Product Description

For the forager, the seashore holds surprising culinary potential. In this authoritative, witty book John Wright takes us on a trip to the seaside. But before introducing us to the various species to be harvested, he touches on such practicalities 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 is 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, velvet swimming crab); molluscs (clams, cockle, dog whelk, limpet, mussel, oyster, razor clam, winkle); mushrooms; plants (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, wild thyme); and seaweed (carragheen, dulse, gut weed, laver, pepper dulse, sea lettuce, sugar kelp, 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #765 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Review
'A perfect, and beautiful, book for beginners or intermediate-level shore-foragers' Guy Dimond, Time Out

About the Author
John Wright's passion for the foraging life is unbounded; he can be found from waist-deep in the sea collecting seaweed to ten feet up a tree picking mushrooms. He has become a regular lecturer and guide at River Cottage HQ. His first book, Mushrooms, the first River Cottage Handbook, was described in the Independent as 'the best guide to gathering and eating wild mushrooms there has ever been' and was shortlisted for the Jeremy Round award.

Customer Reviews

Fantastic Foraging Guide
A visit to the seaside will never be the same again after reading this brilliant book. I had always wondered what wild food could be collected down by the sea but had been too worried to try anything - and the things I knew you could eat I didn't know how to catch. This book explains it all in a clear and wickedly amusing way. About forty species are covered, from something called "sea beet", which is easy to find, through to lobster for which you will need to wade out with a pot at low tide. The big revelation for me is the seaweed section - these are the easiest of things to collect and, the book tells me, delicious if you know how to cook them. Which brings me to the recipes - the panacotta is delicious and I'm looking forward to trying all the others.

This book is beautifully produced and written. It is also lol funny and stuffed with really useful information.

The perfect book for shore anglers
This is a brilliant book if you like the idea of foraging for food on the seashore, and many things that live there appear to be edible. This book will very useful for shore anglers, who will have plenty of time to poke around while they are waiting for a bite. Some recipes are truly simple - Kelp Crisps: cut into squares, deep fry, eat. Others are more complex - shore crab soup is one but well worth it to exact revenge on those bait-robbers. John's writing is also very funny, you will find something to make you grin or laugh out loud on almost every page.

The best foraging book I own!
Utterly brilliant. For anyone with an interest in coastline foraging it is a must. I own many seaweed & seashore ID books & many recipe books on the same subject but finally I have all the information I want in one book that will always be with me when I head off to the coast.

I read it cover to cover the same day it arrived, that's how good it is!

J