Tag Archives: Sea Spaghetti

Edible Seaweeds of the Welsh Wild West

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09/07/19

The stunning Pembrokeshire coast

We have just got back from a week of Welsh sunshine on what is arguably the most spectacular coastline anywhere in the British Isles. It was a busman’s holiday for me, the main reason we were there being that I could search for seaweeds I can’t find in south-east England. Pembrokeshire is a seaweed forager’s dream: crystal clear water, large tidal ranges and a wide variety of different rocky habitats from sheltered to very exposed. And it is these most exposed areas which provide a home for species I don’t find at home. This post covers three of them.

Sea Spaghetti (Himanthalia elongata)

The first of these – Sea Spaghetti (Himanthalia elongata) – I do occasionally find washed up after stormy weather when walking my dog in Hastings, but I have no idea where it has come from, and it is not advisable to eat detached seaweeds, because you can’t tell how long they’ve been dead. The nearest place on the south coast I have ever found it growing is 150 miles west at Lulworth Cove in Dorset, and travelling anti-clockwise round the British coast from there it is rare or absent until you reach Yorkshire, only becoming common near the Scottish border. Sea Spaghetti is an almost hypnotically beautiful species of seaweed, because of the way its long fronds twist and turn with the movement of the water. I could watch it for hours, if it wasn’t for the fact that it is only fully visible when the tide is very low. In the kitchen it is usually used as a substitute for real spaghetti, either completely or 50/50. As such it provides a naturally gluten-free alternative to wheat spaghetti. Like most seaweeds it dries well, and in this case you should make sure it also dried straight, which makes for easier storage.

Flattened Acidweed (Desmarestia ligulata)

There are no poisonous seaweeds – at least not in the sense that we normally think of “poisonous”, but the second of my threesome is about as close to poisonous as a seaweed gets. It belongs to a genus (Desmarestia) that are sometimes called “Sea Sorrels”, which might mislead you into thinking they are good to eat. The land sorrels are excellent salad vegetables, with a tangy, lemon-like taste caused by the presence of oxalic acid. Desmarestia have another common name which might mislead you into thinking they are psychoactive: “Acid Weed”. Unfortunately, the acid in question is the sulphuric variety. Yes, you read that right, these seaweeds contain battery acid. Their internal pH is around 0.5, and if they break open in a container with other seaweeds, they will wreak havoc, destroying everything in the container, including themselves. I’ve never found and identified any of them before, but on one location near an old slate quarry, there was quite a lot of what I believe to be Desmarestia ligulata (which has various common names, such as “Flattened Acid Weed”).

Atlantic Wakame or Winged Kelp (Alaria esculenta)

However, I didn’t travel to the other side of the country to find Sea Spaghetti or Acid Weed; I was there to find the only significant edible native British seaweed I did not have a book-quality photograph of (I am currently working on a book on edible plants and seaweeds). Its Asian relative Wakame (Undaria pinnatifida) is very important in Japanese cuisine. Alaria esculenta has a confusing collection of English common names, including Badderlocks, Dabberlocks and Winged Kelp, but I shall call it Atlantic Wakame. It is reasonably common on exposed rocky coasts from Cornwall, all the way around clockwise to the equally-wild north-east coast of Scotland, but absent on the south and east coasts of England. What makes these Wakame species different from other kelps, both biologically and in

Dorothy inspection

terms of their food use, is their midrib. The midrib is perfectly edible (it is sweet and crunchy and can be eaten raw), but it is the other parts of the blade that are use for salads in Japan. The midrib provides structural support for the blade, which means the “wings” (the rest of the blade) are considerably more tender than other types of kelp, requiring less cooking (or less chewing).

Atlantic Wakame is at its best from early spring until about now. We just had some in a salad for our lunch. Recipe is described below.

Japanese-style Atlantic Wakame Salad

Ingredients:

  • 4 large blades Atlantic Wakame

    Atlantic Wakame Salad

  • 3 tbsp rice vinegar
  • 1 tbsp fresh lime juice
  • 1 tbsp light soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp finely grated ginger
  • 1 tsp honey
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 1 tbsp vegetable oil
  • pinch of sea salt
  • one thinly sliced small home grown cucumber
  • two thinly sliced shallots
  • sprinkle of yellow and black sesame seeds.

Method:

Bring a saucepan of water to the boil. Add the seaweed, bring back to the boil, then remove saucepan from the heat and let the seaweed soften for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, in a bowl, mix the rice vinegar, lime juice, soy sauce, honey, oils and and grated ginger. Whisk in vegetable oil and toasted sesame oil and season with salt. Drain the seaweed, rinse under cold water and pat dry. Remove the midribs and slice. Mix the seaweed well with the sliced cucumbers and scallions, then spoon the dressing over it and garnish with toasted sesame seeds. Serve immediately.

Burdock Root

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Email: geoffdann@hotmail.com
09/05/2017

Greater Burdock (Arctium lappa), invading a flower bed.

One of the great joys of foraging is trying something new and finding out it’s delicious. Sometimes it is something you’ve never found before, or at least never recognised (this is particularly likely with fungi). In the UK there is also another obstacle to trying certain new things, and that is the law that uprooting wild plants without the landowner’s permission is illegal. In some cases this law is a bit irrelevant – nobody is going to notice or complain if you dig up a few Lesser Celandine tubers, for example. They are ludicrously common and abundant, and the tubers are like miniature potatoes, except not far beneath the surface. Burdock is a bit different, especially Greater Burdock, which is a big plant with a big, edible taproot. Not the sort of thing you can just casually uproot and wander off with, without anybody noticing.

Greater Burdock taproot, almost complete

Burdock is, of course, one of the best known of all British wild foods, because it has been combined for centuries with Dandelion to make a beverage, originally alcoholic, usually a soft drink these days (although the drink you’ll find on sale today rarely contains any of either plant). It is well known in herbal medicine also, and claimed to be of use for a wide range of ailments, especially those afflicting the liver.

Burdock is a biennial – it starts growing in the summer of one year, then overwinters in a dormant state before maturing, flowering and setting seed the following year. So when last autumn I noticed one had taken up residence in a flower bed in my back garden, I decided to just let it grow, and harvest it once it had started to become a nuisance. They are supposedly best when harvested around midsummer, but this one was getting too big for its location and so this afternoon I decided to dig it up and try eating it.

Prepared Burdock root

Digging up a Burdock taproot turns out not to be so easy. This one hadn’t even finished growing, but it was still presented a challenge to dig up that comes second only to Horseradish in my personal experience. The main root went well below the deep layer of topsoil and into the thick, sticky clay below. My fork didn’t survive the process, and I eventually had to use a hand trowel to excavate as far down the root as possible, before giving up trying to extract the entire thing undamaged and just pulling has hard as possible. Most of it came out. I presume, and rather hope, that it won’t grow back from the remnant that remained in the ground.

So what to do with it? The leaves were inedibly bitter, but the central part of the stem made a perfectly acceptable snack, briefly microwaved with a bit of butter. The main event was that taproot, though. I had read somewhere that most of the flavour was in the skin, and so to try to remove the dirt with the back of a knife under running water. It proved a bit too dirty and knobbly for this, so I ended up using the blade of the knife and lost quite a bit of the skin.

Steamed Burdock root, with a bit of butter

I tried three different ways of cooking it. Firstly I just microwaved it, with a little butter. This worked quite well, apart from it being tricky to get the timing right. Too short a time and it was a bit tough, too long and it was a bit dried up and crispy. Obviously the “correct time” depends on how much you are microwaving. It is therefore probably better to steam it, since the timing is more consistent and you can just poke it with a fork to see if it is ready. It took about eight minutes to be just right. Again I served with a bit of salted butter, and it was superb. Perhaps a little stringy around the edges, but the taste was delicate and delicious, very similar to Jerusalem Artichoke (to which it is distantly related). Burdock Root is packed with nutrients, especially Vitamin-C and Vitamin-A, and this is one of those wild foods that actually tastes like it is good for you.

Poussin casserole (just getting going in a slow cooker), with Burdock root (and other stuff…)

Finally I popped it into a poussin casserole that was already bubbling away in my slow cooker. This was one of those casseroles containing whatever happened to be available in my fridge/garden, which included a number of other wild foods. There’s some Sweet Cicely (Myrrhis odorata – a member of the Carrot family with a rich, aniseed smell), some Dryad’s Saddle (Polyporus squamosus – one of the few spring-fruiting edible wild fungi) and some Sea Spaghetti (Himanthalia elongata – a seaweed which thickens and adds a bit of umami to a casserole like this).

Poussin Casserole, with Burdock root, Sea Spaghetti, Dryad’s Saddle, Sweet Cicely and various non-wild vegetables and herbs.

The verdict: excellent, especially steamed as a side vegetable and in the casserole (and presumably therefore all manner of soups and stews). In the casserole it works better sliced into sections, rather than in lengthwise segments, so the slightly stringy bits near the edge are less noticeable. But I am an instant convert – this is a first class edible wild plant. If only it was easier to get out of the ground!

If you’re interested in joining a spring foraging course where we’ll (hopefully) be digging up and cooking some Burdock root, there’s still some places left at Bay Tree Cottage in Northamptonshire, this coming Saturday, May 13th.