Daddy, Dulse and Darn Lies

If there's anything that makes me think of my childhood summers, it's a big ol' bag of seaweed! It instantly conjures up images of hot summer Saturdays with my father.

A lot of my memories of my father are centred around food. We loved to cook together and we loved to eat together. Although, from my recollection, he did way more of the eating. But nothing paints a more vivid picture of a father and his young daughter enjoying the wonders of a Maritime summer more than a big bag full of dried seaweed.

That seaweed is called dulse, or Palmaria Palmata if you're into science. It's a red, edible seaweed, harvested between June and September from the shores of Grand Manan, New Brunswick.

The seaweed is then spread out and dried.

Once it's dried, it can be ground into powder or flakes for use in recipes, or bagged up and eaten as is, which is the only way I've ever eaten it. And the bag has to be paper, not plastic. I'm not sure why, but there's something almost blasphemous about eating dulse from a plastic bag. It feels inauthentic somehow, more processed, less straight from the sea, I suppose.

It's salty. It's savoury. It's kinda smoky. And it has just that right amount of ocean taste to let you know you're enjoying a treat from the sea without feeling like you're sucking saltwater from a straw.

As a child, one of the first signs that summer had arrived was that first bag of dulse - brown paper, wide open, with the price marked in bold back marker, in my father's hand, already half gone.

My mother would greet my father at the door and snatch the bag from his hand. It was the only time she ever greeted him at the door as she was usually more concerned with her newspaper than whatever he was bringing home. But when he had dulse, the one thing the entire family loved, she knew she had to get her handful quick - or as she said, before I got my picky paws on it.

Once Mom had her handful, my father and I would plop down on the couch and let the feasting begin.

I was his mini-me and tried to do everything just like him. I was also greedy and competitive and the two of us turned eating into a game of sorts. He'd grab a giant handful with his huge, manly meathook. I'd dive into the bag with both of my tiny hands, scooping up as much as I possibly could for myself.

He'd pull the bag away from me. I'd cry out to my mother that "Daddy was hogging all the dults." Yeah, I know, dults, that's what I called it. Somehow, as a small child, dulse didn't sit well in my ear; it seemed too strange to be an actual word, so dults it was.

My mother would chastise him for "tantalizing" me and he'd put the precious bag of seaweed between us to share again.

But even then, I never got my fair share. Not as far as I'm concerned. My father had an ace up his sleeve to make sure I always let him finish the bag - the threat of explosive diarrhea.

Yup, nothing scares a little girl away from a bag of tasty goodness like being told, "you can't have too much because it'll give you the runs."

It was always "the runs" with him whenever he was done sharing with me. Dulse, strawberries, ice cream, potato chips, you name it. I suppose I can't blame him, it worked.

So off I'd go, obedient with my bowels intact, leaving him with the rest of the bag. Oddly enough, he seemed to finish it without any of the aforementioned gastrointestinal difficulties.

Then I grew up. I bought my own bags of dulse. And I ate as much as I wanted. No unpleasant issues at all. But guess what I told my kids when they wanted some?

I guess I really am my father's daughter.