More on samphire

I know I’m only meant to have one idea in each sentence. but can I have two ideas in a blog post.

The common thread is Clotilde Dusoulier’s Chocolate & Zucchini where she brings a French perspective to the salty marsh crop. Known as salicornia she first ate it on family holidays to Brittany, a spot where i spent a lot of my childhood too.
In May local food blog Confessions of a Food Nazi found some at Victoria market for $30/kg. Meanwhile, at Cook Sister, a whole load of samphire action was rounded up. The most interesting thing on this post was:

“…at Ras al-Zawr on the northeastern coast of Saudi Arabia, some enterprising folk have started the first commercial scale cultivation of samphire. As the plant contains edible proteins and more vegetable oils than soya beans, and can be irrigated entirely with seawater, it is a miracle crop for countries like Saudi Arabia where water is scarce. Once processed it can be used to feed livestock, but plans are afoot to export the succulent tips to Europe as a gourmet ingredient.”

Seeing as water is now so scarce in Australia it seems that samphire,although it does have a short season, would be the ideal drought resistant crop. In fact it thrives on one thing we do have plenty of – salt water. Now it is up to some enterprising farmer to cultivate I and export it.