A magical maple-mint pudding with a secret Irish ingredient

A few weekends ago, I was out to dinner with a friend who informed me that she was going to Ireland for a few weeks and would be there for St. Patrick’s Day. “How fun!” I replied, which led to chatter about Irish food and drink. With lush greenery that invokes the country’s moniker as the Emerald Isle, Ireland is a gem, complete with a robust cuisine and beverage landscape as rich as its verdant countryside.

While certain classics like Irish soda bread, Irish butter or the litany of Irish potato dishes (boxty, colcannon, farl) are some of my favorites, I’ve become really fascinated by Irish sea moss pudding, which is an approximation of the different kinds of pudding-like dishes across many cultures. However, there’s one particular difference: It once featured literal sea moss as the primary thickening component.

The thickening agent in this instance is carrageenan. A common additive in many food products, it’s used as a thickener, stabilizer and emulsifier in a host of various products, both edible and not, from plant-based milk and ice cream to toothpaste and medications. Here, the naturally released carrageenan helps to make the pudding rich and thick while remaining quite neutral in flavor.

Wildly different from the nori in your sushi or the kelp currently floating among the flotsam and jetsam of the Jersey shore, this Irish sea moss (really a type of seaweed) is a very different product altogether. Carrageenan is derived from a dark red-toned, thin, almost wiry seaweed, which is quite different from the dark green, almost mossy seaweed you may have in mind.

As poetically described by Chris Baraniuk for Hakai Magazine, “. . . the seaweed unfurls instantly when touched by water, taking on its customary glossy red color and silky texture. It has a whiff of the sea at this stage, slightly astringent and with some ocean griminess to boot.” Furthermore, it has “a hint of iodine, more medicinal than marine.”

For those who don’t opt to make pudding, the simple mixture of carrageenan or Irish sea moss and water creates a gel of sorts, which can then be used for many purposes, from medicinal to aesthetic. On the flip side, utilizing the thickening agent in a culinary capacity allows it to impart its cool salinity on whatever it’s added to.

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Vanessa Rissetto writes for Food Network that “during the Irish potato famine in the 1800s, the Irish would add red seaweed to warmed milk with sugar and nutmeg and drink that when food options were limited.” Then “in the 19th century, carrageenan became a key ingredient in classic Irish pudding.” It was also often used for those who were ill or unable to eat other more abrasive or heavy foods.

As noted by John McKenna in The Irish Times, many Irish chefs’ iterations of the classic pudding are now elevated, including everything from carrageenan panna cotta with port-soaked figs to a lemon-balm version and pudding with cinnamon and ice cream.

If you aren’t near the European coast, making classic, legitimate Irish moss pudding at home might be a bit of a challenge. To enjoy a rich, thick Irish-flavored pudding this St. Patrick’s Day, you can reach for one of many other carrageenan-like thickening agents instead. These include everything from cornstarch and arrowroot to xanthan gum and good ol’ gelatin.

Sláinte!