First, at Tangimoana, Lynda and her lovely daughter took me to their favourite beach spinach spot - where a particularly lush crop of the stuff grows. Lynda noticed that it was in berry.
We are both fans of the leaves, but neither of us had read that you could eat the berries. We wondered whether we should try them.
Lynda is more intrepid than me, so she offered to go first. She took a tentative nibble, and said they were quite nice. I was still a wuss, so I just picked a few and brought them home to photograph on a bed of their leaves. (Above!)
Today, a good three days later, Lynda is still alive and well ;) - so I finally tried one of the berries. It was mild, salty, sweet and juicy all at the same time, with a texture a bit like watermelon.
I wonder if anyone else has heard of eating these berries? (Those of either beach spinach or its very close relative NZ spinach?) If so, I'd love to hear about it. In all the books and websites I've checked, the only use I can find for the berries is as a colouring.
Beach spinach is in the same family as iceplant, and certainly iceplant berries are known to be edible ...
I'll write about our other find tomorrow.
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