Is this only a Donegal food?

donegal_man

At lunch time today we were talking about things we ate as children that we don't see anymore when someone started waxing lyrical about "sloke / sloak" a seaweed that he used to eat as a child. I've never heard of it before, can someone please enlighten me?

danniemcq

Porphyra umbilicalis, Porphyra laciniata, and Ulva lactuca.
These related seaweeds are essentially the same as Japanese nori, and go by two different names:
Laver is perhaps the best known of the traditional native words for this food. The name is attested in the sense of "edible seaweed" since the 17th century, although it is seen referring to indeterminate water plants long before that. Its best-known native preparation is Welsh laverbread.
Another native English and British name for laver is sloak (with many regional spellings attributed to the Scots and Irish - sloke, slake, slawk, and so on).

and its wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laver_(seaweed)

donegal_man

Thank you. It was driving me nuts wondering what it was.

echo beach

Often had it as a child, but I wouldn't be 'waxing lyrical' about it. No doubt it is full of nutrients and very good for you and that is what we were told as it was piled on our plates but I never developed a taste for it. It looks a bit like spinach but has a much stronger taste, from the iodine I presume.
Unlike dulse (dillisk) which is dried and eaten raw, sloak was boiled for a long time, emitting a distinctive smell.
There is still pleanty of it on rocks at low tide and I'm sure anybody of the older generation living near the shore could show it to you if you want to try it. It appears on the menus of some fancy restaurants as 'sea vegetable'.

donegal_man

Errr thanks but no thanks!

retalivity

its a staple in korea and japan...never saw it before in donegal though

byte

I am only familiar with Dulse/Dillisk, father is quite fond of it. Just assumed that was the only edible seaweed. Learn something new everyday!

FanadMan

Used to gather it as a kid for my grandmother and dad. Eventually was taught how to make a cassog - basically you'd start off picking it off the rocks and start rolling it into a sausage-like thing. And if the sloak was really dry on the rocks, rolling the cassog over the rocks would pick up more sloak. My dad used to be able to roll a cassog about 2 inches thick and nearly 12 inches long.

As echo beach said, it was boiled. God, I hated the smell of it. To a young nose, it was terrible Could never manage to eat it but my gran would happily have just it and boiled potatoes for dinner - was the sort of thing she was brought up on.

Haven't seen anybody locally gathering it for years which is a shame because all the old people here used to swear that it would keep colds and the flu away. Plus, it was supposed to be a great laxative as well

Flibbles

byte wrote: »

I am only familiar with Dulse/Dillisk, father is quite fond of it. Just assumed that was the only edible seaweed. Learn something new everyday!

All seaweed is edible, most of it tastes nasty though

danniemcq

Flibbles wrote: »

All seaweed is edible, most of it tastes nasty though

While not poisonous or anything some can cause stomach upset so don't go to mad on the beach if you are peckish!