Gulaman

*Gulaman*
	A dessert made from leche flan and gulaman from Baliuag, Bulacan
Course	Dessert
Place of origin	Philippines
Serving temperature	Cold
Main ingredients	Agar
	Media: Gulaman;

Gulaman, in Filipino cuisine, is a bar, or powdered form, of dried agar or carrageenan extracted from edible seaweed used to make jelly-like desserts. In common usage, it also usually refers to the refreshment sago't gulaman, sometimes referred to as samalamig, sold at roadside stalls and vendors.^[1]

History

Gracilaria, which produces agar, is known as gulaman, guraman, gulaman dagat, or gar-garao in Tagalog and in other languages in the northern Philippines.^[2]^[3] It has been harvested and used as food for centuries, eaten both fresh or sun-dried and turned into jellies. The earliest historical attestation is from the Vocabulario de la lengua tagala (1754) by the Jesuit priests Juan de Noceda and Pedro de Sanlucar, where golaman or gulaman was defined as "una yerva, de que se haze conserva a modo de Halea, naze en la mar" (modern Spanish orthography: “una hierva, de que se hace conserva a modo de jalea, nace en la mar”; “an herb, from which a jam-like preserve is made, grows in the sea"), with an additional entry for guinolaman to refer to food made with the jelly.^[4]^[5]

Gulaman can also be made from Eucheuma spp., which produces the similarly jelly-like carrageenan. Eucheuma is known as gusô or tambalang in Visayan languages. Use of gusô to make jellies among the Visayans has been recorded in the even earlier Diccionario De La Lengua Bisaya, Hiligueina y Haraia de la isla de Panay y Sugbu y para las demas islas (c. 1637) of the Augustinian missionary Alonso de Méntrida (in Spanish). In the book, Méntrida describes gusô as being cooked until it melts, and then allowed to congeal into a sour dish.^[6]

Description

Gulaman is now the chief Filipino culinary use of agar, which is made of processed Gracilaria seaweed (around 18 species occur naturally in the Philippines);^[2]^[7] or carrageenan derived from other farmed seaweed species like Eucheuma and Kappaphycus alvarezii, which were first cultivated commercially in the Philippines.^[1]^[8]^[9]^[10] Aside from Gracilaria and Eucheuma, they were also traditionally made from other species of edible seaweeds including Betaphycus gelatinus, Gracilariopsis longissima, Gelidiella acerosa, and members of the genus Agardhiella.^[3]^[11]

It is usually sold dehydrated and formed into foot-long dry bars, which are either plain or coloured.^[12] It is also available in powder form.^[13]

Uses

Gulaman bars are used in the various Filipino refreshments or desserts such as sago at gulaman, buko pandan, agar flan, halo-halo, fruit cocktail jelly, different varieties of Filipino fruit salads, black gulaman, and red gulaman.

Differences from gelatine

The term gelatine (or "jelly") and gulaman are used synonymously in the Philippines, although they are very different products. While gelatine is an animal-derived protein, gulaman is a plant-derived carbohydrate^[14] made from seaweed. This distinction makes gulaman suitable for those whose dietary restrictions exclude gelatine, such as Muslims or vegans.

Gelatine dissolves in hot water, but boiling water is necessary to dissolve gulaman. Unlike gelatine which sets at cold temperatures, gulaman sets at room temperature. While gelatine can melt at room temperature, it is uniquely thermo-reversible^[14] to its previous shape and form.

References

^ ^a ^b Montaño, Marco Nemesio (September 16, 2004). "Gelatin, gulaman, 'JellyAce,' atbp". PhilStar Global. Retrieved February 10, 2021.
^ ^a ^b Marine Plants Section, National Fisheries Research and Development Institute. Gracilaria species in the Philippines (PDF). Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, Department of Agriculture, Republic of the Philippines. Retrieved March 12, 2024.
^ ^a ^b Zaneveld, Jacques S. (1959). "The Utilization of Marine Algae in Tropical South and East Asia". Economic Botany. 13 (2): 89–131. doi:10.1007/BF02859244. JSTOR 4288011.
^ Albert H. Wells (1916). "Possibilities of Gulaman Dagat as a Substitute for Gelatin in Food". The Philippine Journal of Science. 11: 267–271.
^ de Noceda, Juan; de Sanlucar, Pedro (1754). Vocabulario de la lengua Tagala. Imprenta de la compañia de Jesus. pp. 101, 215.
^ de Mentrida, Alonso (1841). Diccionario De La Lengua Bisaya, Hiligueina Y Haraya de la isla de Panay. En La Imprenta De D. Manuel Y De D. Felis Dayot. p. 380.
^ "Gulaman". Philippine Medicinal Plants. Retrieved July 7, 2008.
^ Buschmann, Alejandro H.; Camus, Carolina; Infante, Javier; Neori, Amir; Israel, Álvaro; Hernández-González, María C.; Pereda, Sandra V.; Gomez-Pinchetti, Juan Luis; Golberg, Alexander; Tadmor-Shalev, Niva; Critchley, Alan T. (October 2, 2017). "Seaweed production: overview of the global state of exploitation, farming and emerging research activity". European Journal of Phycology. 52 (4): 391–406. doi:10.1080/09670262.2017.1365175. ISSN 0967-0262. S2CID 53640917.
^ Impact Investment for a Business Venture for Community-Based Seaweed Farming in Northern Palawan, Philippines (PDF). Blue Economy Impact Investment East Asia & Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia. 2017. Retrieved February 8, 2021.
^ Habito, Cielito F. (November 1, 2011). "Sustaining seaweeds". Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved February 8, 2021.
^ Dumilag, Richard V.; Belgica, Teresa Haide R.; Mendoza, Lynn C.; Hibay, Janet M.; Arevalo, Abel E.; Malto, Mark Ariel D.; Orgela, Elden G.; Longavela, Mabille R.; Corral, Laurence Elmer H.; Olipany, Ruby D.; Ruiz, Caesar Franz C.; Mintu, Cynthia B.; Laza, Benilda O.; Pablo, Mae H. San; Bailon, Jinky D.; Berdin, Leny D.; Calaminos, Franklin P.; Gregory, Sheryll A.; Omoto, Annie T.; Chua, Vivien L.; Liao, Lawrence M. (September 15, 2022). "Seaweed ethnobotany of eastern Sorsogon, Philippines". Algae. 37 (3): 227–237. doi:10.4490/algae.2022.37.8.16.
^ "Gulaman at Sago (Agar-Agar and Tapioca Pearls)". Lafang: a Pinoy food blog. July 13, 2006. Archived from the original on June 18, 2008. Retrieved July 7, 2008.
^ "ZANG Gulaman". shireli.
^ ^a ^b "Things you need to know about gelatine". Food Magazine-Philippines: 99. December 2006 – January 2007.