Larch Hanson

I operate Maine Seaweed Company like a CSA (community supported agriculture), and visitors are welcome to come for a weekend (there’s no charge) in order to discover the source and spirit of their food.  During the first week of August, eight Russians and a Bulgarian from New York City came for a visit that they had been planning for weeks.  They arrived after dark.  We had one visitor already, and an apprentice, and Nina and myself made thirteen people that night, wondering what the next day would bring.

The next morning at brunch Stojan (pronounced Stoyan) told me that his father in Bulgaria had just died.  I said, “We live within this world for awhile, circled up and growing like an egg, and then we travel again, going in a line toward the next world, like a sperm.”  Stojan wanted to do a ceremony to send his father a prayer blessing for safe passage to the next world.  Stojan said, “I want to release my father’s spirit to fast flowing water.”

An idea started to form.  I went down to the woodworking shop and used the bandsaw to cut out thirteen little pine boats (one for each person in our home), and I drilled them to each hold a tea candle, and each one had a bow line as well.  We decorated them with paper sides, we put a rice offering in each one of them along with incense stuck into hearty Russian rye bread (of course!), and we began to form prayers for safe passage for Stojan’s father.

I read some poetry: Wendell Berry’s “To a Siberian Woodsman” and “The Gathering” which is about fathers, ending with, “I have grown to be brother to all my fathers, memory speaking to knowledge, finally, in my bones.” Stojan played his drum.

The mood became meditative.  Prayers were beginning to form.  People wrote them as they came, and tucked them into the boats.

It was just 24 hours since our guests had arrived.  I was pleased with the little fleet of boats created by our circle of friends.  We went to bed, knowing that we would be up at first light to launch the boats on the early morning outgoing tide.

In the morning,  some of the group carefully carried the boats, all tied in a circle, down to the water’s edge.

We lit the candles and the incense.

Stojan was very intent on getting all the candles and incense lit.

The weather was calm.  Amazingly, there were no mosquitoes !

I opened the circle and tied Stoyan’s lead boat with the sail to my rowboat.

Now the fleet was all in a row, ready to be towed from the cove out into the bay where a gentle east wind would carry the boats, flowing with the tide, toward the open sea.

Stoyan joined me in the rowboat.

Seated in the stern of the boat, I push-rowed so that Stojan could watch the little fleet of boats and pray for his father’s safe journey to the spirit world as we towed them out into the bay. The wind was calm, and the boats went with the tide.

It was a good ceremony.

Rest in the Light, Father, abide in the Heart.

Larch

In deep winter, we tend to eat more heavily cooked, salted and fatty foods, but now it’s time to lighten up. This is a basic sweet and sour dish, easy as making a salad and dressing. Once you have made it, you will come up with infinite variations. First, the sauce: In a cup and a half of water, simmer a few strips of digitata kelp, half a cup of raisins, two teaspoons of caraway seeds, a teaspoon of honey, and a few drops of tamari in a small sauce pan. Stir to dissolve the honey. Squeeze a lemon, but don’t add it to the sauce pan yet. Now chop vegetables: a cup of thinly sliced red cabbage, half a cup of thinly sliced carrot rounds and half a cup of sliced red onion. Melt 2-3 tablespoons of unrefined coconut oil in a fry pan you can cover, and saute’ the cabbage/onion/carrot mixture at low heat. While these vegetables are being saute’d, cut a quarter cup of matchstick daikon radish and a quarter cup of thin rutabaga rectangles. Slice the body of a leek into quarter-inch rounds, and scissors-cut a couple of leek leaves into quarter-inch pieces. Remove the digitata from the sauce pan and scissors-cut it into triangles. Now arrange these veggies on top of the saute’d veggies, stir the lemon juice into the sauce, pour the sauce over the veggies, cover and steam at medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes. While the veggies are steaming, scissors-cut a scallion or two, and add them to the pan for the final minute of steaming. Don’t overcook. Spring is coming! It’s time to Lighten Up!

Umami is the fifth taste, after sweet, salty, sour and bitter. Both the tongue and the stomach have receptors for the taste which can be described as savory, meaty, or brothy. The umami receptors signal the body to start digesting foods, especially proteins. Umami is an underlying taste that makes everything else in this soup taste more delicious and appetizing. When you make this soup, make a lot, because you are going to have a good appetite! This soup doesn’t use meat for its basic stock, its dashi. Instead it relies on plant-based ingredients that are umami-rich: digitata kelp (see www.theseaweedman.com), shiitake mushrooms, and shoyu soy sauce. So here’s a picture of the first step:

Fill a four quart soup pot half full. Soften a six inch strip of digitata kelp in water and then cut it up in half inch pieces with a scissors or knife. Yes, it’s slippery. That’s the sodium alginate which is a great detoxifier for the body. Add the digitata, turn up the heat, then add a few eighth-inch thick slices of ginger and plenty of peeled garlic cloves. Add a few dried shiitake mushrooms. Once they have rehydrated, remove them, cut them into small pieces, and add them back. Add thyme and shoyu to taste. Simmer this dashi (Japanese soup stock) for at least half an hour. While you are simmering the dashi, cut up root vegetables to add to the soup.

The photo includes carrot, red potato, daikon radish, turnip, rutabaga, and beets, and you could also add onion, burdock root, celery root, salsify. This soup builds from the sea to the soil to the air, and in evolutionary terms, it starts with ancient kelp and primitive mushrooms and then progresses toward the plants that have been brought from the wild into the garden. So slice them up thin and pretty, and add them to the pot, starting with the hardest roots that will require the longest cooking, proceeding toward the softer roots that won’t need as much time. When the roots are almost ready to eat, you will add chopped greens for the final three minutes of cooking and cover the pot. Use a variety of greens, and use a lot. The soup pot should be near full by now. Here’s a photo of winter greens from our unheated greenhouse in January:

Kale and parsley and celery are always good additions, beet greens and spinach will bring variety, and even carrot tops, minced fine, will work. Top the soup with chopped scallions and serve hot.

Now here’s a wonderful addition: In a separate pot, cook rice pasta for 15 minutes until al dente, drain the noodles, add them to the soup, and you now have umami vegetable noodle soup! I like this photo Nina took. I told her it reminds me of two little boats gently knocking together at the dock in the harbor.

This is a late fall soup that’s been warming us up. Outside there’s a bit of snow on the ground, daylight is short, and we spend more time in the kitchen, slow cooking our food. This soup has the warm colors of orange vegetables, flecked with green vegetables. Make a big pot, and I’ll show you some ways that you can brighten its flavor on the second day.

You will need 1 and 1/2 cups of cooked chickpeas, so the first step is soak 3/4 cup dry chick peas overnight and then cook them with a 3 inch strip of kelp or digitata kelp for 1 and 1/2 hours. Nights are long. You’ve got time. And besides, if you cook more chickpeas, you can use them to make hummus with lemon juice, raw garlic, salt and tahini ! (No charge for the extra recipe.)

The second step is to cook 1/4 cup of brown rice with two tablespoons of seaweed soup mix (see www.theseaweedman.com) and five cups of water for half an hour to make a stock. While the stock cooks, cut up the vegetables for the next steps, and don’t worry if the stock cooks longer than half an hour.

The third step is in a soup pot, saute’ 2 cups chopped onions and 3 cloves of garlic (minced) in 4 tablespoons of coconut oil (unrefined) until translucent. Add three cups peeled and chopped sweet potatoes or winter squash and saute’ for five minutes. Add these spices: 2 tsp. Hungarian paprika (sweet), 1/2 tsp. tumeric, 1 tsp. basil, 1 tsp. sea salt (or more) to taste, pepper to taste, a dash of cinnamon, a dash of cayenne to taste, and two bay leaves. Add the rice/seaweed soup stock and simmer for 20 minutes or until the sweet potatoes can be mashed roughly with a potato masher. Do it!

The fourth step is add 1/2 cup chopped celery, 1 cup chopped fresh tomatoes, 3/4 cup yellow and/or red sweet peppers, 1/2 cup sliced carrots, 1 and 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add 1/2 cup chopped green beans or peas, and simmer for 5 more minutes. Stir in 1/2 cup chopped parsley and one tablespoon tamari. That’s it! A masterpiece!

On the second day, squeeze a lime to make a sweet & sour soup, add cumin and cut corn, or serve with corn chips. Add more parsley. Voila! A new soup!