Foraging by the Beach - What You Can Gather in April

The year's first beach gathering trip.

Here in April, I went on the year's first gathering trip at the beach.
It is still early spring, and the weather changes from day to day, but the plants push forward with indomitable will, and there is already plenty to find, ready to eat.

Here I will present some sure winners that are easy for you to find already here in April.

Sea kale

Once you have spotted the first one, they are quite easy to recognize. 
They break through the ground with their small knotted purple shoots and will over the next few months grow into large strong cabbage plants with strong gray-green soft leaves and white flower heads.
In old days, the plant was called 'Asparagus herb'.
Fishermen bleached the stems with seaweed and sand, so they grew long and pale, as we know from asparagus.

The leaves have a strong cabbage flavor, and in my opinion, only the tender shoots are really tasty, or if you are lucky enough to find a plant under a large pile of seaweed, so it is bleached.
Later in the season, they will have large beautiful flower heads that you can use like broccoli or sprinkle the flowers over your food.

Finally, it will produce large crowns with round seed heads (you can usually still see them the following year, unless a strong storm has taken them first). When the seed heads are fresh and green, it is said they can be enjoyed like peas, just with a bit more bite, though I have not tried this myself.

The Food Administration recommends that you only consume it in limited amounts (about 3 x 30 grams), but no acute poisoning cases have been reported.

  

Tiny sea purslane shoots

Sea purslane is one of the beach plants you can often easily gather in large quantities, as it is quite widespread.
It often grows in old washed-up seaweed, where it can get nutrients from.
Early in the year, like here in April, the shoots are still so tender that it is best used as a garnish on, for example, an egg sandwich, a piece of steamed fish, or as part of a salad. But soon it will stand with its tall beautiful stems and later small greenish flowers.
It is easy to use in your kitchen. It tastes like spinach with a delicious salty touch, and you can use it the same way you would normally use spinach, but it also works well in a pesto.

Toothless Corn Salad

Toothless Corn Salad is usually one of the plants you can forage in abundant amounts on the beach. It overwinters, which means you can start gently picking it early in the year.
You probably already know the taste from lamb’s lettuce, which you can buy in most supermarkets; toothless corn salad is its wild cousin, and you can use it the same way you would use lamb’s lettuce.
It is almost always the case with wild plants that you get a more complex flavor; soil, weather, sky, and sea leave their best mark, giving everything an extra dimension, and it’s just wonderful to eat fresh food you have gathered yourself.