Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Wild Food guide to Sea Spray along with all the Sea Spray containing recipes presented on this site, with 4 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Cornish recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Sea Spray as a major wild food ingredient.



Suaeda maritima, commonly known as sea spray or seablite is a yellow-green shrub with fleshy, succulent leaves and green flowers. It grows to about 35 cm in salt marshes. It is edible as a leaf vegetable, and due to its high salt content it can be used in combination with other foods as a seasoning. It has a global distribution, but is most common around European coasts and saline areas inland, south from Norway to eastern Asia, E. Indies, N. America.

It grows on salt marshes around the world, native to some places and naturalised in other. Usually found in the higher-up sections that aren’t flooded every tide, in full sun.

Suaeda maritima is an annual growing to 0.3 m (1ft) by 0.3m (1ft) in upright bunches, leaves and stems a cool shade of glaucous green (ie has a visible bluish-grey shimmer). The leaves are 0.5-4 cm long and 1–3 mm broad, shaped like succulent fleshy needles, connected directly to the stem. They superficially looking a bit like the garden rosemary that gives it its other common name (Sea Rosemary), although the two plants are not closely related.

The flowers are tiny and green, nestling where the leaves meet the stem. The buds look a bit like tiny brussels sprouts, which then open into 5 sections revealing little cream anthers carrying the pollen. When young they start with one stem growing straight upwards, but as they mature more branching stems grow from the sides and base. the stems are usually the same shade of glaucous green as the leaves, or occasionally turn purplish-red towards autumn or in drought conditions.

The young leaves of sea blite can be consumed raw or cooked; although it has a strong salty flavour. The seeds can also be consumed raw or cooked. The culinary uses of sea spray over lap those of marsh samphire and in most recipes marsh samphire can be replaced by sea spray (just note that sea spray is much saltier, so adjust quantities to compensate). Due to its saltiness sea spray can be used as a seasoning in place of salt.

References:

[1]. David Evans Notes from field observations, tastings and cookery experiments.
[2]. Huxley, A. The New RHS Dictionary of Gardening. 1992
[3]. Tanaka, T. Tanaka's Cyclopaedia of Edible Plants of the World.
[4]. Lim T.K. Edible Medicinal And Non-Medicinal Plants, Vols 1–8.
[5]. Thomas, G. S. Perennial Garden Plants
[6]. Milner, E. Trees of Britain and Ireland
[7]. Rose, F. & O'Reilly, C. The Wild Flower Key (Revised Edition) – How to identify wild plants, trees and shrubs in Britain and Ireland
[8]. Streeter, D. & Garrard, I. The Wild Flowers of the British Isles
[9]. Clapham, A.R.; Tutin, T.G. & Moore, D.M. Flora of the British Isles
[10]. Phillips, R. Mushrooms
[10]. Phillips, R. Mushrooms
[11]. Jordan, P. & Wheeler, S. The Complete Book of Mushrooms: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Edible Mushrooms
[12]. Bunker, F.; Brodie, J.A.; Maggs, C.A. & Bunker, A. Seaweeds of Britain and Ireland.
[13]. Facciola, S. Cornucopia — A Source Book of Edible Plants