Page 275 - Algae

258 Algae: Anatomy, Biochemistry, and Biotechnology

and fish head stews. Palmaria is found in the eulittoral zone and sometimes the upper sublittoral. It
is collected by hand by harvesters plucking it from the rocks at low tide. It is perennial and when
either plucked or cut, new growth appears from the edge of the previous season’s leaf. It is har-
vested mainly in Ireland and the shores of the Bay of Fundy in eastern Canada, and is especially
abundant around Grand Manan Island, situated in the Bay of Fundy, in a line with the Canadian-
the U.S. border between New Brunswick and Maine. The harvest season here is from mid-May
to mid-October. After picking, fronds are laid out to sun dry for 6–8 h; if the weather is not suitable,
it can be stored in seawater for a few days, but it soon deteriorates. Whole dulse is packed for sale in
plastic bags, 50 g per bag. Inferior dulse, usually because of poor drying, is broken into flakes
or ground into powder for use as a seasoning. In Ireland, it is sold in packages and looks like
dark-red bundles of flat leaves. It is eaten raw in Ireland, like chewing tobacco, or is cooked
with potatoes, in soups and fish dishes.
Dulse is a good source of minerals, being very high in iron and containing all the trace elements
needed in human nutrition, and has also a high vitamin content. In Canada, one company has cul-
tivated it in land-based systems (tanks) and promotes it as a sea vegetable with the trade name “Sea
Parsley.” It is a variant of normal dulse plants, but with small frilly outgrowths from the normally
flat plant. It was found by staff at the National Research Council of Canada’s laboratories in
Halifax, Nova Scotia, among samples from a commercial dulse harvester.
Chondrus crispus (Florideophyceae), the Irish moss or carrageenan moss, has a long history of
use in foods in Ireland and some parts of Europe (Figure 7.3). It is not eaten as such, but used for its

FIGURE 7.3 Frond of Chondrus crispus.