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Seaweed for Dinner?

Among the different varieties of apparently useless seaweed tossing idly in the waves or strewn for long distances along the highwater mark on the beach, one may discern the kind known as “Irish moss.”

It’s a fringed rockweed. Its color is of many tones and tints of green â€” a pale green usually, though when its valuable iodine content is rich, the color may be even a bright red.

When torn by the seas from its rocky hold, it bleaches to white and that is as one finds it eventually to be on the beaches. Go down to the beach some morning after a rousing storm and you will find much seaweed there. Actually, Irish moss is not common on the Cape and you will need to seek for it among the other kinds.

Irish moss pudding used to be a favorite of Cape Codders And while few stores today sell “Sea Moss Farine,” it can still be had here and there. What made Irish moss especially valuable in other times was its very high iodine contant.

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