During the summer months, people often seem inexorably drawn to the coast. This pull to the seaside may tap into something much more primeval. Fossil records show that our ancestors took regular foraging trips to the shoreline, and even today, a wealth of wild food can still be found around the British coast. Mesolithic pollen found in the Severn Estuary, along with preserved footprints in the estuary mud, provides a tantalising glimpse of a family foraging trip to pick raspberries, hazelnuts, and acorns (which can be processed and made into flour). Among the earliest footprints discovered globally are the 600,000 to 800,000-year-old hominid prints on a Norfolk beach. We have little evidence of what those ancient people actually ate aside from fish and shellfish, but they would have utilised whatever was around, so seaweeds, plants and mushrooms would certainly have been on the menu.
Plants and fungi must overcome a number of barriers at the coast to really thrive. The soil is often poor quality, sandy and free-draining. What little water there is in the soil can be so salty it would be toxic to most plant life. Plants like marsh samphire and sea blite have overcome the lack of fresh water by developing fleshier, almost cactus-like leaves. Just like a camel stores water as a fatty deposit in their humps, these fleshy leaves retain precious fresh water to help the plant survive. Trees and shrubs have also adapted to coastal conditions, developing wide-open canopies to allow strong maritime gusts to travel through the branches without damaging them. Other plants, such as sea beet and alexanders, have glossy leaves to help protect them from strong maritime winds.
At the far reaches of the tide line and out to sea, you’ll find kelps; long feathery seaweed which grow in deeper water. Further inland, but still in the tide line, you’ll find rock-loving seaweeds such as dulse, sea spaghetti, bladderwrack, laver, and carageen. Then finally, at the top of the tide line come the green seaweeds like the papery-thin sea lettuce and the wiry gutweed.
Branched, succulent leaves of rock samphire can be found clinging to the rock face all along the British shoreline. These plants hate getting their feet wet, always growing just out of the tide line. Shipwrecked sailors have had their lives saved by these plants by setting up camp for the night amongst them and thereby staying out of the way of the incoming tide. Wild cabbage, though not always found on rocks, can be seen at the top of coastal cliffs from the south of England extending into mainland Europe.
Grassy clifftops overlooking the sea can be a diverse habitat for coastal plants and mushrooms. One of the most vivid forms of life found here are the richly coloured yellow and red wax caps which grow in abundance on untreated grasslands. Parasols may also appear here amongst the grass, forming troops right across the coastline. American readers should be cautious, as the highly toxic Green Spored Parasol can be mistaken for parasols and is found throughout the USA. Giant puffballs and horse mushrooms often favour the coastline too, so look out for them amongst the grassy headlands close to the coast.
Tucked away in the grass, often growing prostrate or flat to the ground, you’ll find stag’s horn samphire, a hardy but tiny plant no bigger than your finger. As its name suggests, the leaves resemble stag antlers and are served up as micro-salad leaves in high-class restaurants.
The area where the sand or sea defences end and the land begins can be abundant with edible plants. Look for tree mallow, whose large, soft leaves have a fresh peapod flavour and work well in a salad. The oraches, a coastal plant in the same family as quinoa and amaranth, take on a salty flavour by the sea. With leaves shaped like a goose’s foot, they are a safe and easy-to-identify plant suitable for most beginners.
Although we tend to visit the coast during the summer, wild plants and fungi can be found all year round. Winter is the best time for seaweeds and overwintering leaves such as sea spinach and sea radish. Come spring, the fresh leaves come into their own, and this is the time to pick your fresh salad leaves. Fiery flavours like sea rocket and radish can be balanced out with mellow mallows, or try something adventurous such as a rock samphire and feta salad.
In early summer, you'll find seeds forming, and this is the best time to pick radish pods and the circular seed pods of sea or tree mallow (which make a good addition to a stir-fry). When the summer heat really starts, this is the time to leave the seaweeds to reproduce; picking them at this time would endanger numbers for the following year. As the summer sun starts to lose a bit of its heat, we notice fungi popping up on the headlands. By far the most abundant are the parasols. With their large caps and a movable ring around their snakeskin-like stems, it is hard to mistake these with any other mushroom. These are best cut into small pieces, dipped in batter and breadcrumbs before deep frying them in hot oil.
As the year comes to a close, the headlands have one more surprise in store with the brightly coloured wax caps littering the grassland. Although these mushrooms aren’t to everyone’s taste, they do brighten up any dish with their vivid colours.
1. Sea Spinach or Sea Beet (Beta vulgaris subsp. Maritima)
The wild ancestor of beetroot, chard, sugar beet, and perpetual spinach, farmers and home-growers may find the triangular-shaped leaves of this plant very familiar. They are a little glossier and fleshier-leaved than their domestic counterparts, but the flowering stems are near identical.
It’s a common coastal plant throughout Europe and grows as an introduced plant in isolated parts of North America. Avoid over-picking in the depths of winter as the plant is slow growing in the colder months.
Sea spinach is essentially spinach and should be used like true (adult) spinach leaves. The leaves can be bitter, so add soy sauce, butter, or a little honey if you find the taste challenging. One of the easiest recipes is to fry up some onions and garlic, throw in the leaves and a splash of water, and wilt them down. This makes a great base for a curry or can be mixed with chickpeas to make a daal. Alternatively, add cream cheese to make a white pasta sauce, or serve as a filling for individual spinach and cream cheese pies.
2. Sea Buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides)
Sea buckthorn can be found growing in the Baltics, Scandinavia, the Himalayan region, and in the UK. The berries are almost luminously bright, owing their vivid orange colour to large amounts of beta-carotene (which the body converts into vitamin A). Packed with antioxidants and higher amounts of vitamin C, drinks made from the berries are highly valued and sold as a premium product in many Russian-speaking countries.
When it grows by the coast in Europe, it can form a thick hedgerow and is sometimes planted to prevent coastal erosion. It can reach up to 4m or 13ft in height. The leaves are willow-like and silver-green in colour. You’ll find the berries in late summer forming bright orange clusters on the main stem.
The berries squash very easily when you remove them, so it is best to pull them off the branch straight into a container. They have a sharp, tangy taste, so mix this juice with sweeter berries such as raspberries, blackberries, or strawberries, or throw in a banana to make a smoothie.
3. Sea Orache (Atriplex halimus)
Related to fat hen, quinoa, and amaranth, the leaves are grey green with a light dusting or bloom. You’ll see some oraches growing prostrate or flat across the ground, while others look more like the related fat-hen, growing upright.
Coastal oraches have a salty, mealy, almost nutty flavour. The younger leaves can be eaten raw in moderation, but they taste best cooked with a little butter or olive oil. They pair well with fatty foods such as nuts or rich creamy cheeses. Use them like spinach, adding them alongside mushrooms, chickpeas or chicken, with cream or coconut cream and spices.
4. Sea Radish (Raphanus maritimus)
Sea radish is a common plant that grows by the sea in coastal Europe and North America. It is very distinctive with rocket-like leaves and pointed seed pods, which look like spiky-topped, small bumpy pea pods. These pods are pickled and served as a bar snack in parts of Germany.
Use the leaves as a cooked green or add them to a mix of wild leaves in a sauerkraut or kimchi recipe. They can also be added to salads in moderation, but try to choose younger, fresher leaves if you can, as older ones can be a bit tough and stringy.
The seed pods can be eaten raw as a passing snack. They also make a good pickle or a worthy addition to a stir-fry.
5. Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)
A wispy, feathery plant often found in gardens and decorative borders as well as herb gardens. Fennel can grow over 6 foot or 2m tall but it normally flowers a little over waist height. The yellow umbel of flowers give way to the hard, aromatic seeds. When crushed, the leaves give off their familiar aniseed scent, which sets it apart from any poisonous lookalikes. At a push, you might mistake it for hemlock, but this would only be possible if you have never seen either plant before. Bulb fennel is a domesticated version of the same plant, only with a more swollen base – if in doubt, try to find the plant in a grocer or supermarket before you go picking to give yourself a reference point for comparing the leaves.
The leaves go very well with fish, and the seeds make a good breath-freshening snack or a delicious, aniseed tea.
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