Rock Samphire

Rock Samphire (Crithmum maritimum) is a wild edible plant growing in rocky shores, cliffs, and rock crevices. It grows best in full sun and well-drained soil. 

Its dark green succulent leaves and stalks have a salty taste - maybe acquired by salt air and splashed by the sea where it grows. It surprisingly belongs to the same botanical family as carrot or parsley (Apiaceae). The seed pods which can be found from August to October can be pickled and used as a substitute for capers.

Your best bet to buy fresh Rock Samphire is to talk with a local fishmonger, or buy pickled Rock Samphire. Otherwise, foraging - following local regulations and not hanging your kid upside down by a rope around the ankles to pick it from a cliff.

How to cook Rock Samphire

Rock Samphire can be eaten raw in salads or added to sushi, bringing a salty crunchy flavour to dishes.

It is also boiled, steamed, or sautéed as a quick and easy side dish, usually paired with seafood. Some recipes boil it along with fish, to intensify a sea-like flavour.

Young leaves, stems and seeds can be pickled. Picked Rock Samphire was very popular in Victorian times cuisine, paired with other ingredients such as quail eggs. By then, it was harvested in the Isle of Wight, off the South coast of Britain, and transported to London in casks of salt water to be sold on the street markets.

Rock Samphire can also be infused and consumed as a tea. The tea has a pleasant, salty and spicy taste, and it is an excellent natural source of vitamin C and flavonoids.

Recently it has been used also in a Rock Samphire Gin.

Rock Samphire has 30 times the vitamin C content of an orange 

In ancient Greece and during the Middle Ages it had medicinal uses: a strong extract has been used traditionally as a herbal remedy for intestinal worms. Thanks to its high levels of vitamin C, it was also used as a treatment for scurvy. Some of the polyacetylenes found in the plant, for example falcarinon, are regarded as natural antibiotics and the positive effect rock samphire has on the digestive and urinary tract system is partly due to some of its antimicrobial properties. The essential oil in the herb is also thought to be good for the digestive system. It may be helpful in reducing intestinal gas production in the same manner as fennel (Foeniculum vulgare). The leaves of the plant have a reputation of being helpful for losing weight and to treat obesity, an effect that can be partly explained by the herb’s content of iodine. 

The plant was very popular until the early 20th Century in Britain. It is thought to be the species mentioned by Shakespeare in King Lear because of the dangerous and unorthodox method of foraging up to the 1700s:

The traditional foraging of samphire was done often by children dangled by their legs from a rope tied around their ankles and they picked it from the cliff faces!

Shakespeare, in Act 4, Scene 6 of King Lear has Edgar deceive his blind father, Gloucester, leading his deluded parent over level ground while pretending to climb the cliffs of Dover, inventing a vertiginous view from a height:

Edg. Come on, sir; here’s the place: stand still. How fearful and dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low! The crows and choughs that wing the midway air Show scarce so gross as beetles; half way down Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade! Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.

It has been mostly foraged, rather cultivated. Because of over-foraging and coastal development, the wild population of rock samphire was reduced and it became a protected plant in Great Britain since 1971. It’s also listed as endangered in other parts of Europe, such as the Balearic Islands. 

Tags: Ingredients from the past, Coast, Wild, Salad, Leaf, Beach, Vegetable, Sea, Mediterranean, Europe