Guide to eating out at the coast 



Sit down to a meal gathered from nature — coquina clam 

 chowder, yucca flower fritters, beach peas, steamed 

 periwinkles, cattail pollen bread spread with prickly pear 

 cactus jam, and yaupon tea. 



The main ingredients for this menu aren't likely to be 

 found canned or packaged along the aisles of a supermarket. 

 Instead, to obtain the fixings for this meal, you will have to 

 pick, pull, cut and dig your ingredients. 



An abundance of plant and animal life is free for the har- 

 vest along North Carolina's shorelines, marshes and 

 woodlands. Some items of bounty, such as oysters, persim- 

 mons, wild grapes and yaupon, have marked the diets of 

 coastal residents since the Indians. Others have had a more 

 recent discovery. 



David Phelps, an anthroplogist at East Carolina Univer- 

 sity, says the Algonkian Indians, native to northeastern 



North Carolina, 

 cultivated many of 

 their plant foods — 

 corn, beans, squash, 

 pumpkins, gourds, 

 tobacco and sunflower. 

 But they also sup- 

 plemented these 

 foodstuffs with wild 

 fruits, nuts, berries and 

 plants. They made 

 flour from ground 

 acorns and puddings 

 from persimmons. 

 The Pilgrims sub- 

 sisted their first winter in America on the starchy tubers of 

 the groundnut, which grows wild on stream banks along the 

 East Coast. The Indians taught the Pilgrims to eat this 

 tuber. And those who know its goodness still seek the 

 groundnut today, using it like a potato. Maxine Claar, a 

 wild foods expert, says the Indians saved many settlers' 

 lives by teaching them which North American plants were 

 edible. The Indians not only provided information that 

 allowed the settlers to supplement their meals during those 

 first lean years of adjustment to a new land, but taught 



them the hazards of 



*v — 









groundnut 



many poisonous plants. 



While many wild 

 foods are abundant to- 

 day, only a few adven- 

 turous folks bother to 

 sample their goodness. 

 But Claar and her 

 family often forage for 

 their meals when they 

 visit the coast. She says 

 wild foods are often 

 richer in vitamins than 

 their cultivated 

 counterparts. 



From the surf, the Claars gather coquina clams or mole 

 crabs for broth or chowder. Along the surf and sound edge, 

 Claar collects sea lettuce that has washed ashore to make 



another coastal chowder. "I take it home, wash it in fresh 

 water and dry it in a slow oven or outside on a hot day," she 

 says. "Then it becomes dry and crispy. I add it to a milk- 

 based chowder along with butter and wild onions. It makes 

 an excellent chowder." 



And while the dunes 

 appear barren, they too 

 offer edibles for the 

 forager, says Mark 

 Joyner, the aquariums 

 specialist for the N.C. 

 Office of Marine Af- 

 fairs. The succulent 

 leaves of the sea rocket, 

 which has a mild 

 mustard flavor, can be 

 steamed or added raw 

 to salads, Joyner says. 

 The trailing wild bean, 

 available from 























prickly pear 



cactus 



early September to mid-October, should be picked when it's 

 small and cooked like green beans, Claar says. And the 

 beach pea, which resembles the garden variety, should be 

 chosen when it's tender and bright green for preparation 

 like its domestic relative. 



For a more versatile dune plant, seek out the yucca, more 

 properly called the Spanish bayonet. The sweet, white 

 cluster of flowers can be added raw to salads or dipped in an 

 egg batter and fried as fritters, Joyner says. Or foragers can 

 wait until fall when the yucca produces a purplish fruit that 

 can be split, seeded, buttered and baked. 



And if you can beat the raccoons and rabbits to the 

 ground cherries, you can stir their sweet red fruit into jams, 

 jellies, toppings or pies. But Joyner warns that unripened, 



green berries are 

 poisonous. 



Other fruits and 

 berries, abundant 

 behind the dunes, make 

 tempting morsels for 

 the sweet tooth. Per- 

 simmons and cran- 

 berries have been 

 stirred into confections 

 for centuries. Wild 

 grapes, such as fox 

 grapes and pigeon 

 grapes, can be squeezed 

 into juices or seeded for 

 pies and jams. And the fruit of prickly pear cactus, stripped 

 of its bristles, can be eaten raw or cooked into jam. 



From the marsh, Claar gathers two wild foods flavored 

 with tradition — marsh periwinkle snails and glasswort. 

 During the days of Charles Dickens, the European species 

 of the periwinkle were roasted and sold on the streets of 

 London and in small restaurants called "winkle shops." 



Today, Claar wades through the marsh to pick a similar 

 species, the southern white periwinkle, from the blades of 

 the salt marsh cord grass. She steams the gastropods and 



