Herbs of the Seashore

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Bladderwrack is a tough sea plant that grows abundantly in high-tide zones. Photograph by Joe Coca

PROBABLY the most overlooked herbs of all are the marine algae, also known as seaweeds. By expanding your definition of herbs to include these flavorful, nutritious plants, you can give yourself the perfect excuse to walk on the beach. Adventure is as near as the next low tide.

Though many of the peoples who settled America had used sea herbs ­extensively as a food source in their ­native lands, they somehow failed to transplant those traditions. Nevertheless, North American beaches offer a wealth of possibilities. If you aren’t ­familiar with sea plants, a great place to start is with bladderwrack, nori, and the carrageens.

Bladderwrack: a hardy delicacy

Though delicious, bladderwrack (Fucus spp.), also commonly referred to as fucus, labors under an unappetizing name. Rockweed, another common name for this herb, is hardly more appealing. Best think up a snappy alias before trying this one on the family!

Bladderwrack is a prolific, homely alga readily identified by yellow-green, mittenlike bladders on the ends of its fronds that endear it to children, who love to pop them. Incredibly tenacious, it thrives in the harsh upper tidal zone and is accessible at all but the highest points of the tidal cycle.

Accustomed to long, thirsty stretches between tides, this herb stays fresh for several weeks in the refrigerator, ready to lend a suggestion of shrimp to sauces and soups. Drying intensifies bladderwrack’s mock-crustacean tang. It may then be crumbled on salads and baked potatoes or pulverized for use as a seasoning. Dried bladderwrack becomes a natural snack chip when lightly toasted, great with a microbrew or hearty red wine. This is also the seaweed New Englanders spread in clambake pits before heaping on the shellfish, chickens, potatoes, and corn. Steamed slowly under a tarpaulin, the entire feast absorbs a bladderwrack savor.

Protein accounts for 6 to 25 percent of its dried weight, depending on season and location, and it’s also rich in vitamin C and iodine. In the fishing villages of the British Isles, bladderwrack tea was the treatment of choice for obesity. The same tea was taken for goiter, a painful swelling of the thyroid glands now known to be a symptom of iodine deficiency. I enjoy a tea made by steeping 1 tablespoon of the dried herb in one cup of boiling water, or four tablespoons in a pot, for about 10 minutes. After straining the tea, I sometimes flavor it with salt, soy sauce, lemon juice, hot pepper sauce, malt vinegar, or my favorite—seafood cocktail sauce.

Irish tradition considers the jelly contained in the bladders a remedy for corns, while Canada’s Nootka apply it to cuts and scrapes. Modern science has found that bladderwrack extracts reduce plasma cholesterol in rats, fight blood clotting, and may relieve radiation poisoning. In Russia, fucoids are being investigated as a treatment for sclerosis.