Richard Corrigan’s secret ingredient: seaweed

Used by generations in Ireland, seaweed works brilliantly in tapenades or as an extra flavour in a fish dish

Generations have eaten seaweed – including my mother who is from Connemara in the west of Ireland and was brought up chewing dried carrageen moss. Seaweed is not new to British or Irish culture – to urban Englanders, maybe.

I first went picking seaweed about 16-17 years ago. I learned that some seaweeds are very slow growing and seasonal; you wouldn’t want to encourage a load of idiots to go and pick everything on the foreshore because it can cause a lot of damage.