Therefore, it is traditionally toasted plain or toasted with seasonings like sesame oil and salt. Lightly toasting the seaweed tends to enhance these qualities. While laver has a naturally sweet and nutty flavor in its raw dried form, Soon after this time, nori sheets imported from Japan became widelyĪvailable in health food stores and Asian markets across the U.S. It wasn't until the 1970's, along with the increase of sushi bars and Japanese restaurants, that American-style sushi using nori wrapping techniques became a popular trendy food.

World with the macrobiotic health movement, popularized by Japanese Sea vegetables, like laver, became especially prevalent in the Western Freshly harvested laver is typically washed and simmered into a dark green pulp, forming the traditional Welsh delicacy called laverbread. Known exclusively as laver in the British Isle region, it has been consumed as a standard sea vegetable in Wales for hundreds of years. Other species from the genus Porphyra also grow prolifically in the Atlantic Irish Sea. This encompassed a special technique in which the seaweed paste is laid out on racks, similar to the Japanese paper-making process, to form thin rectangular sheets when dried. It wasn't until the end of the Edo Period (1603 to 1868) that the 'nori sheet' was invented. The first use of nori dates back to 8th century Japan where it was harvested, dried and used as a type of paste. The marine algae is still a common everyday Japanese food incorporated into various dishes, but is most predominantly used to roll rice and other ingredients in the popular Japanese cuisine known as sushi. Extensively cultivated for centuries by the Japanese using traditional methods, most seaweed today is now ocean farmed on a much larger scale. Nori is considered one of the most domesticated of the Asian seaweed varieties. Nori is the Japanese name for a type of seaweed from the genus Porphyra that grows wild, like other sea vegetables, off of rocks along shallow coastal shorelines, mainly in the Pacific Ocean as well as the North Atlantic and Irish Sea.

Nori sheets