Crambe maritima, common name sea kale,[ is a species of halophyte (salt-tolerant) flowering plant in the genus Crambe of the family Brassicaceae. It grows wild along the coasts of mainland Europe and the British Isles.
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The plant is related to the cabbage and was first cultivated as a vegetable in Britain around the turn of the 18th century. The blanched stems are eaten as a vegetable, and became popular in the mid-19th century.
Description
Growing to tall by wide, it is a mound-forming, spreading perennial plant.
Distribution
This species appears to be a European endemic, with a distribution generally confined to two discontinuous coastal regions of Europe; the species is absent from North Africa and the Middle East. It occurs in the Black Sea coasts of Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, and Ukraine including the Crimea, but is absent from most of the Mediterranean, recurring again from northern France and the British Isles to the Baltic Sea. In the Iberian Peninsula, Greece and Italy it is replaced by the species Crambe hispanica, with which its distribution has been confused with until quite recently; the species is absent from Portugal, Greece, Italy[
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Although it was once believed to be found growing in Israel and Jordan,[ or alternatively Lebanon and Syria,]
It is very rare in Northern Ireland, but has been recorded in Counties Down and Antrim,[Hackney, P. 1992. Stewart' and Corry's Flora of the North-east of Ireland. Third edition. Institute of Irish Studies and Queen's University of Belfast. (HB)] and in a number of other coastal counties in the island of Ireland.[Scannell, M. J. P. and Synnott, D. M. 1972. Census Catalogue of the Flora of Ireland. Dublin, Published by the Stationery Office]
It is uncommonly found along the coast of Norway, particularly so in the Færder National Park.
Ecology
Crambe maritima is a halophyte, meaning that it tolerates salt and is therefore found on coastal beaches where little else thrives.
Cultivation and culinary use
There are records from the 18th century of local people along some coasts of England digging out and harvesting the emerging shoots as a vegetable from naturally occurring root crowns in the early springtime. This custom was first reported by Phillip Miller in his 1731 Gardener's Dictionary as practised among the indigenous peoples of Sussex, and it was seen once in the 18th century being sold as food at the Chichester market in 1753. John Martyn was the first to publish some practical notes on cultivating the plant in a late edition of Miller's work, but William Curtis was the first to publish a tract about his experiments of growing the plant as a vegetable crop in London in 1799, just before his death, with John Maher giving a reading before the Horticultural Society of London in 1805 which elaborated slightly on the work of Curtis. Both Curtis and Maher recommended growing the plant as a forced, blanched vegetable, growing the root crown in a ceramic cylinder which could be capped with a closed blanching pot. Over and about this pot fresh manure would be heaped a few feet deep, the heat produced when this dung rotted would be sufficient to force the plant to bolt as early as December, although later in the winter was recommended. For those without the financial means to purchase expensive blanching pots, Maher suggests covering the plants in a mat covered by a thick layer of gravel, and Curtis mentions simply hoeing a foot of soil over the crown, or piling sea sand, pebbles or coal ash over it, although both agree this will produce a much inferior crop. An area of roughly five square feet could hold a single root crown consisting of three plants, which after growing out from seed for three years could be forced at least twice a season to yield four to six shoots of up to twelve inches, although usually much less.
Thomas Jefferson grew sea kale at Monticello between 1820 and 1825.
A tiny experimental plot of sea kale is cultivated on Texel, a North Sea island in the Netherlands. It is irrigated with adulterated seawater.
Maher mentions that he personally considered blanched sea kale a delicacy.[ Curtis says that as a food, boiled twenty minutes and covered in melted butter, it resembled most asparagus, although with hints of cabbage. He reports most he served it to found it agreeable; although some found it no better than cabbage, others found it superior even to asparagus. Although Curtis had never tried to do so himself, he mentions someone once made a decent stew of it and also theorizes that perhaps it might be well suited to be pickled.][
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