seaweeds, does offer a good source of anti-oxidants for vegetarians and carnivores alike. “Extracts of dulse have been shown to have antiproliferative properties, suggesting a causal link between the polyphenols in dulse and the prevention of cancer,” he says.

In addition to possessing anti-oxidant and cytotoxic properties, most dulse has been certified organic by the Organic Crop Improvement Association International, one of the largest and oldest certification organizations. To achieve this label, it must be free of herbicides, pesticides, heavy metals and bacteriological contaminants. Whole dulse can and occasionally does, however, contain trace amounts of sand and pebbles, evidence of as well as a small downside to its natural production process.

While dulse’s organic certification is a 20th century innovation, its actual method of cultivation has altered little throughout the years. Grown in the inter-tidal zones of the North Atlantic and Northwest Pacific Oceans, dulse harvesters gather the leafy sea vegetable in the same manner as Irish monks did in the 12th century. They pick it by hand at low tide. Today much of the world’s supply comes not from the United Kingdom but from the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

After collecting their crop, present day farmers pluck out any large pebbles and shells. They then put the dulse into shakers to remove smaller particles. This accomplished, they will either send the fresh fronds to market or lay them out on netting placed along the rocky shoreline. There the dulse dries naturally in the sun. On a sunny day all the moisture disappears within six hours. On damp, cloudy days the cultivators must take their produce indoors and dry it with wood heat or low-temperature forced air.

Once the dulse has dried, it is rolled it into bales. From there it is either packaged and sold as whole dulse or chopped or ground and marketed as dulse flakes or powder. Along with whole and health food stores, it can be procured in all three forms at fish markets and online from dulse suppliers and Internet health food stores.

With its ample quantity of nutrients dulse is an obvious food choice for health conscious consumers. Its ready availability, variety of recipes and simplicity of use should make this sea vegetable an easy dietary choice for everyone.