Ogonori, the most common red alga used to make agarĪgar may have been discovered in Japan in 1658 by Mino Tarōzaemon ( 美濃 太郎 左 衞 門), an innkeeper in current Fushimi-ku, Kyoto who, according to legend, was said to have discarded surplus seaweed soup ( Tokoroten) and noticed that it gelled later after a winter night's freezing. Agar can be used as a laxative, an appetite suppressant, a vegetarian substitute for gelatin, a thickener for soups, in fruit preserves, ice cream, and other desserts, as a clarifying agent in brewing, and for sizing paper and fabrics.
Īgar has been used as an ingredient in desserts throughout Asia and also as a solid substrate to contain culture media for microbiological work. These algae are known as agarophytes, belonging to the Rhodophyta (red algae) phylum. It forms the supporting structure in the cell walls of certain species of algae and is released on boiling. Īgar is a mixture of two components, the linear polysaccharide agarose and a heterogeneous mixture of smaller molecules called agaropectin. A blood agar plate used to culture bacteria and diagnose infectionĪgar ( / ˈ eɪ ɡ ɑːr/ or / ˈ ɑː ɡ ər/), or agar-agar, is a jelly-like substance consisting of polysaccharides obtained from the cell walls of some species of red algae, primarily from ogonori ( Gracilaria) and "tengusa" ( Gelidiaceae).
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