WHATEVER FLOATS YOUR BOAT

WHATEVER FLOATS YOUR BOAT

In between experimenting with Kelp while in Struisbaai we caught up our good friends Theo and Amanda who live in Suiderstrand, the reserve area in L’Aghulas.

He is a very keen and accomplished fisherman and whenever we visit them, the two Theo’s always head off to the rocks and come back with, at the very least, one nice sized catch. Over the last few years, our friend Theo has expanded his options of catching fish from the rocks to getting himself a kayak and paddling out to sea where the fish are even more plentiful.  My Theo decided to give it a go.

They wheeled the kayaks down to the beachfront on Theo’s odd looking, yet practical homemade contraption made from old bicycle rims and a frame.   My Theo squeezed himself into a wetsuit and balanced his now vey lean looking body over the floating kayak as it gently rocked in the surf.  Armed with instructions about how to drop anchor, use his oars effectively and set up his rod without falling overboard, they set off across the flat ocean.    Amanda and I relaxed on her stoep, lulled by rolling waves while we watched Bulbuls catching insects in the Bitou bushes and we caught up on news.  

The guys returned later that morning, Theo grinning from ear to ear.    The Kabeljou (Cob) had been biting since his first cast and he’d managed to catch a whole bunch but brought one sized fish back in the storage holder on the kayak.  Buddy Theo brought back 3.

Looking down while baiting his hook had made him a bit queazy and he admitted to meeting Ralph Kotze out on the seas but at least he hadn’t toppled over, not even when a harmless big cow shark came for a close inspection, flashing rows of serrated teeth.   Rather him than me.       

Later that day we braaied Kabeljou, enjoyed a glass or 2 or 3 of red while I babbled on about seaweed. By the time the wine was finished we had covered all the uses of slippery kelp, from culinary to using it as a fertilizer, to its health purposes from beauty wraps to detox.  And that’s when the snot hit the fan.  Did you know that the gel is even extracted to be used in, among other things, sexual lubrications?  Now that surprised you I bet.  Well it sure got our imagination going that afternoon. 

I’ve been very experimental with all kinds of seaweed but that’s one use I haven’t tried yet.  Never say never.  Perhaps I’ll keep a 12 cm tube of Kelp in the fridge for a rainy day. 

Sexual lubricants floating in the ocean

SLIP SLIDING AWAY

SLIP SLIDING AWAY

My inspiration to eat seaweed started months and months ago when I came across some interesting seaweed recipes written by Louie Lemmer and which I tested when we were back in Kleinzee.  Her ideas about using free food from the ocean (which just happened to be super duper healthy as well) led me to me cook with the stuff, bath in the stuff and I would have wrapped up Theo’s unique physique in the stuff had he let me.  

Back in Cape Town and having decided to turn funny green food into something tasty and sellable to the South African market where men are real men who eat real food wasn’t easy. We had decided to turn this into an income and the tension between Theo and I was mounting.  I wake up stiff from tossing and turning, trying to come up with a seaweed jam recipe then head for the kitchen, while Theo wakes up stiff in different places then wonders what’s happening in the world so he checks out facebook or news 24. When the pressures on, there’s only one thing to do.  Hit the road again. We jumped in the truck and a few hours later we were setting up camp at Tietiesbaai beachfront with plans to stock up on Nori and relax a bit. 

Drying Nori in Tietietsbaai

Over the next five days we collected about 50 kg’s of wet Nori which we processed daily by rinsing and then hanging to dry on our hammocks.  Waiting for low tide to expose the Nori growing on the rocks gave us enough time to crack a cold beer, cast a line, work on my tan and some much needed R & R.  Theo cooked deevine seaweed pasta dishes which we will be placing on our new website sealogix.webs.com.  We didn’t do any exploring or even stop at the well known Paternoster Hotel, instead we monitored our seaweed draped all over the show. We took enough dried Nori back to my mothers kitchen where we roasted it, ground it and surprised her by giving her kitchen tiles a new look of speckled fish food flakes. 

Smoking out the box

A week later we met earthy Jenny, Louie Lemmer’s daughter who hopes to one day print her mother’s seaweed recipe book. Jenny is also experimenting with seaweed from food to skin products. It’s been great meeting someone just as excited about seaweed as I am.  She uses Wakame seaweed (not local), and makes chocolate sweets with Kelp.  Kelp is abundant along our coastline and until this stage all I had made with it was pickles but suddenly another trip to the coast sounded like a good idea.  Anyway, we still hadn’t visited Theo’s folks since being back so we warmed up the truck’s engine for a trip to Struisbaai near L’Aghulas where there’s no pollution or chemicals being pumped into in the sea.  We arrived with bottles and buckets and ideas to make watlemoen konfyt and dried sugared sweets with kelp.  Collecting kelp is not as easy as Nori which I just pull off the rocks, leaving the base behind so that the plant doesn’t die, whereas picking Kelp you’re gonna get wet.               

Yammy Fish Rub

We soon had a snail trail all over Theo’s mother’s kitchen.  Jeez Louise, that kelp is slimy.  Apparently kelp grows so fast that if you’re patient enough, you can see it grow (like who would do that) but I reckon it’s more a case of the more you watch it, the more it mutates into jelly until everything gets coated in a film of goo.  The more you wet the goo, the more it spreads.

Oh well, Theo’s mothers kitchen has been coated in a healthy dose of Vitamin B12 gel and I’m nowhere near my destination but still slip sliding away.