Black Seaweed

Black seaweed on sand

Harvesting Seaweed

The black seaweed is collected in the month of May. It is gathered by pulling it off the flat smooth rocks with your hands. You should never cut off the seaweed with a knife. You simply pull it off the rocks with your hands and gather it into clean white flour sacks, or white pillow cases which are what the people use nowadays.

Drying Seaweed

After the seaweed is gathered and taken home, some people let it age for two days in the sacks. Then when the sun is out and it is good weather, the seaweed is dried right away. It is taken out of the sacks and spread on flat boards, plywood boards, or clean sheets which are put over the grass in the yard, or some other place. When the seaweed is drying, be sure to turn it over every two or three hours.

Some people grind their seaweed in meat grinders before it is completely dried. It is easily ground. After it is ground, it is once more spread out on the boards as before to dry in the sun until it is kind of crispy.

Before the seaweed is completely dried, some people sprinkle a little clam juice, or chiton juice, on it to give it some flavouring. For those who want crispier seaweed, they put their seaweed in the oven for additional drying. This makes the seaweeds very crispy and very delicious for eating especially when mixed with boiled salmon and other fish.

Historical Uses

Years ago, the seaweed was treated in a different way from the one we have explained above. The dried seaweed was placed in flat wooden boxes which were about one square foot in area. First a layer of seaweed was placed in the box and sprinkled with clam juice, or some other shellfish juice. The the whole thing was pressed down tightly and covered over with a layer of thimble berry leaves. Then another layer of seaweed was placed on top, juice sprinkled on that, and covered over with a layer of thimble berry leaves. This process of alternating seaweed layers with thimble berry leaves was repeated until about six layers of seaweed were in the box. The whole thing was pressed firmly and then rock weights were placed on it. The seaweed started to cake up firmly. It was then put away in the food boxes.