Waitrose taps into the popularity of foraging by stocking sea vegetables

Columnist and Senior Features Writer

Monday 30 May 2011

IT'S what every good-lifer dreams of: popping out for a ramble along the nearby coastline and bringing back a feast of edible delights to rustle up in the kitchen at home.

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SUSAN SWARBRICK

Such is the demand for foraged fare that one supermarket plans to tap into the burgeoning trend by stocking sea vegetables.

Samphire and sea aster, both native British plants, will appear at Waitrose fresh fish counters this summer for the first time.

Classed as sea vegetables, rather than seaweed, both have a light delicate flavour. They take just a few minutes to steam cook or sautee and are usually served with fish, seafood or saltmarsh lamb.Among those to have sung the praises of samphire, typically found in marshlands and mudflats around estuaries, is television chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall – who is a long-time fan of seashore sourced ingredients.For those who want to try their own hand at foraging around Scotland’s coastlines there is plenty of scope, says Xa Milne, co-owner of Edinburgh-based Forage Rangers.Ms Milne and her business partner Fiona Houston, authors of the book Seaweed and Eat It, are keen to educate about the abundance of natural and wild foods growing in Scotland. The pair organise regular forage tours around the Fife coastline to teach people how to identify and get the most out of marine vegetables.They scour shorelines for a variety of food including winkles, crabs, clams and edible seaweed whose spine they cut up and include in stir fries.“Not only is there the taste benefits of discovering wild produce, but foraging is an adventure as well, we like to think of it as a bit like an edible treasure hunt,” said Ms Milne. “There is a real enjoyment which comes from finding and identifying an ingredient then taking it home to cook and eat it. The joy in connecting with the outdoors is almost primal.” A third sea vegetable called Okahijiki, originally from Japan, will make its UK supermarket debut at Waitrose in late June.

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Waitrose taps into the popularity of foraging by stocking sea vegetables

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