Wild Edibles

After scouting around yesterday for goose tongue greens and samphire greens, and consulting google maps I had a pretty good idea of where to go today to hopefully find some samphire greens. They tend to like salt marshes with a little more standing water on them, whereas the goose tongue greens I found yesterday are closer to the high tide mark. The patch I normally foraged from has been decimated in recent years by locals. Feel free to read about finding those https://steemit.com/nature/@bumblebuzz/34d8pt-in-pursuit-of-wild-edibles.

 Samphire greens are a small green (or red depending on the species) plant that resembles a miniature christmas tree. They taste juicy and salty. It is a plant best shown through a picture. 

 As I headed out onto the marsh it was not long until I found some samphire greens, unfortunately it was also not long until I fell into a sink hole up to my knee. So I got the pleasure of picking my greens a little wet today. At first the greens were a little sparse and hard to find, though I found some growing out of an old dead log which is quite unique! 

Although as time went on I ended up finding quite a large patch of them. Interestingly, I also found some red samphire greens, these are a different species to the green ones that normally grow where I live. I was quite excited as I was previously unaware they grew in the area, though I later found out they have largely the same taste. As always I cut them at the base with scissors. It does take longer than just pulling them up from the mud by their roots, but this way they are not killed. This lets me come back year after year for more- and that is worth taking a little longer. Where I am only home for a few more days before flying back to school I only wanted to pick enough for a few suppers. Due to the large number of them growing I had enough picked after only 45-60 minutes. So I took the time to take a few pictures!

Here is some of the field I had to traverse!

Sometimes the marsh can smell a little foul, although there are also beautiful pools of water. 

Here are a few better pictures of the samphire greens themselves, and one with a little caterpillar lazing on it!

Mud as far as the eye can see! We have some of the worlds highest (and lowest) tides, and this is even more dramatic with the sturgeon moon today.

 

When I got home and cleaned all the greens up I realized I had actually picked quite a few more than I thought!

To prepare these just wash them with cold water. Then the key is to put them in a pot with the ends all faced in the same direction. Then boil for a couple minutes. After they have been boiled there is a skeleton on the inside. Some people will skin the flesh off all their serving then eat it, while I prefer to just bite the base of the stock then pull on the skeleton so the flesh just stays in my mouth. This is what the skeleton looks like to make it more clear !