When I reach into Sooke Harbour and scoop up handfuls of seaweed, it looks, well, kind of yucky. It's a dull brown, for starters. Then there's that slimy sheen.
But that's not how Diane Bernard sees it. “You are looking at one great big, wild, exotic garden,” she tells me as she spreads her arms to encompass a giant swath of seaweed on the southern coastline of Vancouver Island.
The woman known as the “Seaweed Lady” should certainly know. Along with seven helpers, she hand-picks 300 varieties of the stuff – from neon-green sea lettuce to the brown feather-boa of a plant called egregia – for her company SeaFlora.
And she doesn't just sell her underwater crop for sushi rolls. Not only are a broad array of British Columbia's top chefs blanching, pickling and roasting veggies fresh from the surf, spas are discovering that they make dandy body wraps and can do wonders when slathered on weary skin.
Herewith, a look at how you can get in on a burgeoning west coast harvest – and where you can reap what you sow.
DOWN ON THE SEA FARM
Most of us see seaweed in smelly brown-black piles that have washed up on the beach, when it's already rotting like unplucked veggies in a land garden.
Like carrots, peas or tomatoes, though, ocean plants start sprouting in spring, thrive in summer and hit harvest time from May through October. And there's no better place to see it in its prime than the 15-kilometre shoreline where Bernard picks her ocean veggies. Every year, she and four guides lead hundreds of visitors – from curious tourists to marine biologists – on educational treks along the rocky Pacific 40 minutes west of Victoria where they farm seaweed.
Guests start by pulling on rubber boots and grabbing a walking stick. But they don't just shuffle along in the wake of the experts. On two-hour tours, there is plenty of poking and sampling. For my group of 10, for example, Bernard pulls out crisp green, yellow and orange seaweeds from the surf. Some have a salty taste. Others evoke citrus, even caviar.
All of them are awe-inspiring. As Bernard points out, thanks to warm waters, the seaweed that grows here is one of the fastest growing plants on Earth. “West Coast seaweed is grand and dramatic, just like our forests,” she says.
HARVEST TABLES
To experience the fruits of Bernard's labour, start with a dinner at Sooke Harbour House, which overlooks her seaweed farm.
This inn is all about the ocean. It's decorated with dried bull kelp baskets and stained glass windows with seaweed imagery. And owner Sinclair Philip – a keen scuba diver who has long been harvesting the waters outside his doors – has both been a mentor for Bernard and a strong supporter of experimentations with the slimy stuff in his kitchen.
For instance, Sooke Harbour's head chef Edward Tuson breads tuna with seaweed, or will slide it into pickling brine. He also whips up multi-course feasts with Bernard's bounty that can include egregia-crusted squid with a wild blackberry and lemon sauce, or bull kelp and Pacific flounder broth.
At The Aerie Resort & Spa north of Victoria, meanwhile, seared tuna is served with a salad made from radishes and Bernard-harvested alaria seaweed. There's also a seaweed pesto made with rockweed. And this summer, the kitchen launched a local seafood tasting menu that includes alaria, rockweed, and sea lettuce.
Or if you're sticking to mainland B.C., head to Tojo's. The iconic Japanese restaurant in Vancouver sometimes sources Bernard's seaweed. As does C Restaurant, where the menu includes sea asparagus, or “sea beans.” The young chef-de-cuisine even gave me a jar of the house-pickled goodies to take home. The salty strands out-dazzle capers when piled on bagels with cream cheese with smoked salmon.
MAKE ME A MAKI
Remember the bubbled seaweed you used to pop on the beach as a kid? Called rockweed, it oozes a clear, anti-inflammatory fluid. Which is why Europeans have been into thalassotherapy, spa treatments with seaweed, for at least 150 years. And why Bernard started making body-friendly products in 2001.
Since then, Bernard's seaweed has been slathered on spa-goers from Tofino to PEI. But for a luxe trial run, you may want to hit the Four Seasons Whistler. Seaweed is a key ingredient in both the spa's Sea to Sky Signature Massage and the B.C. Glacial Clay Wrap. As the spa's director Julia Danielsson explains, “Seaweed helps re-balance and nourish depleted skin.”
Or follow my lead and book a seaweed immersion at the Spruce Body Lab in Vancouver. It includes a firming seaweed gel with a slightly fishy smell, a seaweed “chamois” (essentially a slab of bull kelp) for your back and a final wrap-up in plastic, kind of like a sushi cone, while you simmer under a thermal blanket.
Come to think of it, maybe my new nickname should be the Seaweed Lady.
Special to The Globe and Mail
