Tide’s Out, Dinner’s Up: Why Wales Is At The Forefront Of A Seaweed Revolution

Food, fertiliser, fuel … seaweed has been a life force for centuries. On a coastal foraging trip in Pembrokeshire, we discover it’s now behind a new green initiative, too

I am lying in a hot bath filled with seaweed. After a week learning about the stuff, collecting it, drying it, eating it, feeling it slippery beneath my feet, this is the first time I’ve bathed in seaweed and, yes, in the steam and candlelight, I get it – I get what the fish are crazy for. The fish, the crabs and, I’m learning, soon everybody else.

The weather in Pembrokeshire while we’re there is often what coastal forager Craig Evans called, as he cheerfully stomped ahead of me earlier that day across a beach in whipping wind, “liquid sunshine”. We arrived on a Monday, checking into a lodge at the Bluestone resort in the afternoon and taking delivery of a perfect dinner by chef Ben Gobbi, whose menus rely on local produce and a sprinkling of seaweed. Bluestone’s head of corporate responsibility explains that one of the main differences between this place and similar resorts is that they are typically dropped into the middle of a forest, while this one built a forest around itself, planting thousands of trees (using seaweed as fertiliser), and doing things like offering nappy recycling to families, later using the recycled product to build their roads. Another difference is that while other resorts want to lock their guests in, here they encourage everybody to go and explore Pembrokeshire, which is lucky, as I have plans.