New Britain herald., 1915-01-11
ROCkweed as Food.
(Boothbay, Me, Register.)

Did you ever eat rockweed? No, of course not, you say, nor did anyone else. You are wrong. Right here In Roothbay HarbOr is a man who has been eating practically nothing but rockweed since a week ago last We'd resday and has lost not one ounce of his weight not a jot of his vitality and not little of his mentality And this to prove that starvation for the want of food" is a phrase which must be wiped out. His experiment and his | plan is one of the greatest helps yet put forward for the relief of starving Belgians.
 Valentine Henneman, the artist of Bruges, Belgium, who lectured to the people of Boothbay Harbor a week ago last Wednesday night, is the man who is making the experiment so suc- cessful and so fraught with possibili- ties. v The day of his fine lecture he began his experiment, several days after he thought of his plan and began preparation for the test.
 Mr. Henneman stood on the shore of Linekin bay one cold morning looking out across the broad sea toward his stricken fellow country men, thinking of ways in which to
 
 low and all for a moment he let his gaze rest on the rocky shore. Here was great abundance of green growth-the rockweed which chases all along our shore line. MT. Henne- man knew that sheep lived on rock weed at times and wondered if man could not If so, here was thousands of times the food supply of starving Belgium, lying right at our doors, unused. not thought of. Could it be prepared? Would it drive away ut most starvation? He would see.
 The artist gathered the rockweed, boiled it in fresh water for three hours baked it in the oven and ran it through a coffee mill, grinding it to a fine powder. The boiling took cut the salts, potassium and cyanide. Three quantities of rockweed, sea- soned with salt pepper and cloves, one of potatoes and one small slice of bacon makes a fine dinner. For sup per rockwecd soup, composed of rockWeed, onions a little beef bone, two spoonfuls of sorrel some bay leaves and crust of bread makes a very delicious supper, when properly seasoned. In neither meal, prepared by another, would it ever have been known that rockweed formed a part For breakfast powdered rockweed boiled in a spider, a bit of pork and plenty of vinegar, powdered cloves, repper and salt, eaten with a crust of bread, and he had had fine breakfast The next dinner was of two onions fried in a little lard large portion of rockweed and spoonful of flour to thicken it up.
 RockWeed alone, says Mr. Henne- man, has not much taste, but the salt, pepper. vinegar, lemon, etc., makes it delicious. The stuff has been treated in other ways. The greater part of each meal has been rockweed There has been rockweed pie, roc<weed pud- ding, rockweed preserve and there are probably yet many undiscovered ways of serving the food.
 MT. Henneman hopes to interest the New England Belgium Relief Asso- citation in the food product, which is in great abundance here. A little rncney would procure great quantities of food which is not considered of use except for fertilizer. It can be used. Mr. Henneman says he has a fine ap- petite and feels unusually well since he began his experiment.
 In addition to these suggestions, the artist declares that Be1giums love n1ussels. and that dog fish. sharks and skate arc delcacies with his people He thinks a shipload of mussels and Sd tied shark and these other fish would be appreciated in Belgium al most more than anything else He is working on plans to procure big supplies.