Foreshore foraging
Huw Williams describes the incredible edibles that are all just there for the taking
How to find incredible edibles: samphire, sea beet and more!
Foraging seems to be quite low on most people’s food radar, and the usual reason I hear is ‘we don’t want to be poisoned by eating the wrong stuff’.
This is a perfectly natural response, but with a little knowledge and care you can easily supplement your onboard stores with several seashore plants which are extremely tasty and can’t be confused with anything that will cause health problems. They’re also extremely good for you. Bon appetit.
Samphire and sea beet
You’ve had a good day on the water, the anchor has been dropped and dinner is beckoning. While you start preparing the fish you’ve caught, send the crew out in the dinghy to forage. At the top of your list should be a plant that is plentiful, easily gathered and delicious – marsh samphire.
Samphire is a corruption of Saint Pierre, the patron saint of fishermen - that’s us! It grows in most parts of the UK and, depending on where you live, is sometimes called sampha, sampkin and often sea asparagus. Marsh samphire does indeed look like baby asparagus, and with its bright green stalks it’s impossible to confuse it with anything else.
As the name suggests it grows in marshy and shallow harbour areas, and if you go ashore at mid to low water you’ll be able to gather a bucket full in a few minutes – it can often cover hundreds of square metres.
Make sure to cut or twist off the stalks when you pick it and leave the root behind.
Preparation is simple. Eat it raw (very salty, but oddly addictive) or steam it for a few minutes for a less intense flavour. I like a 5:1 mix of steamed to raw, and it’s great in a salad and absolutely perfect as a side dish with fish. It’s also rich in antioxidants, vitamins and calcium, so no wonder a certain London store sells it for such a high price.
But don’t rest on your laurels – keep walking along the high-water mark and you’ll soon come upon our next food item: sea beet.
Sea beet is found all year round in a wide variety of coastal habitats and is very common. You’ve probably seen it lots of times without realising what it is. It looks just like spinach with glossy, dark green leaves, and it’s been described as the most delicious spinach you’ll ever taste. I wouldn’t disagree. Not surprisingly, it has a slightly saltier taste than spinach, which I prefer, and just like samphire it’s rich in antioxidants, minerals and vitamins A and C.
Use it as you would spinach. It’s great in salads used raw, added to a stir fry at the last moment and, as I’m writing this, a fish, lentil and sea beet curry is simmering on the stove – yum. Once again, be sure leave the root behind when you pick it.
Seaweed
Let’s now move to a rockier shore and gather a food that’s eaten with gusto around the world – seaweed. It’s easy to see why eating seaweed is becoming more popular in the UK. It’s easily gathered, very tasty and is loaded with minerals. There are lots of edible seaweeds in the UK and the following four are widespread and easy to identify.
Pophyra umbilicalis is better known as Laver, and if you hail from Wales you’ve probably already eaten it as laverbread when it`s been mixed with oatmeal – often as part of a cooked breakfast. I’m not a fan personally, but slowly saute it in olive oil, add some lemon juice and black pepper and serve it on toast as a canape and I’m on board.
Pepper dulse, like laver, grows in layers on rocks in intertidal zones. It’s not a commonly eaten seaweed in the UK, but add a small amount to a stir fry or salad and you’ll enjoy its peppery and salty flavour. You could also add some to a baked fish dish and it’s also good in a fish soup or stew. In the good old days, it was dried and ground as a substitute for pepper. Now there’s an idea...
Gutweed isn’t the most of attractive of names, and its Latin name of ulva intestinalis may be worse – but don’t let that put you off. You can find this green, stringy seaweed in most rock pools and salt marshes and it’s another good addition to stir fries, and also works well in omelettes.
Bladderwrack is found in shallow rocky areas and it’s probably the seaweed that people are most familiar with. The tips of the fronds are good in a salad and you can also steam them as a side vegetable. For the ultimate seaweed taste, you could scatter it over the barbecue coals and cook your fish on top of it. As an added bonus, the oil in the “bubbles” that you can`t resist popping is good for moisturising gnarly sea hands.
Mushrooms
The final item on our list – mushrooms – can be dangerous, some of them even just to touch. If you don’t know what you’re doing a nasty experience awaits you, but one of the most delicious fungi in the UK can’t be confused with any other and is often found close to the coast – particularly in sandy soil near conifers. My secret spot (very secret) is just a few metres from the sea.
Boletus edulis is known as the penny bun in the UK, cep in France and porcini in Italy. Unlike most mushrooms, if you look on the underside of the cap you will find not the usual gills, but what looks like yellow foam – actually, hundreds of tiny tubes seen end on. All the boletus family have this feature and it makes them easy and safe to identify for eating.
Take a walk along a coastal forest in the autumn and it’s often an easy task to fill a basket. Make sure you cut the mushroom off at the base of the stem and leave the base behind.
The French would probably use them in a soup or include them in an omelette, whilst risotto made with porcini is an Italian classic. If you thinly slice and dry them in a warm oven they can be stored indefinitely and they’ll make an even more intensely flavoured soup.
‘If you knock the bucket of razorfish over they’ll burrow back into the sand in seconds’