1.   I go down to the Creek and collect samphire to eat in salads; it has a fresh salty taste [Faversham, Kent, July 2014].

2.  5 May 2014. On sale as ‘samphire grass’ at RX Fisheries, Hastings, East Sussex; £1.50 per 100 gms.          [December 2018. £2.00 per 100 gms].

3.  18 April 2013. For sale as ‘marsh samphire’ at Coakley-Greene Fishmonger’s stall, Swansea Indoor Market; £6.30 per lb, £13.70 per kilo.

4. 16 December 2012. For sale as ‘samphier’ on a fish stall at the Streatham Green Artisans’ Market, Lambeth, south London.

5. Food … samfer to eat raw or boiled or preserved in vinegar [Holbeach, Lincolnshire, January 2003].

6. From Lancashire: samphire (glasswort) pickled in vinegar [Fleetwood, Lancashire, February 1998].

7. Samphire is still grown and harvested in north Norfolk, where it’s regarded as something of a delicacy [Sea Palling, Norfolk, December 1996].

8. Marsh samphire grows around the Dee estuary and is still collected and eaten by local people, especially in the nearby Flint area, under the name of samkins [Shotton, Clwyd, February 1996].

9. [Samphire is] sold elsewhere in Europe too, for I found a great heap of it on a fishmonger’s stall in Leiden last summer. Dutch friends hadn’t met it before, but they enjoyed eating it [Oxford, August 1992].

Images: main, Littlehampton, West Sussex, September 2014; inset pickled samphire, ‘fabulous with fish’, ‘heavenly with ham’, produced by Wild At Heart Foods, Horsmonden, Kent, purchased Winchelsea, East Sussex, May 2014.