Marsh samphire: first remove the woody stalks.
A few weeks ago I was seen leaving a restaurant lunch with a brown paper bag. It wasn’t full of money although you could call it a bribe. It contained a couple of handfuls of samphire, which sell uncleaned at about $25 a kilo to restaurants.
Samphire is a cross between a succulent and seaweed. It comes in different varieties some, called Marsh Samphire, which grows on salt flats and Rock Samphire, which grows on cliffs.
I’m not sure that anybody has used this weird source of nourishment yet in Weekend Herb Blogging, which this week is being hosted by Cooking in Westchester and is the brainchild of Kalyn of Kalyn’s Kitchen fame.
Samphire is one of those ancient very British foods that is just becoming fashionable in Melbourne. Shakespeare cited it growing on the cliffs at Dover. I and am sure I remember stories of Henry the Eighth having people abseil down cliffs to collect it. Off with their heads if they didn’t.
I first ate this is London years ago. In Melbourne it was only a few months ago at a dinner to celebrate all the wonderful produce from the Bellarine Peninsula on Port Phillip Bay that I rediscovered it.
A local chef, Nigel Pittman from the Ol’ Duke in Portarlington, had hand-picked some from Swan Bay. Both he and I upset a local environmental organisation, me apparently for encouraging people to pick it. Apparently, Swan Bay samphire shouldn’t be picked as it is in a protected zone. And besides, the orange-bellied parrot feeds on it. And I don’t want any dead parrots in this story. That would be far too much of a cliché.
I’ve noticed samphire since on the menu at local restaurants including The Botanical, Becco, Donovans, Interlude and even out of town in Daylesford at The Lakehouse. I suspect it all comes from the same source of my paper bag.
According to the World Wide Gourmet:
“Originally “sampiere” from the French “Saint Pierre”. Samphire – the word is a corruption of St. Peter – was named for the patron of fishermen because it grows in rocky salt-sprayed regions along the sea coast. It can also be found in coastal marsh areas.”
“Samphire is known for its digestive and anti-flatulent properties. Culpepper wrote in the 17th century that samphire was useful in curing ailments relating to “ill digestions and obstructions,” while being “very pleasant to taste and stomach.” It also contains diuretic and depurative properties and is rich in iodine, phosphorus, calcium, silica, zinc, manganese and vitamins A, C and D.”
Preparation
Remove the woody stalky bits. The best parts are the young shoots. Older shoots can have stringy bits inside them. But as we were eating at home we didn’t mind this such is our love of samphire. We just sucked the flesh off the string.
The younger shoots can be served raw in a salad. As I have a mix of old and young I simply blanched the lot in hot water for 30 seconds to one minute.
You don’t need to add any salt because it tastes so salty, like the essence of the sea, which is the taste of Iodine (as with Oysters).
I served it with a simple grilled flounder and served with a simple beurre blanc. Because of the strengthof flavour of the samphire very little additional seasoning is needed.
How fascinating, great entry. I’m not sure if someone has written about this before, but I know I haven’t tasted it. I wonder if it’s in the same botanical family as a plant that’s called “pickleweed” here. It grows near the Great Salt Lake, and tastes salty when you eat it. The pickleweed has little branches coming out, but it looks similar otherwise. And pickleweed tastes good too. I’ll keep an eye out for this at the farmer’s market. If it can be grown in Utah, they will have it there.
Whoops! I never knew this stuff was edible, I’ve got many memories of picking marsh samphire (which I’ve always known as glasswort) and popping each little segment off at friends in beach wars
In the immortal words of John Singleton (not that he’s dead), where do you get it, apart from out of protected coastal areas?
Having said that, screw the orange-bellied parrot. The concept of not foraging because the birds might want the forage would have gone down well in earlier times, wouldn’t it: “No, Eve, you can’t eat that apple, the bird on that tree looks hungry.”
You can also buy the pickeld variety at ‘The Essential Ingredient’ in Prahran. The name that it is sold under there temporarily escapes me, but its imported from France.
Kalyn, can you believe two of us chose samphire this week! I think it was also known as pickleweed in England and in a lter comment youi can see it is available as a pickle – i may try some.
Ellie, you just have to tell us your source of Glasswort, parrots permitting.
Kitchen hand,
As i’m a pom Singo usually looks at me like I’ma piece of shit. Magnus who is my source gets it from somewhere 90 minutes from Melbourne on private land and he’s keeping it secret. I reckon it is probably all around the bay just need a long walk without prying eyes. that doesn’t mean I condone picking it, of course.
Kitkeato, i’ll take a look next time I’m in there. Thanks.
Umm.. I hope you won’t be offended if I say this.. but they look like a basket of green worms!! It gave me the goosebumps when I first saw the photo. But after seeing the pic of it cooked and served with the fish, I think I could be persuaded to sink my teeth into some.
I can’t remember the exact location of either – as a child, my family’s church group would venture down somewhere past Geelong and the kids always had wars with this stuff, as well as collecting crabs (from what I’ve seen, Korean immigrants here are utterly shameless about picking all sorts of food). More recently, there’s a beach down near a mate’s place in Apollo Bay where the rocks are covered with this stuff, will ask him for the exact name/locale of the beach for you.
Ellie,
If it was near Geelong, maybe it was from Swan Bay and you’re in trouble too.
I was recently saying to Neil that I can’t believe I finally sourced some samphire after reading about it on his blog some time ago.
I got mine at Vic Market – the stall closest to dairy section in the organics aisle. Don’t have it all the time but may be worth asking about it.
I chanced upon some today at the same stall as Cin. At $40-something a kg it seems pricey, but they werent woody like Ed’s and they are light as feather so ended up pretty cheap in the end. I’m thinking about putting them in a stir fry or salad.
Oh and don’t forget the unbelievable desert limes at the same stall – they are just screaming “muddle me with indecent amounts of alcohol!”.
Cin/AOF good to know there is a source. You only need a small amount as it is very salty. Like the bit about the indecent amounts of alcohol – and the limes too.
Samphire (also called sea green bean) is a wonderful ingredient for garnishes and salads. I first ate it in a Vancover, British Colombia restaurant (Liliget Feast House) that featured Native Indian cuisine-lovely place. We dined on smoked wild local salmon, venison, etc. I can buy Samphire here in speciality markets. The samphire salad was a delight and I do use it from time to time when I see it in the facy produce section.
Mary-Anne
San Francisco Bay Area
Mary-Anne, you’ve reminded me it is samphire season here again and my friend who collects its commercially is out there with his hege trimmer doing it right now.
I have been usng this beautiful sea grass for may years now and yes tonight I dined on it at home with a rare cooked kanga fillet and sweet potato skordilla. it is well worth seeking, but remember…. leave some for the future. A quote from an indigenous book from 1957… yes we all could go out and pick bush foods, but if we all did there would be none left in a short time…, respect the process of pick some but leave plenty.
where can i buy glasswort in NSW?
Glen, have you tried the Farmers’ Markets. I’ve seen it down here at the FMs on an indigenous produce stall.
Hi,
Where/who can i order Samphire from in Sydney?
Thanks
I know this is a very old blog post, but I’d like to comment anyway in case someone comes across it in a search, as I did.
Kitchen hand:
Swan Bay is one of the ONLY winter feeding grounds for the critically endangered orange bellied parrot (under 200 wild birds). These feeding grounds – saltmarshes with the native plants the feed on – used to stretch across the coast of all of Victoria. It is a big deal, more important than the novelty of wild harvesting interesting foods.
Swan Bay is a protected area, but please leave all Victorian saltmarshes alone; there are precious few left and they are ecologically important sites for tens of thousands of birds besides the orange bellied parrot, as well as supporting even more insects, amphibians and other forms of wildlife.
Wild harvesting sounds lovely and quaint in theory, but we’re in an age where we’ve destroyed much of the native environment and need to protect the handful left, not further destroy it by walking through it, harvesting plants and encouraging others to do so. Please do your research before wild harvesting, on both the plants you intend to harvest and the area you’re harvesting from.
However there are lots of salt marshes in unprotected areas…….