[Sca-cooks] samphire

[Sayyida Halima al-Shafi'i of Raven's Cove]

Here are some links to samphire...sorry I don't have time to summarize 
for a post about it, but the kind referred to in medieval documents is 
Rock samphire, which grows to this day in Cornwall (where I lived) and 
other rocky, coastal place in Europe, and rarely in Australia.

(http://www.riverhouse.com.au/factsheets/rock_samphire.html, 
http://www.oldcity.demon.co.uk/eastanglia/country/samphire.html)

and you can buy jars of it pickled.

There is a kind of samphire that grows in North America, apparently 
known as salicornia (marsh samphire) on the coasts of oceans,  
(http://eat.epicurious.com/dictionary/food/index.ssf?ARROW_UP=3420) but 
I have no experience with it.

If I recall correctly (and I am dredging this wwaaaayyyy up from the 
depths of my poor brain), there is a literary reference to samphire in 
one of Louisa May Alcott's books, in which the child means to say 
"vampire" and instead says "samphire" thereby inviting ridicule from 
someone for comparing someone to a pickle.  This is post period but 
shows that samphire is still alive and kicking.

Halima
Raven's Cove