It’s hot. 1976 hot. Scorched grass. Withered plants.
It’s times like this that the farmer gets twitchy. Images of dust-bowls and draught go through their mind.
For the forager it’s different. We aren’t farmers. We don’t need to live in fear of scarcity. Of food running out.
As foragers, we do what hunter-gatherer communities have always done.
We move.
We move down to the coast because in Summer that’s where all the lushness is. Inland it’s harder. Of course, you CAN forage inland during the Summer.
But why struggle. Life can be hard enough. So as foragers we take the easy option. We go to the beach.
Who doesn’t want to go to the beach during the summer anyway? Especially with a summer like we are having at the moment.
And down along the estuaries, where the rivers meet the sea lies the queen of summer greens…
… Sea aster (Tripolium pannonicum syn. Aster tripolium)
Delicious. So delicious in fact that you might even find it being sold in your local supermarket. Mind, it will set you back £25 a kilo or so.
Better to take time out, and go forage it yourself.
Remember: You don’t reconnect to the Land in a supermarket. And you don’t reconnect staring at social media.
Ingredients
- 1 small cauliflower
- 200g sea aster leaves and succulent stems
- 1 red onion (minced)
- 2 handfuls of cherry tomatoes (halved or chopped)
- Juice of one lemon
- ½ cup of olive oil
- cracked black pepper
Instructions
- Cut the cauliflower into small pieces and put in a food processor. Blitz until the size of rice grains. Tip into a salad bowl.
- Roughly chop the sea aster, pop in the food processor and blitz until it looks like chopped parsley. Add to the salad bowl.
- Finely chop up the red onions, add to salad bowl along with the chopped cherry tomatoes. Mix everything together.
- Mix together the lemon juice and olive oil. Pour over the ingredients in the salad bowl and give it a give stir until mixed in well.
Serves 4 people as a side dish.