An Insight into Coastal Foraging with Falassa

Falassa is my name. I have the first licence - experimental as it is - in England to harvest commercially attached macroscopic algae (sea weed/veg) in England.

My concern is marine ecology and the ability of coastal communities to develop economic/social sustainability. 

Down here in the west of Cornwall it is said that if you have only three jobs you are unemployed. A bit of fishing maybe, some chippie work, missus off to clean holiday lets...if you are real unlucky missus gets to do care work...if you are real real unlucky you get to do the care work.

 

Enough! The mackerel are headed north-westwards into the welcoming and deathly embrace of Faro-ese nets. Rain comes down with incessant regularity to drown our vegetables in the summer. Half of Cornwall is seeded with spuds which, shrouded by phosphorescant blue poison tablets, are destined for Leicester and Walker’s Chrisp Factory – then return.

And then folk watch the sainted Hugh on TV and come down and overturn rocks for crabs, hack away at the marsh samphire and burrow for cockles. Prince Fuckwit owns the manorial rights to the shellfish, Lord ffffVyvian owns God knows what…

In the bay self-styled eco-fishermen hang the delightfully termed tangle-nets in the bay (catch everything) and there is vague talk about banning fish discards. A hungry man never discards, but we are not hungry – so we discard.

Hunting sea-veg for the kitchen is a bit of a conceptual long shot. Easy maybe to understand that it’s better to be vegetarian on the basis that a steak takes three times its volume of plants to make itself. But how do I get across the message that it’s better to eat the seaweed than the carrots that are so enthusiastically covered in storm-cast algae?

Anyhows…just let’s start with the idea that plants grow in the sea whatever the weather conditions, that they soak up a complex array of minerals, nutrients, trace elements…and that the chemical processes of these plants then create proteins and sugars and this and that.

And all year round…whilst in January we might just have nettles on-shore, below the shore line are plants full of goodness and culinary intrigue. Their bed-mates are molluscs and bi-valves, at their best in the winter when they are not spawning. Ever tried a stir fry of kelp, pepper dulse and mussels?

I am trying to persuade the nation that sea plants are good to eat with nutritional/health benefits that are said to be stratospheric (there is a bundle of peer reviewed research around). Whisper it but quietly, but we do have our own super foods within reach – easy reach.

Except: it’s never that simple. As a seaweed harvester I am classified as a primary food producer. This means that I have to write a Food Safety Management System, establish Critical Control Points, have my premises (mother’s greenhouse) inspected, obtain landowners’ permission, undertake ecological impact reviews and…oh, I can’t remember now. Insurance or something.

Actually, it’s all fine, I am happy to comply and think my way through hygiene issues. And, I can tell you something simple: hand harvesting sea veg is arduous, dangerous, frustrating and yet…uplifting. It’s not an easy buck, but who wouldn’t be up to their waste in water in an almost lunar rock landscape on a forgotten stretch of Cornish coastline?

I am getting on in years now, probably happiest building boats but I can now combine boat-building and sea veg harvesting. Lessons are being learnt the hard way, and I want to pass on my knowledge.

So this year I will be running some events on my bit of hidden coast, maybe even setting up a training course with a ticket at the end. Sea plants are curious, weird, complex creatures, little understood. I love them, an d always say a little ancient  Scottish prayer before cutting:

May the glory of the sea be thine
May the glory of the earth be thine
And may the glory of heaven be thine

When you get to pick some marine algae, remember to nibble them first, cut lightly (a third of the plant half way up) with scissors and avoid busy beaches. Dry the leaves in the sun, then pack away.

More information on courses and holidays at www.falassa.co.uk