Now you sea vegetables...

And now you don't as they are in... ryokan miso soup, sushi maki rolls, coffee custard, arame and vegetables with mustard sauce, wakame cucumber salad with blood orange, arame with onions, acetun sunise, sea vegetables with roasted carrot vinaigrette, hijiki with carrots, onions and age tofu, hijiki caviar, kanten, roasted dulse, etc...

I loved today as I love to eat and use sea vegetables in cooking, and a lot of the core and related ingredients were Japanese.

Our chef instructor is Jill Gussman and she is an expert on the history and preparation of sea vegetables and is passionate about the medicinal properties of sea vegetables that can benefit people. Her latest book is called Vegetables from the Sea and is informative and beautiful. She said that sea vegetables are among the the most ancient forms of life and are used all over the world by traditional coastal cultures and they have been forgotten by modern cultures except as thickeners and emulsifiers in products such as cheese and ice cream.

The morning was spent studying what is a sea vegetable and the different kinds, along with their properties and cooking techniques, with the chef preparing a variety of dishes. In the afternoon, each team prepared dishes. All the dishes were delicious and we commented on how good we all felt after eating sea vegetables. Jill said that's because they help to alkalize the blood, strengthening and remineralizing it, and sea vegetables contain lots of vitamins such as A, C and D, are one of the few plant sources of vitamin B12, and also have essential trace minerals, calcium and are high in iron. She said that when she's run down or lacking energy, she will eat some sea vegetables to raise her energy levels, and often it's simple such as some pieces of nori or dulse. In our beans classes we are taught to put a small piece of kombu in when boiling beans to increase vitamins and aid digestion of the beans. The only people that can't eat sea vegetables are those with thyroid problems becase they already have an overproduction of iodine. So, in short, sea vegetables are an amazing natural food product that has been lost but hopefully not forgotten in our society.