Nori
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- This article is about the sea vegetable. For the Tolkein dwarf, see Nori (Middle-earth). For the legendary first king of Norway, see Nór. For this word in relation to Look Around You, see Nori (Look Around You).
Nori (海苔) is a Japanese term used to refer to edible varieties of seaweed in the various species of the red alga Porphyra, including most notably P. yezoensis and P. tenera. A few other algae are used as well, including some cyanobacteria. Nori is also commonly used to refer to the food products created from these so-called "sea vegetables." Finished products are made by a shredding and rack-drying process that resembles papermaking. Nori is commonly used as a wrap for Onigiri and Makizushi.
Nori is also eaten by making it into a soy sauce flavored paste called Noritsukudani (海苔佃煮). Dried and powdered nori is called Aonori (青海苔) lit. green nori, and is used like herbs on such everyday meals like okonomiyaki and yakisoba.
Nori is sometimes called laver in English, and laver is eaten as laverbread in a savory oatmeal in Wales and Ireland. Laver usually applies to plants of the genus Porphyra and not to the finished edible sheets of nori. The English term is in any case not well known, and in the US, the term nori is more common.