Eat Your Weedies

Sure, peas and carrots are nutritious and all, but according to cookbook author Jill Gusman, they're merely "land vegetables." In Vegetables from the Sea, she offers recipes for such exotica as kombu, wakame and bullwhip kelp. These veggies, which many people might call, well, seaweed, are a mainstay of Japanese cuisine and packed with minerals and disease-fighting antioxidant vitamins. Dulse, which Gusman uses to make Irish soda muffins, has a deep burgundy hue and a smoky flavor, and hijiki, which she puts on crostini, is jet black and sweet. Home cooks can find edible seaweeds in dehydrated form in health-and specialty-food shops. But don't scour the beach for your dinner. The seaweed that washes ashore is probably decayed or contaminated.