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Sea caviar
In the seaside town of
Currimao, Ilocos Norte,
seaweed gatherers start out
just before sunrise — standing
on their small boats, moving
gradually from the shore and
further out to the deeper areas —
collecting different kinds of seaweed
to be sold in the markets.
Seaweed is very much part of the local
diet all across the country, but perhaps
even more so in the coastal regions of Ilocos,
several islands in the Visayas, and Mindanao.
And they come in an intriguing variety, from branch-
like seaweeds (Visayan
guso
,
Ilocano
populo
),
to those
that resemble strands of hair (
lukot
).
Of all these, it’s the
grape-like seaweed called
ar-arosep
in Ilocos and
lato
in the
Visayas and Mindanao that’s most often used in salads. It
has often been described as sea caviar and, just like those
fish eggs, when you bite into the cluster, what bursts in your
mouth is a taste of the sea.
The grape-like seaweed is trimmed of its hard branches
(
don’t wash it until just before whipping up the salad or
else the globules wither), and needs no flavoring save
for a squeeze of
calamansi
(
Philippine lemon). But to
introduce a new dimension of taste, toasted grated
coconut can be added.
Chef Luis says…
“
I’ve always liked the play of salty and sweet
—
here you have the saltiness of the seaweed
and the sweetness of the cocounut. You can
also add salted egg and dalandan; again,
salty and sweet. A perfect summer salad,
best served cold.”
P I N O Y L E A N C U I S I N E
