Foraging Wild Food in Estuaries: The Salt-Marsh Larder

Martin Hesp
Mar 31, 2020
6 min read

Updated: Jul 13

A handful of people who live out in the countryside are comfortable in the knowledge that they can go out and forage for food entirely for free. One of those people is my old friend, Devon chef David Beazley, who must be one of the most knowledgeable cook-foragers in the country.

David Beazley estuary foraging at Teignmouth-Shaldon on the Teign

I have been lucky enough to join David on several wild food adventures over the years. On one memorable outing in the dead-end of January, we tracked the tide lines along the estuarine Teign at Shaldon, opposite Teignmouth, cooking our harvest right on the beach despite sudden showers of rain and stinging hail.

David is an absolute enthusiast when it comes to food for free. His passion isn't about cost or expense; it is all to do with the amazing flavours and textures of the foods he finds, and the sheer joy of the hunt.

As we stood looking out over the sandbanks, he told me: “Food foraging is about the hunt rather than the find. The find is just the bonus.”

I agree with this completely. My theory is that some folk are simply more connected to their inner prehistoric hunter-gatherer than others. Our ancestors relied on hunting and foraging as their sole means of survival for tens of thousands of years, while we modern folk have only been buying stuff in markets for a few centuries. I reckon there are basic instincts lurking within us that are highly capable of pushing buttons of accomplishment, achievement, and absolute delight.

And his passion is not about cost or expense, or lack thereof - it is all to do with the amazing flavours and textures of the foods he finds, and about the joys of the hunt. In fact, when we met on the shores of the estuarine Teign at Shaldon, opposite the much larger community of Teignmouth, he told me: “Food foraging is about the hunt rather than the find. The find is the bonus…”

I agree with this, but can imagine there are many people who won’t. My theory is that some folk are more connected to the inner prehistoric hunter-gatherer than others. Our ancestors relied on hunting and foraging as the only means of survival for tens of thousands of years, while we modern folk have only been buying stuff in markets and so on for just a few centuries - so I reckon there could easily be some basic instincts lurking within us which are capable of pushing buttons of accomplishment, achievement and delight.

I could use all three of these words to describe my feelings about spending a couple of hours with David hunting, picking and cooking on the somewhat icy shores and sandbanks of the Teign.

Despite being well wrapped up against the cold, one of those storms was in full swing when we met - so we sat in the car for ten minutes waiting for the hail to pass and David told me something of his career and his love for food foraging…

From Michelin Star Kitchens to the Foreshore

It was as a boy, following in the wake of his father’s almost magical familiarity with Cornwall’s precipitous cliffs and beaches, that David first learned about what he calls “the bounty of pick-your-own crabs and prawns,” and his curiosity for foraging was born.

Classically trained at Cornwall Technical College, David began his professional career at the acclaimed Horn of Plenty as third chef to Sonia Stevenson, after which he went to work for another formidably talented, Michelin-starred female chef—Joyce Molyneaux at the Carved Angel in Dartmouth.

“She wanted to use local ingredients and, as her second chef, I couldn’t have agreed more—so I provided rich pickings for her from my forays into the countryside and foreshore,” David recalled. “But that was after I realised that people bringing in chanterelles and ceps were earning as much as I did during a whole week for a basket of wild mushrooms. I knew what those mushrooms looked like, so I decided to give it a go.”

David’s professional career continued—including a stint as head chef for Keith Floyd at his once-famous Tuckenhay restaurant and pub on the River Dart—but all the time he continued foraging for free, and for fun. He carried that lifelong inspiration into the next generation of culinary talent during his years as a tutor at Exeter College, teaching at the Michael Caines Academy.

The Winter Shoreline Harvest

“It’s more of a hobby and I do a bit of photography and writing alongside. Actually I wrote a book called The Forager’s Apprentice which is available for download on Amazon. But actually it’s a chance for me to cook and experiment with wild ingredients.

“My first wild food away from mushrooms were wild strawberries - I used to make tiny little sweet pastry tarts with them and with little blueberries or whortleberries. Then I moved on to the beach. Of course, nowadays sea vegetables are a new thing. I’m not talking about seaweed, which is covered by tide every day. The sea veg grows up above on the shoreline and you’d be amazed at what’s out there now at this time of year.

“Here in Shaldon we’ll pick three or four different sea-veg leaves - a lot of these things seem to grow in late winter, early spring when you know there isn’t any lettuce growing. Today we’re picking sea-beet, wild fennel and rock-samphire.

“It may be one of those trends that passes over, like micro-herbs,” shrugged David. “I mean, who needs micro-herbs? Why not just eat herbs? So some food foraging might become one of those trends that passes over. But I don’t think so. What the items I pick all have in common is that they’re all luxury stuff. I don’t want to pick a leaf off to make some strange wine - I want a gourmet experience.

“It is all about the flavours,” he adds. “And so, for instance, on the way here I picked wild watercress and sorrel which will enhance a lot of dishes at this time of year…”

With that the storm had cleared and off we went across the great sand a mussel banks at Shaldon which were rapidly becoming ever more apparent in the ebbing tide. “The local authority really keeps its eye on the water quality in this estuary,” explained David. “You’ll will notice a sign on the beach saying to make sure you cook any shellfish you pick for three minutes. That’s what we will be doing anyway because we’re making mussel broth. It’s a dish I really love, partly because I make the cider that goes into it at home.

“Nowadays, sea vegetables are the big thing," he explained. "I’m not talking about seaweed, which is covered by the tide every day. The sea veg grows just above the shoreline, and you’d be amazed at what’s out there, even in the colder months. A lot of these things seem to grow in late winter and early spring, right when you know there isn’t any conventional lettuce growing in the garden. Today we’re picking sea-beet, wild fennel, and rock-samphire.”

These coastal specialists have to be incredibly tough to survive the salt spray and brackish waters, and that survival mechanism gives them an extraordinary punch of flavour. When tossed into a hot pan with a bit of local butter right there on the beach, they offer a direct, intense taste of the West Country coast that transforms a simple meal into something extraordinary.

“So the only thing I buy for the broth is a bit of cream - everything else is free - a fine-dining dish that comes from the wild,” said David as we quickly picked enough mussels near the Shaldon-Teignouth bridge, which is where we also found the sea-vegetables clinging like so many weeds to the wall in a south-facing corner.

Later we found a sheltered spot on a quayside, just out of the cold north wind, and began to cook the broth. “You see why I like making this?” said David. “I’ve been able to use my knowledge of foraging with my training as a chef. A lot of chefs know how to cook these things, but not how to find them. And, vice-versa, there will be people who know how to find these things, but won’t know how to cook them.”

David was a master of both, that is for certain. The broth was fantastically delicious.

“When you start, it’s like hunting a needle in a haystack, but you get better at it over the years,” David told me as we waited out a passing hailstorm. “I do it for my own pleasure, but I do occasionally take people out if they are truly enthusiastic. What I find is people say, ‘Dave, can you take me out foraging?’ But all they really want to do is go mushrooming. Then if we find 40 or 50 different varieties and I tell them only one or two are edible, it puts them off.”

For David, the foreshore offers a much more reliable and fascinating arena.