Seaweed the star of new Irish cookbook
An Irish doctor is taking the cookery book market by storm with a new and very different title. By Angela Sammon - 15/12/09
If you’re looking for something a bit special for your loved one this Christmas, then we highly recommend Dr Prannie Rhatigan’s “Irish Seaweed Kitchen”.
This beautiful book by the Sligo doctor is a comprehensive guide to healthy everyday cooking with seaweeds.
The full colour hardback features almost 300 pages of Irish seaboard lore, recipes, nutritional information and personal anecdotes.The book is quite simply gorgeous, featuring beautiful photography and images of food that will make your mouth water. It will make a great gift for great cooks or simply for those who are very proud of their cookbook collection.
It also features beautiful images of the West of Ireland, making it an ideal gift for someone who’s far from home this Christmas. Seaweed may not be the first ingredient you think about when you get your apron on, but Prannie makes it so easy to include this extremely nutritious food into your daily diet. The book also contains a list of suppliers, who ship to Britain and Ireland so sourcing seaweed will not be an issue.
Richard Corrigan, Rick Stein, Noel McMeel and many other famous Chefs have also contributed their own favourite recipes using different seaweeds.
Prannie Rhatigan is a medical doctor who has been harvesting and cooking with seaweed, and gardening organically since childhood. She has a lifelong interest in the connections between food and health.
She is also charming company and her interest in the benefits of seaweed is positively infectious. I caught up with her last week, following exhausting trips to the BBC Good Food Show in Birmingham, where the book was launched; and at the Christmas Show cookery masterclass at the RDS.
The book, she says, was a labour of love, which she first started compiling five years ago. The reaction so far has been incredible, with rave reviews from cookery writers.
She and her family have been cooking with seaweed for years but she’s conscious that not everybody is as confident. The recipes have been meticulously tested – both by experienced cooks and those who literally “couldn’t boil an egg”!
“The plan was to make it as simple as possible for people and it seems to have worked. Even those who are not keen cooks were able to tackle the recipes and felt a great sense of satisfaction that they were able to toss in a little health by adding seaweed.
“Seaweed is so versatile – it can be the main star of the meal, or simply an added extra by sprinkling on a completed dish. You can sprinkle seaweed on a boiled egg for example and be confident that you’re adding something really good to your food.”
A member of the Slow Food movement, Prannie is widely travelled and regularly gives workshops and lectures on seaweeds and cooking. That said, she hates to describe seaweed as a super food and claims it is the combination of foods in our diets that aids health and wellbeing.
She says her “dearest wish” is that there will be some evidence-based research in the near future, which will prove what she has always known – that seaweed is good for you!
“Obviously as a GP, I have to work from an evidence base but I’m a firm believer in the benefits of seaweed. What I’d love to see is research to back up the benefits of a daily dose of seaweed in diets.
"Early research indicates that it’s extremely beneficial in the fight against cancer and blood pressure but that won’t be accepted by the medical profession until it’s proven. So come on researchers, take a look at how valuable seaweed is – you won’t be sorry.”
The cookbook can be purchased from www.prannie.com at a special launch price of £22.50 until Christmas.
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