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My mostly-uninformed hypothesis is that seaweed’s relative lack of popularity outside of East Asia stems from the industrialization timeline of Asia vs eg Europ

My mostly-uninformed hypothesis is that seaweed’s relative lack of popularity outside of East Asia stems from the industrialization timeline of Asia vs eg Europe. People in Europe could and did farm seaweed, but with the technology of the mid 19th century it was not possible to do so in a mechanized way, while they did have the technology to produce grains, get wild fish, and farm animals in a mechanized way. The double whammy is that as populations grew and the amount of available foraged/small-scale-farmed seaweed per person decreased, seaweed culturally lost relevance and importance in people’s diets. Because Asia industrialized later, they had access to eg plastics and efficient diesel engine boats to make farming seaweed easier. So they could avoid or reduce going through a period where seaweed lost relevance.

vegardx 3y ago
Seaweed has been quite extensively used as animal feed in at least Norway, to the point where some of the most known local species have names like kutare (cow kelp), sauetang (sheep seaweed) and grisetang (pigs seaweed), since that's what you used to feed your cows, sheeps and pigs.
raffraffraff 3y ago
You're probably mostly right. There was a different type poverty back then. These days owning your own home is a dream, but you can walk into a supermarket and buy things that my father wouldn't have dreamt of as a child. Cooked chickens? Every type of fresh fruit and vegetable from all parts of the globe? A frozen food section? Jesus. Remember that video of Yeltsin in the US supermarket? My father is 96. He grew up in rural Ireland, and his family's lifestyle probably didn't differ much from that of his great grandparents. No cars, electricity, running water, tv, phones. That was "normal". Even the poor families in our part of the world owned their own house and a plot of land. Daily bread was the big issue! Even wealthy locals wouldn't be wasteful with food, and nobody had heard of an avocado. On a daily basis they collected water from a well, chopped wood and collected kindling from around the local woods to keep the stove constantly lit. They milked their own cows, churned butter and cream. He remembers walking the beach with a bucket, collecting periwinkles, and wandering the fields looking for mushrooms when they were in season. He collecting hazelnuts, sloes, damsons and berries from the hedgerow. They kept chickens. They bartered eggs and butter for pork, flour and oats. And yes, they would also go to the local shop to buy tea, sugar, cloth, shoes, materials to repair everything, coal etc. Pots and pans were handed down through generations or given as wedding gifts. Perhaps only a bunch of times every year would they make a trip into the big town to buy clothes and shoes, or replace work out necessities. But even his clothes were sparse, and worn until they practically fell off him. Everything was repaired over and over. I'd say practically none of his calories were imported, pre-cooked or packaged. Today, almost all of it is. Nobody needs to forage to survive any more. When he told me how hard life was back in the first half of the 1900s, he said "We weren't even poor by local standards! My mother was a cook for a wealthy household and knew how to make the most of whatever was available, and she could sew. My father had a good job on the railway, and had an interest in growing vegetables. Plus his extra uniforms (which came with the job as a railway guard) provided good quality material for children's clothes! Other children in my school though we were well off!"
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > Even the poor families in our part of the world owned their own house and a plot of land. Daily bread was the big issue! Owning your own land is how you go from being a poor bachelor to being a poor family. It is definitely not the case in general in the ancient world that poor people are likely to own land. (Though also: were there no Travelers in rural Ireland?)
  - raffraffraff 3y ago
    Even when I was growing up in the 80s the poorest family I knew owned their own home. It was an ancient cottage with an extension built on. The reason they were poor was that they had 7 kids and one very low income. I remember a photo of a bunch of us, aged 11, outside the school. The kid from that family was wearing a distinctive sweater with a band name from 8 years previous. Home-knitted by his mother. It has several owners before it got to him. The band weren't even cool any more, and everybody recognized it. Someone saying "Haha! John (eldest brother) was wearing that in his school photo! Look, it's up on the wall over there!" These days, the poorest people I know have 42" TVs, smart phones and deliveroo 4 nights a week (ok, from McDonald's, but still...). But they'll never own their own homes, never have "security", and their cars are knackered. But still, compare their materialist luxury to that of my dad's childhood. Or even mine in the early 80s.
    - thaumasiotes 3y ago
      There are two things going on: 1. The United States has a tiny population relative to its supply of land. 2. Poor families are already successful. They are very far from the bottom of the economic scale.

vegardx 3y ago

Seaweed has been quite extensively used as animal feed in at least Norway, to the point where some of the most known local species have names like kutare (cow kelp), sauetang (sheep seaweed) and grisetang (pigs seaweed), since that's what you used to feed your cows, sheeps and pigs.

raffraffraff 3y ago

You're probably mostly right. There was a different type poverty back then. These days owning your own home is a dream, but you can walk into a supermarket and buy things that my father wouldn't have dreamt of as a child. Cooked chickens? Every type of fresh fruit and vegetable from all parts of the globe? A frozen food section? Jesus. Remember that video of Yeltsin in the US supermarket? My father is 96. He grew up in rural Ireland, and his family's lifestyle probably didn't differ much from that of his great grandparents. No cars, electricity, running water, tv, phones. That was "normal". Even the poor families in our part of the world owned their own house and a plot of land. Daily bread was the big issue! Even wealthy locals wouldn't be wasteful with food, and nobody had heard of an avocado. On a daily basis they collected water from a well, chopped wood and collected kindling from around the local woods to keep the stove constantly lit. They milked their own cows, churned butter and cream. He remembers walking the beach with a bucket, collecting periwinkles, and wandering the fields looking for mushrooms when they were in season. He collecting hazelnuts, sloes, damsons and berries from the hedgerow. They kept chickens. They bartered eggs and butter for pork, flour and oats. And yes, they would also go to the local shop to buy tea, sugar, cloth, shoes, materials to repair everything, coal etc. Pots and pans were handed down through generations or given as wedding gifts. Perhaps only a bunch of times every year would they make a trip into the big town to buy clothes and shoes, or replace work out necessities. But even his clothes were sparse, and worn until they practically fell off him. Everything was repaired over and over. I'd say practically none of his calories were imported, pre-cooked or packaged. Today, almost all of it is. Nobody needs to forage to survive any more. When he told me how hard life was back in the first half of the 1900s, he said "We weren't even poor by local standards! My mother was a cook for a wealthy household and knew how to make the most of whatever was available, and she could sew. My father had a good job on the railway, and had an interest in growing vegetables. Plus his extra uniforms (which came with the job as a railway guard) provided good quality material for children's clothes! Other children in my school though we were well off!"

thaumasiotes 3y ago
> Even the poor families in our part of the world owned their own house and a plot of land. Daily bread was the big issue! Owning your own land is how you go from being a poor bachelor to being a poor family. It is definitely not the case in general in the ancient world that poor people are likely to own land. (Though also: were there no Travelers in rural Ireland?)
- raffraffraff 3y ago
  Even when I was growing up in the 80s the poorest family I knew owned their own home. It was an ancient cottage with an extension built on. The reason they were poor was that they had 7 kids and one very low income. I remember a photo of a bunch of us, aged 11, outside the school. The kid from that family was wearing a distinctive sweater with a band name from 8 years previous. Home-knitted by his mother. It has several owners before it got to him. The band weren't even cool any more, and everybody recognized it. Someone saying "Haha! John (eldest brother) was wearing that in his school photo! Look, it's up on the wall over there!" These days, the poorest people I know have 42" TVs, smart phones and deliveroo 4 nights a week (ok, from McDonald's, but still...). But they'll never own their own homes, never have "security", and their cars are knackered. But still, compare their materialist luxury to that of my dad's childhood. Or even mine in the early 80s.
  - thaumasiotes 3y ago
    There are two things going on: 1. The United States has a tiny population relative to its supply of land. 2. Poor families are already successful. They are very far from the bottom of the economic scale.