Maritime plants: Nature did not await us
(Claude Achille)
 

We are in full period of seasonal human migration. The nature, which takes always great care of the future, did not see us arriving with your large feet the homo sapien ones. I speak to you about this state where, like a mother-to-be, nature awaits a happy event. Period of great agitation, the beautiful days are among most fragile of the year. Not to harm the natural ecosystem of the seaside too much it is necessary for us to speak about the plants which are naturally generous. The edible or medicinal plants maritime are, like their terrestrial sisters, important and owe adhered to beings. I will not do one to you conceals on the maritime flora, but simply you speak about some plants, of our coasts, very badly known and especially very little adhered to.

Let us start with the coastal strip. The ground of the littoral was always exploited, especially in Brittany because the center of the country had a very poor ground before come from the chemical fertilizers. For the pets and savages, this brackish soil remains a territory of luxury, to think of the sheep the pre one salted. The poles of air are not that grazing grounds and the littoral is not either that a vegetable ground, in certain country like England, of the professionals collect and exploit a plant condiment called which life feet in sea water. On our premises the gathering of the wrack is the only exploitation of the maritime plants by professionals.

We thus will speak a little the kitchen about this maritime flora which like the other plants have nutritive and medicinal virtues. But as of other plants pure and hard, often called with contempt of the algae, not to forget not as the algae appeared, there is approximately 3.7 billion years. In addition to the manure which they become once in the ground, it should be noted that some of the algae are vegetables worthy of the French gastronomy, with food values and gustatory impressive. For better approaching the serious problems of the kitchen of the fisherman to foot, it appears important to me to begin this explanation with some terrestrial plants, then to quietly direct us to the bottom of water.

If you never sought to taste certain flowers, I invite you to Testes following:

To taste the flowers of season: The primula, the violet, the thought, the mimosa, the dandelion, rapeseed, the pink, the nasturtium, the sweet pea, the concern, the borage… Déjà with this quoted terrestrial you will be able to approach new salads, and moreover, to add them in your preparations will not harm the cooking of your fish quite to the contrary. 

Who among you did not taste a pellet with the violet or to suck a flower of honeysuckle?
But which among you makes soup of flowers of dandelions to the nettles with wild garlic?
Do you know the cucumber taste which in mouth the borage develops?
And do you know the peppered heat of the nasturtium?

To know a minimum of plants here which to is carried of all, so in more they are edible, I am sure that will seem easier to you.

Dimensioned maritime you will be able to identify in your stroll

-         Maritime pushing a little everywhere on the littoral it goes up until more far from the estuaries. It follows the water of      sea like a chick his/her mother. She is not edible      but it bears the name of marine eyelet you will guess      why!
-         The maritime bindweed is the worthy cousin of terrestrial but with more color, it is not to sometimes happen to carry it at home under my boots, Mr is a traveller and once loses his colors it lost the sea.
-         The core with gum, which resembles wild core but in very small, is a good ecological indicator, like the gorses and the heathers, in cushion they show an area where it is impossible to plan to establish shafts with long roots.
-         The blue thistle was gathered so much in my sector, to make clusters, which it is truly in perdition. The trampling of the walkers is finishing work. Damage for the dunes which undergo the tourist latest thing of ventures, there is even in preparation for the marathons.
-         In the protected series, you will be able to admire the maritime, superb cabbage vegetable which passed at the edge of disappearance. It at 30 years my grandmother collected there the starts-up of cabbage and ate we them hot  

with a knob of butter. Ten years afterwards, I collected their seeds to resow them on the sites where they had disappeared. Now it is saved but I still do not eat any, perhaps in a few years. But the problem is the same one as for the blue thistle, their administrative protectors sell more tourist than of the prevention. It is a question of powder to the eyes to hang grants. It remains, like always, the to pay the devastations caused by certain careerists deprived of good sense.

The expendable ones

-         The maritime , there if you are a little botanist, you will recognize an ancestor of all the pot beet . In spring I collect the starts up and cooked like spinaches or white beets, it is a vegetable which deserves one 18/20 by its freshness and its maritime character.

-         The is actually a small shrub of the salted meadows, the old ones of my family gathered it in spring, when its leaves are tender, to make tortas of them. I do not know if it is a bad memory of childhood, but I do not cook any more this plant.

-         The pushes abundantly in the muddy sectors, preserved in the vinegar it is very liked British, I acknowledge to eat some if I have some on the table, it replaces gherkins, but I do not make the effort put some out of bottles. To always gather it young person so not they are fibrous.

-         The fennel also pushes him on the littoral it remains of small size the climate of the seaside is a little hard. Not need to tell you how the kitchen with fennel takes a dial tone of freshness, moreover this plant helps with digestion.

-          marine or bores stone: Here are which can make you to it lord of the return of fisheries. Firstly, its perfume releases a remarkable flavor which goes so well with fish that it is one to fish which to forget it, it re-enters in all salads, annealed with rice it makes wonder, in short a pleasure. Secondly, out of herb tea it helps you to remove you from cellulitis and there with a little tact your partner will accept this new plant as you can guess it (silk diplomat) I am always made a small vinegar of for the winter, the conservation in coarse salt is another solution to be meditated.

Some algae

This plant is not really new in our attitudes, the old ones used a small red alga to thicken the blanks ( Breton) and at the fifteenth century, in , the algae saved famine large

section of the population. During the First World War a scientist had studied the algae as food complement for too old horses which could not fire the guns any more from our army. The results of its observations were astonishing, the old horses at the end of a certain time took again their and seemed in full form.

Many scientists look further into search in sectors like the food one, the cosmetics, industrialist etc You can find in our life of the every day, the trace of the algae in the composition of glass, the photo films, the creams serve, your toothpaste, and so much of other implementations like the food complements of the livestock etc

For the party which relates to us, it is a question of understanding well that the algae are plants. They have a biological cycle like the terrestrial plants. I consume on average from 10 to g of algae per years. They re-entered in my kitchen, not for their qualities Re-minéralisatrices but well because they are delicious, I prepare them with the Frenchwoman but the Asian ones have also very good receipts.

How all plants not to never collect a plant in a sector with position risk!

If you have problems with your thyroid gland avoided the algae, they are rich in iodine.

For the pessimists, to keep in the freezer a section of laminar , the day of the nuclear war, you make a decoction of this alga to drink it while waiting for the distribution of the iodine pellets.  

As always there are plants vegetables and other condiments, the algae are with with the same culinary concern. Personally I do not preserve plants for the winter, my crop vegetable is consumed in the course of the years and my gatherings of plants, poppet valves or algae remain for a kitchen from day to day. After this lie I can acknowledge you that I keep in the (g salt of for g of plants) some algae, only for my exchange rate-bubbles and not more than nths to the refrigerator.

-         The green alga which pushes very high on the estran, you walk immediately above while arriving at the beach. It is to be collected far from these places in isolated sectors. It perfume rice and gives him an original color, its taste is well marked.
-          red alga resembles a maroon plastic leaf but it is fantastic (Asian appeal ) it is very rich of all points of view.
-          or lettuce of sea: Symbol of pollution it is however very good if you collect it in a salubrious sector. His taste being well marked, I make use of it like the in cooking (court bubble or aromatic)
-          or peppered alga, it has a taste of shell (oyster) very marked, a small sauce with the cream prepared with it will give you in mouth a great emotion.
-          is an alga which I also use as condiment, its taste is not too strong and its qualities are sizeable. It re-enters with , and in the composition of my salt to the algae.
-          or spaghetti of sea. There we will touch the significant item of my fuel supply vegetables of the sea. This brown alga is a true delight when it is consumed fresh (I tested dried and out of pot: ! ) To be sure not this to mislead, it with a foot which starts in the poppet valve form. They this cut of during a few months, in June March. Before it is too small, after it is too hard. It pushes in sectors beaten by the sea.
-         The Laminar ones are there: There is a brown alga in the form of blade which I use more than the other, but actually it nor has that two laminar which is worth the gathering. The laminar bulbous one and the laminar belt of Venus.
-         Laminaire Bulbeux () it is easy to recognize since its foot forms an enormous roughcast hollow bubble of warts. You will find it only in spring tide. How with all the laminar ones I test his quality of tenderness insert a nail in his sling of it (left high) the party which one eats is the growth of the year which is at the end of the stem over a 30 centimetres length!
-         Laminar Venus belt () with its single sling all corrugated, it also is easy to recognize with the bottom of water in spring tide in sheltered sectors. Its quality first in kitchen is made that it takes the taste of the food which it surrounds, for the fish curlpapers it makes wonder.

The kitchen with algae remains a business to be discovered. He exchange rates given by professionals of the gastronomy, people which I met having followed his exchange rates mount not given the desire for making publicity of it. The consulting that to address to you is simple: To go to discover the algae

professionals to identify them with certainty. I found of good book on the kitchen with the algae worthy of like reference, they too often made to sell commercial, I do not have anything against but everyone has to eat its gathering. is a right which I support savagely.

For the summer 2004 I intend to work on the creation of educational tools with the purpose of popularizing the use the algae in fuel supply, we will speak again about it soon without any doubt.

The Council of friend

To collect the coldly detached algae, especially the laminar ones, which are in leaves open sea (cord which the sea leaves when it is withdrawn) Laver the algae with fresh water and ridges to dry them in the shade. Once dry, it keeps their properties for the baths of youth.

- > To take three handles of dry algae for two liters of water, ridges to boil inutes and add to your water of bath while filtering. Let your body soak during inutes every 2 days during one week, here are you are Re-mineral-bearing for nths (that happiness)

To collect lets it open sea when it is quite dry, pose to it all on a very hard ground and go above to reduce out of coarse powder your collection. In the this powder will give a whiplash to vegetables, to avoid the strawberries this small fruit red does not like too the maritime force of the algae.

If you cook traditional and that you ridges still stews on ember, the feather-grass dryness   (the foot in the form of stem of the algae) of laminar, it was used as fuel by the sailors, the peat too. The bitter odor that the laminar ones release comes to scent your dish and gives again an authentic tablet with the full of fish stew of our grandmothers.

To keep in memory that the algae are like poppet valves and the other plants they are fragile, they must be crossed above the feather-grass by leaving a little plant for the reproduction. To consume only fresh and clean plants, food hygiene is not a fable. The gathering of the algae requires as the fisheries of foot to be serious and to keep in memory the elementary safety regulations.