Wakame

Description

Harvesting Alaria I enter into another time/space consciousness, mesmerized by the motions of undulating Alaria fronds, the ocean's rhythms, and sunlight. Immersed in the sensuality of it all with deep joy, I fill my sacks and then carry them ashore across the slippery, rocky, ocean-washed terrain, giving my back a break from the bent position of harvest, loosening my shoulders, putting the full (enough), heavy (enough), but not overloaded sacks-if I am smart and careful-in the damp, cool coastal caves protected from the sun. Then, very thirsty, I drink water, release water, and go back into the ocean to be mesmerized again. As I do this work, I feel thankful and honored from my depths to be able to continue to be with the Alaria, remembering that along with it goes the obligation to work for protection of the ocean and her inhabitants. - E.L.

Honeyware, wing kelp, lady's tresses, tangle-the sweet names for Alaria sing of the love people have for this beautiful, magnificently abundant genus of marine algae. The long, broad, gracefully flowing ribbons of Alaria cling to rocks in the lower intertidal zones of many nations. Alaria is a staple for commercial harvesters on both the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts of North America. Often Alaria is marketed in America as wakame, because of its similarity to Japanese wakame (Undaria).

Alaria fronds are olive-green to brown. We observe the young wakame growing, but don't harvest until the blades mature in size and flavor. Harvestable wakame fronds are about six to ten inches wide and up to several yards long. A flat midrib of uniform width, an inch or so wide, extends the length of the frond. Young growth pushes older growth ever outward on the frond, slowly in the winter, ever more rapidly in spring and summer. Usually the tip is tattered with decaying growth, and in the spring may look like a thick rat's tail with tough winter growth pushed outward by the surge of spring life.

The most distinctive features of Alaria are the olive-green, rubbery, oval blades up to two or three inches long called sporophylls, growing on both sides of the stipe just above the holdfast attaching the plant to the rock. Always harvest Alaria by cutting the main blade well above the sporophylls, leaving sporophylls and stipe attached to the rock. Alaria will regenerate from sporangia on the sporophylls. During the spring-summer surge of growth, the cut blade will continue to grow like an endlessly generating ribbon; the same plant often can be harvested two or three times in one season.