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…
After first encountering this unusual and delicious brassica in the Scottish highlands, I was delighted to stumble on it again in my favourite bit of Galloway swamp – 10 minutes from my house…
One of the great pleasures of foraging is discovering exciting flavours in the common and innocuous-looking plants around us. Sea arrowgrass never fails to raise squeals of surprise and delight when we encounter it on my guided coastal walks.
A very common mushroom that is edible with appropriate preparation, but can easily be confused with toxic species