Obsessives: Seaweed

Published on Thursday, August 9, 2007, by Meredith Arthur and Eric Slatkin / Edit Post

Obsessives: Seaweed

By Meredith Arthur and Eric Slatkin

Meet John and Barbara Stephens-Lewallen: They harvest seaweed. Operators of the Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company in Philo, California, the Stephens-Lewallens are farmers/fishermen of another stripe. Their catch includes bladderwrack, sea lettuce, kombu, and nori.

The couple reveals the culinary delights of seaweed tea and fried seaweed. And Chef Eric Tucker of Millennium Restaurant demonstrates what someone can do with a little sea palm.

This is a regular series called Obsessives, in which CHOW explores the worlds of singularly focused food-industry figures. These are the people with the dirty hands, answering detailed questions about the work they do.

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POST A COMMENT |10 Comments

COMMENT

  • And here I thought I could only get really good seaweed in Honolulu. Tomorrow I'm going to walk down to Santa Monica beach and find where my local seaweed grows thanks to this fascinating video.

  • I would like to see more recipes on what can be done with different kinds of seaweeds. I eaten it many ways, and is good for you and yor health

  • My fav series on CHOW without question!

  • I enjoyed the video but maybe that's because I love seaweed!

  • historic seaweed bread!
    http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/07/31/ealth-bread-made-from-seaweed/

  • That was really cool!!! I would love to see more shows like this!

  • Really informative - plus it's inspiring my next career move: I want to run away to California and be a seaweed gatherer!

  • More than I ever wanted to know about seaweed - and makes me want to run right out and try some. What a great way to learn about new foods.

  • I love it! Thanks for giving me something to send around to friends who think I'm mad for eating seaweed- like they haven't already, only they don't know it- my private joke on them.

  • Keep up the great work on this series. Always informative and fun to watch. Thanks.