Plantains Plantains are varieties of banana
that retain much of their starchiness even
when ripe, and are treated like other starchy
vegetables. They’re described along with their
sweeter cousins on p. 378.
Seaweeds
Seaweed is a very general term for large
plants that inhabit the oceans. Nearly all
ocean plants are algae, a biological group that
has dominated the waters for close to a billion
years, and that gave rise to all land plants,
including those that feed us. There are more
than 20,000 species of algae, and humans have
enjoyed many hundreds of them. They’ve
been especially important foods throughout
coastal Asia, in the British Isles, and in places
as different as Iceland and Hawaii, where
they’re among very few native edibles. The
Japanese use seaweeds as wrappers and to
make salads and soups; in China they serve as