Seeking KELP
RESTAURANTS TO CELEBRATE NEW ENGLAND KELP HARVEST WEEK WITH KELP DISHES AND DRINKS
For a second year, the Sugar Kelp Cooperative is partnering with local Connecticut and Rhode Island restaurants, breweries, distilleries, and cafès in celebrating the harvest of locally cultivated sugar kelp.
The promotion, running from April 20 to May 1, spotlights the native-to-Connecticut seaweed in featured restaurant dishes, baked goods, beers and cocktails. A growing list of participants will be posted online at newenglandkelp.com.
The Sugar Kelp Collective is a group of five ocean farmers “helping sugar kelp find its rightful place on local dinner plates throughout the tristate area.” The collective was founded by two kelp farmers: Jonathan McGee, owner of New England Sea Farms in Guilford, and Suzie Flores, a who co-owns and operates Stonington Kelp Co. off the coast of Stonington.
As the collective planned the first New England Kelp Week in 2021, McGee said he was thrilled about chefs’ creativity highlighting kelp’s adaptability, and that consumers would learn about its nutritional values. Local sugar kelp is high in calcium, vitamin K, vitamin C, iodine and magnesium, he said, along with fiber and omega-3s.
Health sites like Healthline tout the benefits of kelp, noting that it’s rich in vitamins and minerals because it absorbs the nutrients from its surrounding marine environment.
Kelp is also regenerative, and needs no inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, fresh water or arable land — “just ocean water and sunlight,” McGee said. He called kelp farming “really gratifying,” as a sustainable crop that not only helps filter carbon and nitrogen from the waters, but produces a healthy food source.
During the 2021 promotion, kelp showed up in beer at Groton’s Outer Light Brewing Company (brewed as a stout with Mystic oysters), in bagels at New Haven’s Olmo (featuring dried roasted kelp) and as “fettuccine” with uni butter, bacon and Manila clams at the waterfront Shell & Bones in New Haven’s City Point. At Oyster Club in Mystic, executive chef Renee Touponce created a kelp bucatini, accompanied by a seaweed jalapeño aioli, and grated soy-cured halibut atop the pasta.
Oyster Club will also host a special seaweed dinner on Apr. 24, a ticketed event with a four-course meal featuring seaweeds from various cooperative farms. White Gate Farms in East Lyme also hosts a “roots and shoots” vegan dinner that day, with a focus on sugar kelp.
Other organizations involved in the promotion include Yellow Farmhouse Education Center, Long Island Sound Ocean Cluster (LISOC), Greenwave, Rhody Wild Sea Gardens and Block Island Kelp.