Weeds of the Sea: Indonesia

Would you like to taste some exotic food? It can be found in seas and oceans, clinging to solid substrates. I’m talking about seaweed, or rumput laut as we say in Bahasa Indonesia, although seaweed is not exactly rumput or grass, so alga laut would be more correct (Ir. Laode M. Aslan, Kanisius 1991).

My first encounter with fresh rumput laut was some 15 years ago when I was traveling along the southern coast of Banten, Java’s westernmost province as gastronome and epicurean el supremo Suryatini N. Ganie explains.

I was roaming the small fishing harbor markets in Binuangeun, where they were auctioning baby sharks.

The marketplace was rather small and looked quite empty. I began a conversation with some women selling vegetables and other fare on mats.

Then something caught my attention; it looked like green or red branches and seemed jelly-like in structure. As I looked further I found many other colors.

“Rumput laut“, the seller said. “How much would you like to buy?”

Being curious, I bought every last piece of the rumput laut, which was displayed on a large banana leaf. The seller told me that in Banten raw seaweed is eaten, and she offered me a piece to try. Well, it was a bit fishy, but interesting. I asked how to prepare it.

The seller described the traditional method, which involves soaking it in water that rice has been washed in, rinsing it in clean water and then soaking it for another three days. Then it is boiled and sweetened.

That was my first close encounter with fresh seaweed from the Indian Ocean.

Seaweed has been used for thousands of years.

In China, seaweed was used as a basic ingredient for medicines and was a special food served only to emperors.

In Greece, seaweed was eaten during tough times to prevent starvation and was also an ingredient in beauty potions.

In the 13th century, when European traders came to Indonesia, they noted that indigenous inhabitants of many islands throughout the archipelago were consuming seaweed.

Some types of seaweed can be eaten as is, but many varieties need to be cooked before being consumed. According to marine experts, there are about 555 algae varieties found in Indonesian waters, of which at least 21 are edible.

Some seaweed varieties in Indonesia are used in everyday cooking, for example the brown colored ganggang cokelat, which is used to make agar-agar. That is a popular ingredient in traditional puddings.

In a book about regional foods, published in 1918 by Dutch woman J. M. Catenius Van Der Meijden, entitled Groot Nieuw Volledig Oost Indisch Kookboek, various puddings made with agar-agar are listed.

One of the more popular puddings is the poding nanas or pineapple pudding.

Clean and peel a rather large pineapple, cut it into cubes, and add 125 g of granulated sugar and about 100 ml of water.

Dilute a 20 g stick of agar-agar or use powdered agar-agar in sachets, and pour into the pineapple mixture. If you want to add cream, then it can be added to the agar-agar when it has cooled. Pour into a suitable pudding form and allow to cool thoroughly. Serve with a sweet sauce of your liking.

Why seaweed? Well, it contains vitamin A, C and iodine, vitamin B2, iron, calcium and carbohydrates. Japanese are the largest consumers of seaweed; it comprises about 10 percent of their diet.

Suryatini N. Ganie