Lindy Taverner has been working in conservation and wildlife documentary for over a decade. Now she is making waves in the culinary landscape with her passion for seaweed.
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00:00Why are South Africans turning into a slimy green and plentiful sea plant for nutrition?
00:11It's because of ocean lovers like Lindy Tavana.
00:15I started really getting into snorkeling and then freediving about eight years ago.
00:22And then I started teaching snorkeling and some of my foreign clients asked me, can you
00:26eat that?
00:27Can you eat that?
00:28So I went from knowing what the species names were to what you can do with them and how
00:33to process them.
00:34I developed a real love for it.
00:38Around about the same time I got diagnosed with breast cancer and it was a bit of a push
00:43in the direction of looking after my health and finding out about the right nutrients
00:48to have in my body.
00:51This is wrack.
00:53It's delicious.
00:54And wrack you eat raw.
00:57Over here we have something called dead man's fingers.
01:01This is quite fun.
01:02It's actually got this gel in it and it's very popular to use on your skin for eczema
01:08and if you've got sunburn or just even for anti-aging.
01:13Lindy's trip down to harvest seaweed always includes a few stops along the way.
01:19This is June spinach.
01:20It's got a high in vitamin C. It's a natural African green, indigenous.
01:25So I just take the top bits so that it can easily regrow.
01:30With rising pollutions along the coastline, is it really all that safe and free from chemicals?
01:39First of all come to a beach that's clean, no sewage outlets and then just harvest where
01:44there is already quite a lot of that seaweed and then I always cut with a knife or scissors.
01:49I take at the most half and then you leave the hold fast so that it can just keep growing
01:55and seaweed grows super fast.
02:00Turning her passion from the superfood into a business, Lindy hosts foraging workshops.
02:06I think seaweed is meant to be an accompaniment to your meal to make it better and that's
02:11what I try and do in the food that I give people on the workshops so that they can understand
02:15it's an accompaniment.
02:21Seaweed's remarkably versatile.
02:24These kelp fronds may look like slimy strips but they are excellent for making lasagna.
02:31I'm cutting the kelp to make mermaid's pockets for lunch tomorrow.
02:35So what we do is we make like a parcel size and make a type of ravioli.
02:41Put a drop of vinegar into the boiling water and then, this is quite cool, I'm going to
02:48boil the pockets up and the chlorophyll being released in the pockets and then they go bright
02:53green.
02:57Her husband Franz grows organic vegetables which will be an essential ingredient for
03:03tomorrow's meal.
03:04Do you want big ones?
03:05Yeah, I think the bigger the better because we're going to use them as the wraps.
03:09Okay, I'll just take all the outer leaves.
03:15It's a stormy cold winter's day in Cape Town but people are keen to get foraging.
03:23It doesn't have a nice name but it actually tastes very nice.
03:27The name is sea intestines.
03:30It's the family of sea lettuce and it's super good for you.
03:37Having braved the cold, people are eager to get back to Lindy's home.
03:41But are they a little sceptical about what's in store for lunch?
03:46Here you go, these are the nori chips.
03:48So this is the seaweed we got in the rocks down here and I dry it and then I put some
03:53nutritional yeast on to make it cheesy.
03:56Having tasted some of Franz's cropped beer, it's time to sit down to a four course meal
04:01paired with organic wine.
04:05This one over here is a sauerkraut with a bit of kelp.
04:09This is a cabbage, a red cabbage that I've done with a rack.
04:12Remember you guys all tried the rack down at the beach?
04:15And the red one, be careful of, it's chilli sauce but it's done with kelp.
04:21But does it taste as good as it looks?
04:25Usually when I say seaweed, I think more like sushi and Japanese food that you have.
04:29And here you get it mixed with different sauces and flavours and spices and herbs and it gives
04:34it different dimensions in the food.
04:36And I think that's really wonderful.
04:38Next course is with June spinach and the mermaid kelp pockets sprinkled with June parsley.
04:45It's free from the rocks but also no pesticides, no fertilisers, like this is as sustainable
04:50food source as you can get, right?
04:53And who would imagine you could make a dessert from a plant that spends its life in salt water?
04:59This is a brownie done with dates and coffee and cacao and speckworm.
05:06And then I've got some candy here which is kelp candy.
05:13Putting on a good show comes as a second nature for Lindy, having spent time working on fancy
05:18super yachts, but was it always plain sailing?
05:22I did have some epic fails.
05:24I didn't realise in the beginning that I needed to cook the kelp really well before adding
05:28it to the lasagna.
05:30So now I know.
05:32Inspiring people to learn about the ocean's nutritious greens has been part of Lindy's
05:37healing journey.
05:39Well I love sharing the knowledge but I really like people.
05:42It's usually quite a joyous occasion.
05:44People have fun and seeing how happy they are when they get to eat the nice food.
05:50And then the sweet potato's got some herbs in it like wild rosemary.