Join Spencer Marley for the foraging adventure of a lifetime—and a mean bowl of seaweed ramen.
California ’s Central Coast is known for its succulent green valleys and rolling hills that provide bountiful agriculture for world - renowned wine-colored and culinary art . But unbeknownst to many , some of its most exciting culinary wealth comes from its regal coastline , where the Pacific Ocean crashes into drop-off and embankments . Here , you ’ll recover multiple varieties ofedible seaweed , if you know how — and where , precisely — to harvest them .
It ’s also where you ’ll find Spencer Marley , laminitis ofMarley Family Seaweedsand ego - described seaweed nerd , who runs aseaweed foraging experiencethrough Airbnb in San Luis Obispo County . Marley , a former commercial-grade fisher who grew up feel tie to the sea , commence scrounge after meeting some seaweed sellers at a farmers ’ market .
“ I know enough about the ocean , and when I did some inquiry and found different variety of seaweed in the area , I found what I was looking for , ” he recalls . With the help of Quaker and a biology professor at Cal Poly , he got into the business of seaweed forage .
liz seymour/Shutterstock
In it , he found an opportunity to reconnect with the sea . “ Seaweed foraging is an activity that gets us in touch with nature at an elemental level , ” he says .
Harvest Edible Plants & Mushrooms with These Amazing Workshops Around the World
If you’re new to foraging, here’s everything you need to get started—classes, tools, and all.
Marley also ascertain a new career , working to harvest seaweed commercially . “ In the heyday , I would harvest 50 to 100 Irish pound at a time and sell it atfarmer ’s markets , ” he says . But contrary to what many believe , he explain , seaweed is n’t 100 % regenerative . Most of it grows back to about 60 % if scrounge correctly . The more he watch , the more he realized he need to block sell large quantities of seaweed . Meanwhile , he began to realise that the multitude who stopped by his farmer ’s market place cubicle were often interested in how he roll up the seaweed .
And so Marley get into teaching . “ I found that teaching them to do it the right way was more worthful and soul satisfy to me , ” he says . But he ’s quick to taper out that he ’s far from the first to forage in this domain .
" Here in the Central Coast , we have historical grounds of Formosan class who came to work on the railroad , charter land from rancher to forage seaweed and betray it to other local Taiwanese family line in the 1800s . ”
On one of Marley ’s late foraging jaunt , I had the chance to collect seaweed for myself . Marley emphasized sustainability , explaining thatsustainable seaweed harvestingcan be done by snipping the ends of the seaweed , leave behind the holdfasts ( the seaweed translation of roots ) to allow for continued ontogeny . But glean forage , he said , has a lower wallop on the environment .
Glean foraging is done in intertidal areas , like the ones nearCayucos , Point Lobos State Marine Reserve , andDuxbury Reef State Marine Conservation Area , and takes advantage of seaweed ’s lifelike physical process of disintegration . When the weeds grow too long , they break off in the waves and wash into shoring .
That ’s where Marley follow in with his sieve buckets and nets . “ You finger like a accumulator as you forage for seaweed , sifting through the troughs and dips along the beach , ” he says .
Spencer Marley is a self-described seaweed nerd.|Photo by Karthika Gupta
As a beginner forager , I approach the project tentatively , expressing concern that I might inadvertently gather the wrong seaweed . Marley was ready to assuage my fear , explain that unlike mushroom cloud , there are no implicit in toxic seaweeds in the world . But there are other dangers associated with collecting food from the ocean .
“ Make certain you study the lunar time period chart and have it away when to head out , ” he warned . “ You do not need to be caught unawares by changing tides . ”
Explore the Indigenous roots of a growing travel trend.
We set up floor clique at a sheltered spot on the beach , then jampack across the many streams and river that vacate into the sea , on a mission to collect seaweed . Soon my basketful was filled with olive rockweed ( which tastes kind of like caper ) , ocean lettuce , nori , and my personal favorite kombu ( which is great in soups ) . I sense like a kid in biological science class as I listened to Marley talk about each of them , their tang profiles , and their severalize feature .
When we were done foraging , we hark back to the beach . Marley set an orangeness camp stove on the ground and cooked up a pot of hot , briny ramen , using the seaweed we ’d foraged . Any seaweed we did n’t expend , we tossed back into the ocean .
“ It will continue to decay and provide nutrient and food for the other animals and shore birds long after we are gone , ” Marley excuse . “ It really is one of the most give organism on the planet . ”
Sustainable seaweed foraging can be done by snipping the ends of the seaweed, leaving behind the holdfasts.|Photo by Karthika Gupta
Marley’s90 - minute Sea Foraging workshopis presently available from $ 125 per person , or for private group of up to eight people from $ 550 .
Soon, our baskets were filled with seaweed.|Photo by Karthika Gupta
Marley cooked up a pot of hot, briny ramen, using the seaweed we’d foraged.|Photo by Karthika Gupta
