Let me preface this by telling you that I'm a damned picky eater. I've gotten broader in my tastes as I age, but I'm still what my parents called "fussy" about food.
That said, I'm dying to try this. Seriously.
There's a chef named Angel Leon. Apparently (I don't follow this stuff and wouldn't know a Michelin Star from a Goodyear Tire) he's a big deal with 3 of those Michelin Stars. He's also in Spain, so I can't really send out for delivery, much as I might like to. It seems he's stumbled on a sort of rice grain that's produced by wild ocean eelgrass and if what I read about this new grain is even half as good as what they say it is, it may hold the key to sustainable food production with a huge environmental upside.
The whole article can be found here. I strongly recommend it as a fascinating and hopeful read.
A few highlights:
Working with a team at the University of Cádiz and researchers from the regional government, a pilot project was launched to adapt three small areas across a third of a hectare (0.75 acres) of salt marshes into what León calls a “marine garden”.
In the marine garden, León and his team were watching as the plant lived up to its reputation as an architect of ecosystems: transforming the abandoned salt marsh into a flourishing habitat teeming with life, from seahorses to scallops.
León put the grain through a battery of recipes, grinding it to make flour for bread and pasta and steeping it in flavours to mimic Spain’s classic rice dishes.
“It’s interesting. When you eat it with the husk, similar to brown rice, it has a hint of the sea at the end,” says León. “But without the husk, you don’t taste the sea.” He found that the grain absorbed flavour well, taking two minutes longer to cook than rice and softening if overcooked.
In southern Spain, however, the team’s first marine garden suggests potential average harvests could be about 3.5 tonnes a hectare. While the yield is about a third of what one could achieve with rice, León points to the potential for low-cost and environmentally friendly cultivation. “If nature gifts you with 3,500kg without doing anything – no antibiotics, no fertiliser, just seawater and movement – then we have a project that suggests one can cultivate marine grain.”
The plant’s impact could stretch much further. Capable of capturing carbon 35 times faster than tropical rainforests and described by the WWF as an “incredible tool” in fighting the climate crisis, seagrass absorbs 10% of the ocean’s carbon annually despite covering just 0.2% of the seabed.
To sum up:
An apparently tasty, environmentally friendly food source that we can basically have for the cost of harvest alone.
I really, really want to try this stuff!
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