Seaweed seafood found on Dorset shores

Description:

Seaweed Seafood!

John Wright from Maiden Newton in Dorset has been a forager for as long as he can remember and began cockling as a small child.

For thirty years he's learnt all about mushroom hunting and now he's taken to the shores of Dorset.

Seaweed is his favourite coastal ingredient for a home-cooked recipe and when visiting the beach he does not leave the house without a pair of scissors, a bucket and a net.

John believes Dorset has the best coastline in the UK for food because of the varied habitat of rocky shores, sandy areas and pebble beaches.

Although seaweed is common on our shores, John doesn't think enough people have tried it. He said: "It's such a shame  because down here it's absolutely free. You can find seaweed anywhere there's a rocky shore. You can stand in a rock pool and you can pick five or six different species of edible seaweed, without even moving your feet."

John originally became interested in seaweed after reading some old books about marine algae. He said: "They're written by eccentrics frankly and they've got this enormous enthusiasm for seaweed. I promised I'd never be like that, but here I am doing just what they did."

John admits that seaweed doesn't always look as tempting as it tastes. "The crispy seaweed hasn't got a very attractive name - it's called gut weed and it does look like a lot of little green intestines. You can just pick it, dry it off as much as you can and then just throw it in hot oil, sprinkle some salt on it, a little bit of pepper and it's absolutely superb. Carrageen is probably my favourite seaweed because you can make puddings out of it.

It's a setting agent, a bit like gelatine but vegetarian. I make seaweed and elderflower panna cotta and it's absolutely delicious."

When there's nothing left to forage on the shoreline John heads to the top shores where he believes an amazing variety of plants can be found. He says: "Sea beet is very much like spinach. If you go to the supermarket, you can pay about £1.89 for a packet of spinach. I could pick the best part of a hundred weight for nothing, in about half an hour, if I wanted."

Foraging doesn't come without it's dangers and although there are no poisonous seaweeds some of the plants can be deadly. John says: "The worst one which you mostly find earlier in the year is called hemlock water dropwort. That's worse than a lot of toadstools. A nasty toadstool will have you dead in a couple of weeks, a decent helping of hemlock water dropwort will have you dead in three hours."

So be careful!

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