And here's the perfect news for all beginners in foraging who are stopping themselves to do it because they are frantic with worry about picking toxic species: none of the marine species are toxic. Not all of them are pleasant in taste though, but species like sea lettuce (Ulva lactuca) and dulse (Palmaria palmata) are very easy to find, and delicious. You've probably seen sea lettuce countless times on trips to the beach. It looks like a head of lettuce floating in the sea. Next time you'll spot it, you'll know it IS a head of (sea) lettuce floating in the sea.
We love this in vegetable stock or miso soup, sprinkled on avocados or in cucumber salads.
It's also one of the ingredients we use for making our own herbal salt.
Here's the recipe:
- 2/3 cup sea salt
- 1/3 cup chopped herbs, anything you have in your herb garden, this time we used thyme, rosemary, parsley, hyssop, lovage, lemon balm, nasturtium leaves... and some seaweed
To prepare the herbal salt, put herbs (including seaweeds) with salt in a blender and mix. Put in jar, label, done. How easy was that? Now you have year-round access to the summer herbs of your garden. And the sea.
The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach - waiting for a gift from the sea.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh