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Spag Hoops and Seaweed

Posted by Gav Grayston.
First Published Jul 2014; updated May 2023.

Fancy foraging for your food and cooking it over the campfire? We did this with this 'Spag Hoops and Seaweed' dish, fresh crispy seaweed.


This is an extraordinary and very ordinary meal at the same time. Probably something not many people will cook when camping...

'Spag hoops and seaweed' will be in all the top restaurants this time next year..... may be not. But it is guaranteed that not many families will have cooked this when camping.


The Ordinary: Spag Hoop Stew

Cooking spag hoop stew

Spag Hoop stew is the emergency family meal.

Quite simply, it's what you cook when you run out of food and need to go to the local shop near the campsite, where you grab various odds and ends.

Spag hoop stew

Sometimes choice can be limited. There will usually be a tin or two of spaghetti hoops.

You quite throw it all in the Dutch Oven and create a stew.

I think this one consisted of some sausages (sliced), a tin of tomatoes, a tin of mixed vegetables, a tin of beans, and a tin of slag hoops.


The Extraordinary: Crispy Seaweed

Picking seaweed for Dinner

Picking seaweed for Dinner

Have you ever been to a Chinese restaurant and had proper crispy seaweed (not the fried cabbage version)? Well, that's what we cooked at the campsite.

Washing the seaweed

Washing the seaweed

The seaweed was 'Enteromorpha', also called 'Green Nori', and is one of the edible seaweeds found around the shores of Britain.  

We picked it fresh from remote rocks that afternoon when we were with Ant, the Kayak King.

Now you should not go foraging for food to serve to your family without being 100% certain it is safe. Fortunately, we were with an experienced guide.

You can eat this seaweed raw or make crispy seaweed.

Campfire crispy seaweed

Campfire crispy seaweed

We washed the seaweed thoroughly, drained it, and then used the Dutch Oven lid as a hot plate to dry it out.

We added some sugar to the seaweed as it baked.

Crispy Seaweed

Crispy Seaweed

The result was actual crispy seaweed. We were very impressed.

Unfortunately, our dash at the local shop meant we didn't have the right ingredients to make an appropriate oriental dish to go with it. Hey ho, Spag Hoops and Seaweed was born 😉

Spag hoop stew with crispy seaweed topping