Samphire

Samphire like most other wild sea vegetables is irresistible to me as I walk past it on the seashore and the marshes around the coast. Once I start gathering samphire, it almost seems a shame to stop, because it’s free and a delicacy to most food lovers; but it’s totally alien to others.

There are two main edible forms of samphire in Britain: the first and original is rock samphire, which is only really good for cooking and pickling; the second is marsh samphire, known as glasswort, so called because it was used as a source of soda for glassmaking. In Ireland, it is known as Peter’s Cress and up north in the Morecambe Bay area, samphie. Traditionally, rock samphire was highly esteemed and glasswort was seen as food for the poor. The leaves of the plants before they flower in July and August can be cooked like French beans or pickled, as was very popular in Victorian times.