Kelp: 3 books for the seaweed-curious

Discover novel food from the ocean and hear fishermen's tales: Time for the reading nook!

Dear Climate Culinarians,

What is going on below the surface? For this month’s book recommendations, I took the question literally. After all, this month’s issues are diving into coastal waters, looking for seaweed.

Missed the beginning? Kelp: The seaweed that heals more than the ocean takes you on kelp farmer Sue Wicks’ journey from basketball pro to aquafarmer and looks into scary harmful algae. The second part explores (mostly) underwater climate solutions: Kelp: Food, fertilizer … carbon storage fantasy?

3 books full of saltwater veggies and coastal people with a vision

I love to share what I’ve been reading. And - maybe even more importantly? - what’s in my “books to read next” stack. Here’s my selection for seaweed.

Prime nonfiction storytelling entangled in seaweed

Seaweed Chronicles: A World at the Water’s Edge by Susan Hand Shetterly (Algonquin Books, 2018)

Oh, this book is my favorite book about seaweed, and one of my favorite nonfiction books, period. It’s also how I found unexpected seaweed munchers called … sheep! Shetterly weaves nature adventures involving the Maine coast’s seaweeds into stories about the creatures and humans who are connected to it – among them fishermen, environmentalists, invasive crabs … and sheep, of course.

A vegan seafood cookbook

Ocean Greens by Lisette Kreischer and Marcel Schuttelaar (Experiment, 2016)

This book comes to us from the Netherlands! 50 recipes range from seaweed gnocchi to a type of pastry you’ll want to offer emphasizing an apostrophy (no, it’s ‘weed cookies, duh!). The cover alone wet my appetite and enticed me to expand my palate. I suspect that’s the goal, given the authors’ backgrounds: a vegan “fitfluencer” (Kreischer) and a board member at European seaweed farming association North Sea Farmers (Schuttelaar).

A memoir with a fishy taste

Eat Like a Fish by Bren Smith (Knopf, 2019)

“Regenerative ocean agriculture” - that’s what Bren Smith is advocating for. Today, he runs Green Wave: The nonprofit supports and trains new aquafarmers with Smith’s model for farming seaweed along with shellfish. In his memoir, Smith describes how he went from fishing with trawlers to developing an ocean-based climate solution - arguing in favor of his life’s work along the way.

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Do you want to add mermaid tales or other books to my stack? Share them with me and all the other Climate Culinarians in the comments!

New here? Every month, Climate Culinarians picks one topic and publishes a series of newsletters about it, ending with a recipe (see the weekly structure here). This month is all about a seaweed called kelp.

What’s next? After all this talk about the ocean, there is a recipe on the horizon. I’ve been soaking dried kelp while getting ready for summer meals, and I think the best dish to represent the seaweed theme is … nope, you gotta wait until next week for a taste.

Read, eat, repeat!
Petrina

Climate Culinarians is a project by me, Petrina Engelke. I write about climate and food, and I help other writers turn their ideas into a book people want to read. In other words: I’m a journalist and a book coach. Read more about this newsletter & me here.

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