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Coastal Foraging: Recipes and Articles

It will come as no surprise that the UK is an island and is therefore bordered by a vast and
magnificent coastline.

I imagine most of us were introduced to the delights of the seaside as children, which included many joyful and seemingly timeless hours of innocent fun, exploring rock-pools, coastal caves, racing imaginary horses (unicorns?) along and through the fringes of the incoming and outgoing tides, eating ice-cream, partially burying your favourite, yet annoying sibling and sculpting them into strange creations, adorned with various coastal debris & tucking fish n chip dinners, complete with the random obligatory grains of sand that somehow find their way in no matter how carefully you attempt to fend off their incursions - magic!

I've always been fascinated by the coast and the majority of my childhood holidays were spent at various locations around the UK and I consider myself very fortunate to have experienced those times. Our seas, for the majority are within easy reach. In the UK no-one is more than 80 miles from the sea and you don't require a car to get there, just a bit of planning.

As I journeyed further down the foraging path, the more I felt myself connected and drawn to the energy, elements, wonder, mystery, beauty and abundance of our natural environments. For me, the sea is the best of both worlds, where ocean meets land: a great combination. High tides, low tides, spring and neap tides, estuaries, salt marshes, mudflats, cliffs, caves, shingle, sand dunes, harbours, piers, jetties the list goes on and each of these habitats provide a unique and varied range of wild edible treasures!

All this aside there are many things we just don't understand about our oceans and that is very much reflected in the way some of us treat it, as an infinite source of food - there to be exploited - as a dumping ground (sewage, chemicals, litter - whether we are aware of it or not). Our oceans, as with all natural environments deserve and require our respect and if we can't offer the support it provides us, it will stop supporting us. If we can learn to practice a deeper mindfulness, respect and care of the oceans on a global scale, the very experiences we had as children will be there for future children to experience.

I hope this page will inspire you to to connect or even deepen your connection with the ocean and coastline and it's varying lifeforms, rhythms, energies and mysteries. I hope to explore the ways in which our culinary experiences can facilitate this and that you'll join me on this journey of exploration. If you're interested in attending coastal events or would like to learn more about coastal foraging you can contact me at: edible.leeds@gmail.com  or on 07899752447.

Coastal Recipes

Mackerel Pate

Seaweeds: Article

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