Gracilaria, which produces agar, is known as gulaman, guraman, gulaman dagat, or gar-garaoinTagalog 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 golamanorgulaman 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 gusôortambalanginVisayan 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]
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.
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 Muslimsorvegans.
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.
^ abMarine 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.
^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. ISSN0967-0262. S2CID53640917.