Sea Beans: a green salt
Photos by Donna Campbell
Ya’ll, I have missed the pleasure of writing to you about seasonally ephemeral foods over the last six months. I apologize for the long silence. I spent nearly six weeks in Colorado on two different, unplanned trips--summer and fall--helping my brother to sell his house and prepare to move to North Carolina.
I did not starve, however. During the blog pause, I had some memorable meals--grilled mountain trout at a historic restaurant in Estes Park and fresh roasted Hatch (New Mexico) chiles from markets in Louisville, Longmont, and Niwot (all suburbs of Boulder). We also had more than several feasts prepared by the extraordinary Butter Lady of Lyons, Shauna Strecker, who became a good friend during these Rocky Mountain escapades.
I came back east in October to launch our fifth book from UNC Press, Saving the Wild South: The Fight for Native Plants on the Brink of Extinction. This project grew quite naturally out of The Month of Their Ripening—the study of NC heritage foods that was re-released in paperback this August. Saving the Wild South, extends the exploration, documenting endangered plants across six states and features glorious photographs by Donna Campbell. She captured both the native plants in remote locations and the passionate people who are working to save them. The book has been well received. Traveling to bookstores and other venues to present these stories of remarkable plants has also involved some food finds. So here we go…
This month, the chic, culinary mecca of Charleston, South Carolina, rewarded us with a fresh taste. I had read about Charleston-grown Sea Beans, now a popular garnish and crisp ingredient in salads and appetizers prepared by chefs across the city. These delicate, salt marsh succulents grow around the globe along muddy coastal banks and further inland in healthy marshes.
With the botanical name Salicornia--literally “salt horn”--the thin spears are bright green, grow upright, and are shaped something like a miniature Saguaro cactus with opposing branches but no thorns. At first bite, they are crunchy and a little bit juicy, with the brisk and welcome flavor of the ocean. They are sometimes billed as a substitute for table salt. Of course, they are full of salt.
Depending on continent and culture, Sea Beans have different names. They are called Sea Asparagus, Pickleweed, Marsh Samphire, Saltwort, and Glasswort. According to Specialty Produce in San Diego, the latter two monikers date back to the 16th century “when the plant was commonly used as an ingredient in making glass and soap. Sodium from the salty growing environment is stored in the tissues of the plant. Bushels of Glasswort were gathered from the marshes of Southern Europe and northern Africa and were burned to convert the sodium within the plant into sodium carbonate. The ash was mixed with water, and any non-soluble components were removed. The water was evaporated off, leaving the ‘soda’ or powdered sodium carbonate, which was then used for glassmaking and detergent.” Wow.
Humans have thus been foraging sea beans in the wild for centuries. Their flavor and texture, we learned, is best during late spring and summer months, when floods trigger their growth in estuarine areas.
A few years back, the notion of an edible plant activated during flooding caught the attention of Sam Norton when he was a senior at College of Charleston studying political science. A native of Isle of Palms, Norton grew up eating sea beans right out of the marsh as a kid at summer camp. He learned in a class that Boeing and GE were already researching the use of a particular variety of Sea Beans—Salicornia bigelovii--as a potential ingredient in biofuels. Norton was intrigued. He then applied and was accepted to the Master of Science in Environmental Studies Program at CofC.
In graduate school Norton posed the question: “What if two of the 21st century’s largest problems, rising seawater levels and excess carbon dioxide, could be leveraged into the next generation of sustainable agriculture?”
Rising seawater levels around Charleston made this challenge especially vivid to city dwellers ever since Hurricane Hugo. Turning saltwater into an agricultural resource seemed like a worthy project. Norton began with the idea of growing Sea Beans to sell to to chefs across the region, while also exploring year-round cultivation techniques for this species along with other salt-tolerant plants, also known as halophytes.
Norton’s fledgling company, Heron Farms, is headquartered in a nondescript warehouse in an industrial area of North Charleston. Here the company cultivates Salicornia europaea, a Sea Bean variety that is especially tasty and not as tough as the indigenous variety around Charleston. Norton has proved it can be grown indoors in manageable sized aquariums stacked vertically to the ceiling on metal shelves. Salt water collected by local fishermen is diluted and then added to the hydroponic setup. In a detailed story, Smithsonian Magazine noted that this operation might well be the world’s first indoor saltwater farm. Heron Farms delivered its first Sea Beans to local restaurants in November 2020, and they have been expanding ever since.
Now, in addition to providing a versatile and refreshing product for regional foodies and their favorite restaurants from Hilton Head to Savannah to Atlanta and even Cary, North Carolina, Heron Farms has publicly committed to restoring one square foot of marsh for every pound of Sea Beans they sell. Their current restoration projects around the Charleston area are advertised on their website and conducted with local volunteers who sign up to provide hands-on help in the marsh. Like the examples we list at the end of Saving the Wild South, here is another opportunity for citizens to participate in environmental stewardship and make a difference on the local level.
But Heron Farms is not only focused on the local. The company has partnered with a European firm to explore ways to transform abandoned rice paddies flushed with salt water from rising seas in Khulna, Bangladesh. These agricultural sites are now being developed as places to cultivate and harvest edible, salt-tolerant plants to be sold in local village markets.
We scored some Heron Farms Sea Beans in small, refrigerated packages at the Veggie Bin, a grocery in west Charleston that opens at noon and has a wonderful array of natural foods, organic vegetables, hard-to-find spices, and eclectic eats. The Sea Beans stay crisp for a good while in this packaging, and Donna served them as the mystery ingredient in a pre-Christmas Bloody Mary.
According to the Specialty Produce website, Sea Beans carry 20 grams of protein per one cup portion, though you would never eat that much in a single dish. They also contain vitamin A and iron, more magnesium than avocados, more calcium than asparagus, and are a great source of sea minerals. Simply put, they are a raw, fibrous vegetable you can use to convey salt in a chilled or cool dish, though at least one Charleston-trained chef has prepared Sea Beans as both ingredient and topping in a warm pesto paired with squid ink farfalle, shiitake mushrooms, and pistachio crumbles.
Given the salty punch, I can imagine Sea Beans holding their own as a bright topping for deviled eggs or lox and cream cheese on a bagel. At a holiday party, when I poked a few Sea Beans upright into a garlicky bowl of lima bean hummus, they looked something like unadorned Christmas trees, but did not stand up to the strong mix of flavors in the dip. I think they might better serve as briny decoration for grilled grouper or most any pale, meaty fish in need of a fetching splash of color.
Donna and I sampled chef-prepared Sea Beans at the five-year-old Charleston restaurant, Sorghum and Salt. This no-frills eatery in a gritty neighbor on the ungentrified fringes of West Charleston had a creative and satisfying menu of small plates and larger entrees to share. Our first course was built on small planks of house-made focaccia, grilled on a griddle, drizzled with low-key local honey, and topped with thin coins of chilled cucumber draped with Sea Beans. It was both an amuse bouche and a palate cleanser served on cool gray slate. We savored every bite. It was a perfect way to experience Sea Beans without stronger, competing ingredients.
If you want to read more about native foods and plants, here’s a link to the two books mentioned above:
Fascinating!
I am amazed to learn about this. Thank you for sharing!