A couple of weeks ago I attended my first event at the amazing Institute of Making at UCL East. The subject was seaweed! I was curious to explore the new makers Kitchen. I was familiar with most other spaces in the workshops but the kitchen was a new one for me so when the chance to attend a workshop with Melanie McIntosh on Culinary Seaweed came up, I jumped at the chance.
The kitchen is a lovely facility and I liked that “kitchen protocols” were being woven into the demonstrations and learning through the session (“why not try holding the knife like this”). There was also a lovely mix of staff and students.
We started with rehydrating and sampling different Seeweeds - my favourites were the Sea Grapes and the Kochayuyo from Chile (also lovely in dried form as a snack).
In the Kombu taste testing it seems like my older palate was different to others attending! Number 3 habomai kombu was my fave.
We made 2 items during the two hour masterclass - a lovely seaweed salad based on the ones we had been sampling at the start of the session and a jar of flavouring to add in to meals at home. All in, a lovely afternoon of learning new things and an amazing kitchen space - I look forward to see how this space gets used.
