Back when we were sea bean farmers ...

Earlier this summer, we spent a lovely week in a house on the Annisquam River in Gloucester. The Annisquam is tidal and feeds into the Atlantic, so the terrain changed four times a day.

The difference between high and low tide was about ten feet:



At low tide, we spent a lot of time on the tiny beach, discovering all kinds of interesting finds.

My dad was particularly interested in the live mussels that appeared under the dock. I admired his adventurousness, but this is a man who forages interesting fungi, fries them up for lunch, and then refers to identification guides. I pointed to a recent red tide warning, and suggested we look elsewhere for seafood.

And then we discovered the treasure at the bottom of the garden.

I've made mention here before about sea beans, salty, green-bean-like veggies occasionally found in WholeFoods for $10 a pound. (Luckily, a lightweight fistful goes a long way.)



One low-tide afternoon, I was checking out the tidepools when I spotted something familiar.



Sea beans! A whole field of them!

I dragged The Boy down to take a look, and he was equally impressed. We tried a couple — perfectly crunchy, salty, beany — and took some for my parents to sample.

The next day, we checked again — and there were more!



Sadly, that was also our last day, so we were unable to continue to track the speed or spread of their growth. Still, it's good to know these lovely little veggies grow wild in our area. Even if they are underwater most of the time.

Sea beans!

One of the most fun things about shopping at WholeFoods is the range of unusual produce. Case in point: sea beans. And after many weeks of passing by, occasionally stopping to fondle them and wonder what-the-, we decided to give 'em a whirl.



Pretty, huh?

Apparently the plant is also known as samphire or glasswort (also passe-pierre, salicornia, sea asparagus, sea green bean, sea fennel and sea pickle), and was used in the production of glass in 16th-century England.

A taste test revealed that the beans are perfectly named. Imagine fresh raw green beans that have soaked in saltwater but retained their crispness: Sea. Bean. They're more texture than flavor (apart from, um, salt), but quite refreshing.

Their saltiness seems to make them a natural accompaniment to fish and seafood, and the few recipes I managed to track down treat them simply: blanch and serve with butter or lemon or olive oil or parmesan. Apparently, a traditional English method is to pickle them. First I'd heard.

We decided not to cook them, and instead used them to finish a stir-fry of eggplant, zucchini, ginger, lemongrass and shiitake mushrooms over rice noodles, where they added a nice crunchy note.

The Boy also experimented with a vodka-sake martini garnished with a sea-bean sprig, which made an interesting alternative to the usual briny olive.

Would we get sea beans again? Let's ask The Boy.

"Oh yeah," he says, without hesitation. "Definitely. I could just sit in front of the TV and eat a whole bunch of them."

Mind you, he also likes anchovies and capers, so his salt tolerance is way higher than mine.

Oh, way higher--he'll also happily order Vietnamese lemonade on a hot day.

Waaaaay higher.