Mad, bad and dangerous to know: Should we be eating invasive species?
Chef Andie Bulman looks at aquatic invasive species
Invasivorism — a food movement in which chefs and foragers make aggressive, invasive species into everyday meals or gourmet dishes — is a growing trend, and one scientists say should be explored cautiously.
Marsha Clarke, a research technologist at the Centre for Fisheries Ecosystems Research at the Marine Institute in St. John's, says an invasive species is one that's not native to the econsystem it's in.
"It adapts aggressively, reproduces easily, and more or less wreaks havoc on the existing ecosystem," she said.
So how does an invasive species arrive in Newfoundland and Labrador?
Zebra mussels and other invertebrates probably clung to the bulkheads of ships. Other creatures hide in the dark recesses of cool shipping containers.
Another common culprit is ballast waters on ships. The fresh water held in the ballast tanks provides stability when ships aren't loaded down with enough cargo, and can carry tiny, invasive hitchhikers.
The European green crab
The European green crab is an aggressive little pest that showed up about 30 years ago in Placentia Bay, says Clarke, a "busy hub" with a passenger ferry nearby and large ships travelling to Come by Chance.
"Someone likely released ballast waters near the shore," she said. "That's not something that would be permitted today, but was more likely 30 years ago," she said.
"They eat anything and everything. It digs up eelgrass, an important habitat for many early-life marine animals. It competes with the rock crab and is hard to kill. I think of them as little devils."
Still, she thinks eating them isn't a solution yet.
"It's an interesting idea, but I'd be hesitant about turning something so detrimental into a valued commodity. What if creating a market for it encourages the species in the long term?" she said. "I work with them and see them as pests, so to me personally, it would be like consuming a rat. I don't know how I would feel about eating other invasive species. It's something we'd need to examine on a case-by-case basis."
Seaweeds
But people do cook green crab, and they make food and products from other invasive species as well.
Irene Novaczek is a seaweed enthusiast and a marine ecologist who specializes in aquatic plants, as well as a volunteer graduate supervisor with the University of Prince Edward Island.
She was hired to assess the ecological status of P.E.I.'s Basin Head marine protected area in 2014, where she still spends each field season.
She also runs a rural micro-enterprise called Oceanna Seaplants, where she makes seaweed-infused skin-care and bath products.
"I consume seaweed every day," she said. "Usually tea in the morning. I add honey and ginger to Irish moss or rockweed tea. Some folks add lemon because the acidity cuts through the sliminess, but I've gotten used to that."
Fucus serratus
One of Novaczek's favorite invasive seaweeds to eat is Fucus serratus, also known as rockweed.
This brown, multi-celled alga seems to have clung to European ships in the 1800s. Harvesting rockweed, according to Novaczek, is simple.
"Make sure you're harvesting it from clean water, but other than that, just cut it anywhere. You can take a sharp knife to any cell," she said. "It's an excellent source of iodine. It's full of powerful antioxidants and anti-inflammatories. Plus, it's delicious. It has little tips that are perfect in a salad, or you could get creative and pickle them."
These anti-inflammatory properties make rockweed an ideal ingredient in skin-care products and moisturizers.
"In Ireland, they press-dried rockweed into bricks in what we would call mussel socks and sell them as bath soaks," she said.
Novaczek's recipe for a bath soak is slightly fancier.
"I grind it up with garden herbs and oat flour, milk, Epsom salts, and put it into a reusable bath bag. If you want an easier recipe, just put the fucus in a mesh bag, plunge it into boiling water to release the slippery and extremely skin-healthy mucopolysaccharides and minerals, then chuck the whole pot of water and seaweed into a hot bath."
Oatmeal/rockweed/lavender bath soak
Ingredients:
2/3 cup of large oat flakes (you can grind the oatmeal, but I like it whole)
1/4 cup dried lavender (dried chamomile would also be nice)
1/2 cup baking soda
1/2 cup Epsom salts
5 drops of lavender essential oil
1/2 cup dried, powdered rockweed (use more if you like)
Instructions:
Using your blender, grind your seaweed into a fine powder. Combine all the remaining ingredients and seaweed into a bowl and mix evenly. Transfer the mixture to teabags, reusable bath bags, or (if we're being really thrifty) you can use old panty hose. If using the latter, just secure with a tight knot. Add your bath soak to your bath. You can squeeze it periodically throughout the bath. The bath soak ingredients (save for the panty hose) can be added to your compost pile. You can save this and use it for compost.
Codium fragile or oyster thief
Codium fragile goes by many names: velvet horn, sputnik weed, and deadman's fingers (so named because the branches of this seaweed often look creepily like distended digits) are some of the most popular, but sea harvester Tim Ball knows it by its most common name — oyster thief.
Ball dives and harvests urchins, scallops, and occasionally kelp for restaurants like Terre and the Fogo Island Inn.
He's discovered codium fragile at depths of 12 metres, and mentions Garnish's beaches are often covered with it after a storm.
"Oyster thief lives up to its name," he said. "You often see it clinging to seashells."
Novaczek agrees.
"It attaches itself to scallops, clams, mussels, and oyster shells. It disrupts their movements, their feedings, and wave conditions or storms can sweep the plant out to deeper waters, taking the host shellfish along with it."
She says Codium fragile probably caused million-dollar losses to shellfish farmers in the '90s.
This persistent invader is a problem for other reasons too. It smothers, overtakes kelp forests, and then grows so densely that fish and sea mammals struggle to navigate through it.
"Some species also rely on the kelp forests for food, so when codium replaces kelp forests, well, that is an issue," said Novaczek
Codium fragile is a more recent invader and first appeared in Newfoundland waters in 2012. It's safe to consume, but one of the biggest problems is its Terminator-like regenerative properties.
You can try to stop its growth, but it just keeps coming.
"It's a single cell alga so that you can cut off a fragment, and that piece can become an entirely new plant. It's prolific," said Novaczek.
She encourages folks to harvest the entire plant so its fragments can't become a new plant.
"You want to be careful when harvesting codium, and know that it doesn't contain as many nutrients as the red and brown seaweeds. Still, if harvested correctly, from clean waters, then I think people should make use of it."
"Drying it, then crumbling it into the base of a soup, or grinding it with flour would be a good way to use Codium fragile. It's a seaweed with characteristics allowing it to out-thrive and out-compete native species. We can't eat enough of it."
Codium soda bread
Ingredients:
2 cups (170 g) old fashioned rolled oats
2 1/4 cups (290 g) all-purpose flour plus more for dusting
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 cups (350 ml) buttermilk
1 egg, lightly beaten
¼ cup of dried, powdered Codium Fragile
Butter for greasing the pan
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 450 F. Next, take your dried seaweed and place it into your food processor until finely ground into a powder. You need ¼ cup for this recipe, so reserve the rest. Now place your oats in the food processor and pulse until finely ground. Whisk together your seaweed, finely ground oats, flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir the buttermilk and egg together. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour in the buttermilk/egg mixture. Combine ingredients together until shaggy and moist. If it seems to wet, add more flour. If it's too dry, then a touch more buttermilk won't hurt. Knead your dough a few times, shape it into a mound. Oil a cast iron pan, dust pan with flour, and place your mound in the pan. I like to score the top to release steam. Brush the bread with melted butter and I like to dust it with a bit more dried seaweed. I bake for 15 minutes at 450 F. Then, I lower to 400 and cook for 25 more minutes. Let it sit for 10 minutes before taking it out of the pan. Let it rest another 10 before you slice into it.