food from the edge - seaweed foraging

The tide is low as we pick our way through the rocks. The sea lettuce waves at us, beckoning.

Lux doesn't hesitate, she's in the shallow water, shoes and all.

By this stage we'd been in isolation for over a week. She was bored and stir crazy and the sea is a play mate that doesn't tire.

Lux looking out towards the sea and the sea lettuce on the rocks

Plucking sea lettuce is a joyful. Children excel at it. It's easy to spot and easy to gather. It's also filled with nutrients.

Lux standing by the sea with some collected sea lettuce in a container

If you're looking for an easy way to get nutrients into your system (and a delicious way)... seaweed is a great free resource. This winter is looking like a challenging time for many of us. Many people will be planting a vegetable garden for the first time. Many people will be tightening budgets and finding innovative ways to provide adequate nutrients to their family. 

There are many free sources of  highly nutrient dense food growing for free on the margins, on the edges of our beaches, on the edges of our gardens. 

I'll be posting more about edible weeds and recipes in the upcoming weeks.

For now, Seaweed. Sea lettuce this time around!

Want some information on the magical nutrient qualities of seaweed? BAM HERE YOU GO.

Here's an amazing FREE seaweed guide from Milkwood.

And here's some information about seaweed foraging and use from them. 

What did we do with it?

We dehydrated it and turned it into seaweed and garlic butter...

We turned the rest into gomasio... with left over carrot tops (and some sesame seeds and salt)

There are nutrients everywhere if you just look. I never knew where to look. I never knew these kinds of foods were right at my fingertips, at my feet on a shoreline, underfoot in my garden. 

We have been told to turn our nose up at free and wild food, like it is somehow less delicious or inviting in its freeness. 

But I can feel a swell coming, trickling back through our collective toes. I can feel the tide shifting.    We have grown weary of food systems being centralised and out of personal reach. One thing that this situation has made abundantly clear is that our society and food system only works when it is working well. One minor imabalnce and everything stops functioning properly There is no inbuilt resilience.

A lunch time spread -all sides are made from free or "waste" ingredients, acacia dukkah (not all acacia seeds are edible, do your research), carrot top and seaweed gomasio, green tomato ketchup... served with slightly failed sourdough bread and cheese.

 It is time for us to bring our food production home. Into our kitchens. Onto our benchtops. Into our hands as we pull a carrot from the soil we tended and built with the compost from last season's vegetable waste.

It's time for us to become friends with our weeds and get to know their stories, what they tell us about soil deficiences and how they can feed us with their high nutrient density. It's time for us to look to the margins for a greater variety of food sources, food that can feed us through tough times and keep us healthy.

A weed called fat hen, in a basket with some young country blackberry wine (also made from wild harvested ingredients)

It is okay to try new recipes, new garden ventures, new paradigms and fail. This is how we learn. Maybe the  dandelion pie you make tastes bitter and hideous... feed it to your chickens and notch it up as "lesson learned." Maybe your sourdough doesn't rise (guilty!) or your lettuce gets eaten by slugs. It's okay. Things are hard when you're trying them for the first time. There's plenty of advice out there, there are so many free resources. Every time you try, you're learning more and more about what doesn't work, as well as what does and in doing so, you're becoming more resilient, you're becoming braver and knowledgeable... isn't that what you want to role model to you kids? Failing when learning is normal and okay? Learning about new things is part of life and failing is part of that?

In this challenging time, take heart in the fact that you can learn new ways of doing and new ways of being. You can learn new ways of consuming and new ways of eating. 

Big love to you on your adventure.

H

Fat hen separated into uses: top- seed heads for garnishing dishes (they're salty from the seaside), bottom right leaves to be cooked and used in place of spinach, bottom left: goat fodder, compost additions or worm feed (or dry out for fire starters).