MACROSCOPIC ALGAE (SEAWEEDS) 7 



pearl moss, jelly moss, rock moss, gristle moss, and Tsunomata (among 

 the Japanese) . This was the seaweed so popular in Ireland and in the 

 United States in the making of blanc mange. Chondrus crispus and 

 Laminana saccharlna were at one time combined on the coast of Armorica 

 to make a jelly-like "pain des algues" or seaweed bread. 



The general utilization of seaweeds as food in Europe — particularly 

 in Scotland, Ireland, and Scandinavia — diminished notably in the latter 

 half of the nineteenth century. With the food shortages incident to 

 World War II, there was some revival of interest in macroscopic algae. 

 It has been reported that German occupation troops in Norway built two 

 bakeries to make bread from dried algae which had been desalinated and 

 ground. 47 German technicians are also credited with having fabricated 

 from Norwegian seaweed an edible casing for sausages weighing one- 

 twenty-ninth as much as cellophane. 7 Prior to the war, the English made 

 a custard powder from brown seaweed ; the New Zealanders were market- 

 ing a similar product after the war. In 1944, Yarham 47 told of a botanical 

 banquet some years earlier in Wisconsin that featured a dehydrated algal 

 menu: fried seaweed, puree of seaweed, roast seaweed, and devilled 

 seaweed ! 



It is clear that the employment of macroscopic algae as food was on 

 a purely empirical basis — some of it founded on local custom, some on 

 superstition, some simply on the belly-filling qualities of seaweed and 

 its freshwater relatives. As with many other traditional practices, modern 

 science has tried to explain, post facto, why the ancients were actually 

 right. That many macroscopic algae are edible and not poisonous is amply 

 evidenced by the survival of both the custom and the customer. That these 

 algae are also endowed with some desirable nutritional qualities is being 

 gradually demonstrated. The exact composition has been determined for 

 only a relatively few species. Even in these, marked variations are found 

 from crop to crop and season to season. 50 ' 51 The main components appear 

 to be a variety of carbohydrates, some proteins and fats, mineral salts, 

 vitamins, and water. 



Carbohydrates are present in large amounts, chiefly as cell wall com- 

 ponents and as intracellular storage matter. 40 - 52 - 54 Most of them are of a 

 heterocyclic six-membered pyranose structure. Glucose and other reducing 

 sugars are either absent, or present in only trace quantities. Free pentoses 

 are likewise of no quantitative significance. Mannitol, a hexahydric alcohol 

 derived by reduction from mannose or fructose, is found in amounts up 

 to 30 per cent of dry weight in species of Phaeophyceae. Mannitan (as 



