Species sheet · The Edible Ocean
common glasswort
A land plant that chose to live in salt.
- Raw and crunchy as a salty condiment
- Blanched then tossed in butter
- Pickled in a mild vinegar
- In French
- Salicorne
- Scientific name
- Salicornia europaea
- In the water
- A plant of salt marshes, mudflats and coastal sands; it grows emerged, feet in salt water.
- Season & buying
- Late May through late July, when the stems are bright green and snap cleanly; after August they turn red and stringy, better suited to pickling than the plate.
- Common length
- ~35 cm
- How to identify it
- Fleshy jointed stems, no leaves
Bright green, blushing red in late summer
Grows in upright tufts on the mud
On the plate
Crunchy and very salty, with an acid edge at the finish.
Avoid: Salting it while cooking: it already carries all the salt a dish needs.
It was used to make glass for centuries. The plant was burned for its soda-rich ash, which is where the name glasswort comes from, and Venetian glassmakers imported it by the boatload.
In Umay recipes
One Umay recipe calls for it.
