This adorable, delicate little flower clings tenaciously to sea cliffs, upper reaches of shingle beaches and the foreshore. The tips of the foliage have a unique flavour, though with a somewhat bitter aftertaste in summer. The flowers have a delicious hit of sweet nectar followed by an extraordinary fresh “mouth feel”…
There is something about alcoholic aniseed flavours that works wonderfully with sunshine – as witnessed by the popularity of drinks on the licorice-anise spectrum around the med: absinthe, ouzo, sambuca, anis…I could go on. So I figured why not use our indigenous (in the north of Britain anyway) sweet cicely (myrrhis oderata) to make a cocktail.
Sea aster is one of many abundant gastronomic delights you can gather easily and sustainably on coastal salt marshes.
If foraging conjures up images of bimbling along tranquil hedgerows, gently picking berries with a gentle sun on your back, then picking rock samphire may disabuse you of the notion. Though it does occasionally grow on the foreshore, its preferred home, clinging to precipitous coastal cliffs, makes for anything but bucolic harvesting.
Orache doesn’t always get good reviews in foraging guidebooks, but I rate the varieties I encounter very highly – both as a salad leaf when young, and as a spinach substitute when mature. The tender young leaves, to my palate, are wonderfully sweet with nutty overtones and a hint of salt…