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is the Japanese name for edible seaweed species of the red algae genus ''Porphyra'', including ''P. yeeziensis'' and ''P. tenera''. Nori is familiar in the United States and other countries as an ingredient of sushi, being referred to as "nori" (as the Japanese do) or simply as seaweed. Finished products are made by a shredding and rack-drying process that resembles papermaking. Porphyra is also called ''laver'' in Wales and other English-speaking countries.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Nori )〕 == History == Originally, the term ''nori'' was generic and referred to seaweeds including ''hijiki''. One of the oldest descriptions of nori is dated to around the 8th century. In the Taihō Code enacted in 701, ''nori'' was already included in the form of taxation. Local people have been described as drying nori in Hitachi Province Fudoki (721–721), and nori was harvested in Izumo Province Fudoki (713–733), showing that nori was used as food from ancient times. In ''Utsubo Monogatari'', written around 987, ''nori'' was recognized as a common food. The original ''nori'' was formed as a paste, and the sheet form was invented in Asakusa, Edo (contemporary Tokyo), in the Edo period through the method of Japanese paper-making. The word "''nori''" first appeared in an English-language publication in ''C. P. Thunberg's Trav.'', published in 1796. It was used in conjugation as "Awa nori", probably referring to what is now called aonori.〔 The Japanese nori industry was in decline after WWII, when Japan was in need of all food which could be produced. The decline was due to a lack of understanding of the plant's three stage life cycle so that local people did not understand why traditional cultivation methods were not effective. The industry was rescued by knowledge deriving from the work of British phycologist, Kathleen Mary Drew-Baker who had been researching the organism porphyria umbilicalis, which grew in the seas around Wales and was harvested for food, as in Japan. Her work was discovered by Japanese scientists who applied it to artificial methods of seeding and growing the plants, rescuing the industry. Kathleen Baker was hailed as the 'Mother of the Sea' in Japan and a statue erected in her memory; she is still revered as the saviour of the Japanese nori industry. The word ''nori'' started to be used widely in the United States, and the product (imported in dry form from Japan) became widely available at natural food stores and Asian-American grocery stores in the 1960s due to the macrobiotic movement, and in the 1970s with the increase of sushi bars and Japanese restaurants. In one study by Jan-Hendrik Hehemann, subjects of Japanese descent have been shown to be able to digest the polysaccharide of the seaweed, after gut microbes developed the enzyme from marine bacteria. Gut microbes from the North American subjects lacked these enzymes. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Nori」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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