Acquired Taste—
Salty Treasures from the Sea

(Salt) In Norway, summers are short and intense. In some regions, the sun barely sets—like in the far northern Lofoten Islands, a chain of around eighty islands marked by snow-covered peaks and picturesque fishing villages. From one of these settlements, a friendly woman in a wine-red hoodie joins the conversation. Her mission: to make one of the world’s most underrated nutrient sources more appealing. As a half-Japanese woman, Tamara Singer grew up with seaweed. The idea of turning it into a business came to her together with her former university colleague, Angelita Eriksen.

“When I moved from England to Norway eleven years ago, I was surprised that people here didn’t realize how privileged they are. The country has the second-longest coastline in the world, with nutrient-rich waters.” Singer says it is a paradise for seaweed, of which there are around 12,000 varieties globally—500 of them in Norway.“That they’re healthy and sustainable was obvious; the real question was: how do they taste good? A huge help was my mother, an excellent cook, who ultimately convinced us to put our idea into action.”

That idea: to bring locally harvested seaweed into both household kitchens and the finest restaurants. In 2018, the first products from Lofoten Seaweed were sold at local markets, and a year later in Oslo. Production takes place in Eriksen’s hometown of Napp. “What’s interesting about seaweed is its umami and natural salt content, combined with valuable vitamins and minerals,” Singer says. “As a seasoning, it eliminates the need for added salt.”

According to Singer, sugar kelp—which belongs to the brown algae family—has the highest salt content in her range. She uses it to refine chocolate based on the principle of salted caramel.

Seaweed in Michelin-Star Cuisine
Seaweed is also playing an increasingly important role in Norway’s professional kitchens. One of them is Under, a spectacular building that rises from the sea in the southern region of Sørlandet. Just a few kilometers from the wind-whipped Lindesnes lighthouse, here chef Bernt Sætre serves marine plants at Michelin-star level. Grilled scallops with chili honey are accompanied by fried nori leaves; a pudding served with blackcurrant ice cream and beetroot chocolate is flavored with the red algae variety, dulse.

Sætre benefits from the expertise of an expatriate teacher from Germany. Melanie Endemann’s blonde hair is sun-kissed and her nearly two-decade stay in Norway has given her a slight Norwegian accent. On a mild June day, she wades into the 14-degree North Sea near Under, squeezed into a wetsuit. For her, the sea is like a well-stocked refrigerator. “There are around 200 types of algae here at Norway’s southern tip, and about a dozen are suitable for cooking,” explains the educator in her mid-forties.

After a short dive, Endemann presents her catch: the scruffy knotted wrack, whose tendrils host the aptly named truffle seaweed, and bladderwrack, whose tips she pickles like sour gherkins. Some varieties become salad, others fried chips. Gut weed is used to season herb butter, sugar kelp becomes pizza flour, and seaweed spaghetti serves as a pasta substitute. “Dulse is perfect for vegetarians—it’s also known as the bacon of the sea,” says the dripping-wet Endemann after her ocean outing. “I use it to make a meat-free version of bacon-wrapped dates or add it to muffin batter.”

Although salty seaweed has a long tradition in Norway—Vikings used it to meet nutritional needs on long voyages—many locals have been hesitant to eat it. “I want to prove how versatile and healthy seaweed is—not as a substitute, but as a standalone product,” Endemann says.