Mendocino Sea
Vegetable Company

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In our bookwe have concise, practical information on locating, identifying, harvesting, rinsing, drying, and storing some of the world's most popular edible sea vegetables.

Many people have told me that using only the Sea Vegetable Gourmet Cookbook and Forager's Guide, which Eleanor and I first published in 1983, they have been able to venture forth into the Pacific and Atlantic surf and harvest sea vegetables.

We have learned a lot about marine algae in the fifteen seasons since then. Increasing knowledge has brought me increasing awareness of my ignorance. There are hundreds of species of marine algae in the Pacific Northwest, inhabiting a sinuous, undulating intertidal garden of vegetables of many shapes, sizes, and colors.

Like land vegetables, a few species of sea vegetables have served as human food since ancient times. These species are the focus of this wildcrafter?s guide. Brief description of a few other palatable sea vegetable species is offered. A person entering the world of edible marine algae-sea vegetables-is wading into a universe of undiscovered possibilities. Japanese scientists have extensively studied the nutritional and healing properties of a few sea vegetables and their components. Very little exploration of the nutritional and healing properties of sea vegetables has been done by Western scientists. One could spend several lifetimes getting to know a single species of seaweed. Great discoveries of the healing properties of seaweeds now ignored are waiting to be made by marine biologists attuned to the healing spirit of marine algae.

For me, evolving over fifteen harvest seasons from forager to wildcrafter has involved a deepening attunement to the macrobiotics, the great life of my home, the Shasta Bioregion. All the sea vegetable wildcrafters I know have deep respect for, and spiritual attachment to, the awesome intertidal zone and its many inhabitants.

When harvesting, I always pause, look around, and fling the first plant I pick or cut back into the sea. Other harvesters have their own ways of attuning to the place before beginning work. For fifteen seasons I have watched people come into, and go out of, harvesting wild sea vegetables. Of those who came to the world of seaweed with a profit-oriented, exploitive attitude, none remain. If it sounds like I am warning you, I am. Sea vegetables have many powers not comprehended by our human culture.

This guide is focused on wildcrafting sea vegetables in harmony with the seaweed, the coastal environment, and an environmentally aware society. Various government agencies prohibit or regulate seaweed harvesting at various times and places. If you harvest with attunement, using the ecologically sound harvesting techniques described in this guide, you won't invite further regulation of seaweed wildcrafting.

Like most professional wildcrafters, we're attracted to lonely seascapes in the mist of first light. Our small-scale, low-profile harvesting methods blend in with the coastal scene. We delight in introducing the curious passerby to what we are doing. We know the environmentalists are watching seaweed harvesting. We're radical environmentalists ourselves, especially in protecting the ocean from pollution. We must oppose the pollution of the oceans with all our spirits and energies. Ocean destruction is self-destruction. The sea vegetables have vital trace elements and toxin-eliminating properties which people need now as never before. Sea vegetable habitats must be guarded as sacred shrines of beauty and health.

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