There is in Chatham Street, New York city, an old Irish-woman who sits
all day beside a stand on which is piled a substance, of a dark purple
color, that strongly suggests dried red cabbage. No one seems to
purchase any of this puzzling material, yet there she sits, serene and
contented, behind a short black pipe.
Taking up a fragment, I found it soft and pliable. Smelling it, I seemed
to be at once down by the shore at Canarsie Bay, packing soft crabs in
sea-lettuce.
The old woman continued silently smoking her pipe, neither asking me to
purchase nor informing me as to the cost of the mysterious substance,
its use, its name, or that of the manufacturer.
Being an American, it was but natural that I should wonder if it was
"patented." This word, however, proved too much for the old lady, and so
I had to come down to the commonplace inquiry,
"Madam, what is this?"
"Dellusk."
"What is it good for?"
"To ate."
"Where does it come from?"
"From the say."
"I mean from what country."
"Tralee, County Kerry."
"How do you sell it?"
"Twinty cints a quart, tin cints a pint."
"Can I have this piece?"
"Yez can for a cint."
Taking a Third Avenue car for home, I secure a quiet corner seat, and
say to myself, "I was born in New York city; I know it from one end to
the other, particularly all things that are good to eat, but I don't
know dellusk.'"
Presently we arrive at the Cooper Institute, and I ask the conductor to
let me out. Hastily directing my steps toward the Astor Library, and
entering, I ask the librarian for DEL in all the cyclopædias he has. I
make a thorough search, and find nothing. Then I think of looking under
DUL. What have we here? Not Dellusk by any means, but the following
account of Dulse (_Rhodomenia palmata_): "A sea-weed of a dark purple
color growing on rocks. It is used as food by the poor of Ireland,
Scotland, Finland, and Iceland, and occasionally by those of the
wealthier classes who have acquired a taste for it. It is eaten raw or
roasted, or with vinegar as a salad. In Ireland it is boiled with milk,
or broiled between hot irons. It is an important plant to the
Icelanders, who eat it with zest."
Further on the same author, who is an Englishman, informed me: "In
Kamtchatka a fermented liquor is made from it. Sheep are fond of it,
eagerly seeking it at low water. 'De-ulse!' was once a common cry in the
streets of Scotland. It is common to our coasts, but is imported from
Ireland."
Some time after my conversation with the dulse woman, I purchased a pint
of the sea-weed from which to obtain a perfect specimen to make a
drawing. Taking it home, I left it spread out on my table. It had been
there but a short time when "Landy," our old housekeeper, detected the
strong odor that rises from it. In a moment she had seized my specimen,
and with rapturous delight began to devour it, without even asking
permission so to do.
"Oh, the beautiful, darling dellusk!" she exclaimed, between the pauses
in the feast! "Shure it's thirty-five years gone last November, whin I
was a slip of a girl, an' was clim'ing over the big stones in the big
say, a-dryin' yez on them in the sun, till the lovely white salt would
flake off, an' 'ating yez every day, till I grew so round and fat and
rosy that me mother didn't know me."
I myself tried a bit of the dulse, but I can not say I liked it. At the
same time I was glad to learn of one more article of food that I did not
before know existed.