Foraging Texas

[lovebenton0]

I have the grandaddy of all dewberry patches located. 

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lucky you, fifi! we used to grow a bunch on the old place. dewberries and mulberries made my berry season! would love to encourage some here...

[fifi]

Bumping this back up because we hit the jackpot last weekend. I also need to correct some inaccuracies in my Foraging the Texas Gulf Coast foodblog from back in May. It seems that some of what we have been lumping into the term Samphire, really isn't.

Just to recalibrate, this is where we are, on the bay side of Galveston Island at San Luis Pass in the salt flats.

Back in the blog, what I was calling Samphire is really Saltwort, Vidrillos, or Turtleweed, scientific name Batis maritima. Here it is growing:

And a close-up:

What wasn't obvious back in May was the "real" Samphire, Glasswort or scientific name Salicornia biglovei or maybe virginicus. And, in this season it turns a lovely red.

And a close-up:

We snacked on both of these the whole trip. Then, while we were preparing dinner, some of it on cocktail crackers with Marscapone cheese was a delight. This was a nice prelude to a simple saute of shrimp and fennel on rice. We put quite a lot of our find in a favorite salad of mixed greens, red onion and mandarin orange sections. The mix of red, yellow and light green was beautiful and I am kicking myself for not getting a picture but we were pretty hungry by then.

We also found some Sea Purslane, Sesuvium sessile, on the beach side in the dunes. Like a dummy, I forgot to get a picture of it growing. It is so pretty with its little magenta flowers and red stems. A favorite way to use this is to lightly saute some of the leaves in butter and put in an omelet. The leaves are similar in taste to the above, salty with a pleasant tartness, and maybe a bit tarter in a clean sort of way.

Here is a close-up of the Purslane:

Sadly, we were too late for Coquinas. Probably, the last cool front, or maybe Rita caused them to skeedaddle back offshore. Oh well, there is always next year.