Edible Seashore

For the forager, the seashore holds surprising culinary potential.

In this authoritative, witty book, John Wright takes us on a trip to the seaside. Before introducing us to the various species to be harvested, he touches on practicalities such as conservation and the ethics of foraging; safety from tides, rocks and food poisoning; the law and access to the shore; our right to fish; landing sizes and seasons; and equipment such as nets, pots and hooks.

Next comes the nitty-gritty: all the main British seashore species that one might be tempted to eat. The conservation status, taste and texture, availability, seasonality, habitat, collecting technique and biology of each species are covered. There are also quite a few gratuitous but fascinating diversions.

The species covered include crustacea: brown shrimp, common crab, lobster, prawn, shore crab, spider crab, squat lobster and velvet swimming crab.

Molluscs include clams, cockle, dog whelk, limpet, mussel, oyster, razor clam and winkle.

Other species include mushrooms; plants such as alexanders, babbington's orache, fennel, frosted orache, marsh samphire, perennial wall rocket, rock samphire, sea beet, sea buckthorn, sea holly, sea kale, sea purslane, sea rocket, spear-leaved orache, wild cabbage and wild thyme; and seaweed such as carragheen, dulse, gut weed, laver, pepper dulse, sea lettuce, sugar kelp and kelp.

Finally, there are thirty brilliant recipes.

Introduced by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Edible Seashore is destined to join the other handbooks in the series as an indispensable household reference.