I remember a famous poem/cartoon by Wilhelm Busch (famous in Germany) about a boy named Christian (or Krischan, as it was written in Low German) who takes his father's pipe and smokes it. The pipe was called a "Meerschaumpfeife".

Apparently the word was also borrowed into English, as "meerschaum" (a soft white mineral, literally ‘sea foam’) and is indeed used for making pipes.