anyone ever used FRESH irish moss and know how to prepare it so it acts like gelatin?

[kaybee]

hey just wondering if anyone knows what steps are necessary in order to get fresh irish moss to do the "gel" thing.... we have the fresh stuff growing on the cliffs here, but just drying it and rehydrating it doestn get it to do the "gel" thing.. the stuff you can buy from cafe gratitude says theirs is sundried and sandcured... i emailed them to ask what that meant and they were supernice, and referred me to their distributor, but the distributor hasnt gotten back to me... i want to know what i have to do to use this stuff... traditionally here they left it out in the sun and rain to bleach it, then dried it and then boiled it to get it to gel. but apparently you can do that the raw way but noone here does and i dont know what the "raw" preparation way is... after dehydrating and rehydrating and having no success, ive left it out in the rain for the last 2 weeks or so, most of it has gotten bleached white, but i dont know what to do next. some i gave up on and tossed out the window turned to gel..but i dont know what steps made it do that and i cant seem to replicate it lol. also, i think probably the bleaching it leaches out all the minerals so its only really useful for its "functionality" and not for its nutrition..what do you think? and anyone know how to make it useful?
thanks.

kaybee

[rawrawks]

I see much of the ingred that are dehy and "processed" by rawfoodies as mere functionality. Alot like sad food. They just serve a spot in the recipe to do a certain thing or carry a certain spice or flavor. Like the boatload of nuts in things....anyway...just my thoughts. I personally am sick right now from eating a bunch of functional ingred.

My advice, if you really want to use it, go outside and gather the gel out the window. A lil humor here..hahhaha Because I just dont know.

[katchmoleen]

If you go to RawKnitster's blog, she has a pictoral tutorial on doing this.

[kaybee]

haha. yeah well the gel out the window is gone... weve had 2 more weeks of rain since i saw the gel. i really dont get how the gel got made cuz ive had more of this irish moss sitting out in the rain for the past few weeks and none of IT has gelled, lol.

no, its not THAT critical that i have this as an ingredient--heck i could never get the other stuff i need for some of those recipes that use this stuff anyway. we cant get raw chocolate etc anyway here, but initially i had thought "hey, cool, we have this stuff growing here and it will add extra nutrition cuz seaweed is so good for you and its free here and so i may as well use it...!" but now im really wondering about the nutritional value given that it has to sit out and get bleached (and leached?) by the rain and sun... but stilll. it woudl be cool to figure out how to use it, even if only for function, since its free and all here and if i were buying it I'd be paying 15 bucks for a couple ounces or whatever! i wish i could find a way to make the seaweed here more palatable! even the dulse is very tough and rough here...apparently because the sea and tides are so harsh in this particular area, that makes the plants grow stronger, but it also makes the dulse difficult to use as its so tough... and the kelp and bladderwrack i cant seem to get down. ick. laver is REALLY nice but it was only growing on one rock and the storms weve had seem to have torn it all away. i want to try to find some sugarkelp growing somewhere as it is sweet and more palatable but ive only found it stormwashed in on the tides, not found it growing anywhere... meh *shrugs*

[rawrawks]

you do live in a beautiful place though
even if you cant gel