Health Better than Wealth: Nori 2  Meiko Kodaira  4/2003

When did the Japanese first start eating nori? It is surmised that they started to eat it before the time of Christ! As far as we know, nori was first mentioned in an ancient chronicle called Hitachi-Fudoki which was published in 713 A.D. One scene in the book depicts the hero being attracted to some beautiful nori which was hanging out to dry. This means that nori was eaten before 713 A.D., and it wasn’t something uncommon to see.

Nori was considered really valuable. These days, nori is cultivated, and people can buy it at any supermarket in Japan or around the world. But at that time, only wild nori was available and it didn’t just grow anywhere. This rarity made it precious. It was considered so valuable that in Japan’s oldest code of law, Taihoritsuryo in 701 A.D. demanded that taxes be paid in seaweed. Nori is not the only seaweed, but it was the highest valued among the 30 kinds of seaweed people could pay as tax. This nori was used to pay retainers at the Imperial Court, and the Emperor used it as an offering at temples. This shows us that nori was a luxury only for the elite classes. Also, we can infer that seaweed was used like money at that time. (The oldest Japanese coin dates back to 708, and even then, the monetary system seemed not so established.)

There is another factor that made nori even more valuable. In the early 700's, Buddhism was spreading widely, and its compassion for animals and abhorrence for taking lives resulted in a ban of eating meat. The bans made people seek ways to eat only naturally harvested products, and this led them back to traditional Japanese food. Because of the limited variety of such food, seaweed’s merits were discovered. And so the demand for seaweed increased, and it became even more valuable.

Nori developed the most during the Edo period (1603-1867). Cultivation was established, and a sheet-type of nori was developed. Actually, nori cultivation was discovered at fish farms completely by accident, when it was noted that nori grew prolifically on the nets that were put up to keep fish from escaping. The making of sheet-type nori took its inspiration from traditional papermaking. So, cultivation made nori easier to obtain, and sheet nori made convenient to buy it. Gradually nori started to be eaten by common folk, and street stalls started to serve it wrapped in rice. (This is origin of sushi rolls.)

Today, nori is arranged in many styles, such as ita-nori (sheets), kizami-nori (strips) and tsukudani (boiled down to paste), and so on. People found so many ways to enjoy it, not only with sushi but with soba and many other dishes. It is so popular; ten billion sheets are eaten each year in Japan. It is hard to imagine how rare and expensive it was so long ago.