Tonight I tried a seaweed salad I got at the grocery store (brand name seasnax). It was dried seaweed in a package that you’re supposed to rehydrate in cold water before eating. I mention it because the mix of seaweeds had two I’d never eaten (nor heard of) before. In addition to wakame (Undaria pinnatifida), “agar” (which can refer to a bunch of different species, mostly Gelidium and Gracilaria), and Irish moss (Chondrus crispus, listed as “tsunomata” on the package), all of which are familiar to me, it had “suginori” (Chondracanthus chamissoi), and “mafunori” (Gloiopeltis tenax). I honestly didn’t know which was which when I was eating the salad, so I can’t really comment on the flavor or texture of these new seaweeds. But anyway this is “eat every plant”, not “eat every red alga”, so seaweeds don’t count and the first real plant post will have to wait for another day.

I found what looks like a really comprehensive, authoritative book: Edible Medicinal and Non-Medicinal Plants. It has at least ten volumes, and it looks like each of them has a list price of over $200, making this one of the most expensive books I’ve ever seen. Fortunately, UC Berkeley has access to the electronic edition, so it can be accessed from any computer on campus (whether you’re a student or not). So this might be the basis of the main edible plant list!

BTW, it turns out that the index of Oxford Book of Food Plants is a pretty awful index. It’s full of typos, and some plants that have sections in the book are simply missing from the index. So I might end up having to go through the whole book and add things by hand…