Seaweed is the latest superfood spicing up Indian fine dining, in dishes from soups and salads to jhaal muri and cocktails

There are over 800 species of seaweed that grow abundantly along India’s coastline

Ulva. Padina.  Sargassum swartzii. What might seem like alien gibberish is a trio that would do us a whole lot of good to get acquainted with. For they very well might be the foods of the future.

Also known as ‘sea lettuce’, ‘sea fan’ and ‘sea holly’, respectively, they are just three of over 800 species of seaweed found abundantly in the waters along India’s 7,516 km coastline. Sustainable superfoods, they are one of the latest food trends to take the plant-based diet craze to a whole other depth. Quite literally.

Besides helping support other marine life and cleaning the waters surrounding it, the consumption of mineral-rich seaweed comes with a host of health benefits. No surprise then that seaweed farming is an emerging sector in India. One with the potential to transform the lives of coastal communities by providing large-scale employment and additional income.

According to the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, in 2021, India produced 34,000 tonnes of seaweed, but has the potential to produce around 9.7 million tonnes per year. Tamil Nadu, followed by Goa, are the biggest producers of seaweed in the country, and it is also found in abundance in Gujarat, Lakshadweep and Andaman & Nicobar. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had proposed in her 2021-22 Budget the setting up of a multipurpose seaweed park in Tamil Nadu to promote its cultivation.

Sadly, for most of us thus far, the idea of edible seaweed has been limited to the more ubiquitous Japanese dishes such as  nori (pyropia)-wrapped  sushi,  konbu (a species of kelp) broth with  miso and the crunchy textured yumminess of a fresh  wakame (another species of kelp) salad topped with even more seaweed in the form of a mixed seaweed  furikake sprinkling.

My initiation to seaweed as seen through the prism of the contemporary Indian dining scene is an embarrassingly recent one. But one that I’ve been privy to with alarming frequency over the past few months, with several F&B players entering the fray.

I recently attended a sit-down dinner at Mumbai’s Masque Lab, where head chef Varun Totlani decided to shake things up a bit with one of his courses. He served us a two-part dish made up of an ulva-padina- sargassum swartzii salad and a vegetable broth.