A basket of lovage leaves harvested at a Kenai Peninsula beach, June 9, 2023. (Photo by Matt Bowser/USFWS)

A basket of lovage leaves harvested at a Kenai Peninsula beach, June 9, 2023. (Photo by Matt Bowser/USFWS)

Refuge Notebook: I love beach lovage

For my family, as for many people on the Kenai Peninsula, growing and harvesting food is a regular part of our lives. We garden, we raise chickens, we fish, we hunt, and we gather mushrooms and berries. We enjoy this lifestyle and we believe that the quality of fresh, local food surpasses grocery store food.

How can you beat red salmon rich in omega-3s; dark green, vitamin-packed, home-grown lacinato kale; king bolete mushrooms offering plenty of minerals and fiber; or bog blueberries with their antioxidants? Our bodies run optimally and keep well on these power foods.

But who lives for Nutrition Facts? Serving sizes and Total Carbohydrates fail to capture the best parts of eating. We want flavor! We want interest! As Guy Clark wrote in his song, Homegrown Tomatoes, “What’d life be without homegrown tomatoes / Only two things that money can’t buy / That’s true love & homegrown tomatoes.”

ADVERTISEMENT
0 seconds of 0 secondsVolume 0%
Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcuts
00:00
00:00
00:00
 

He never mentioned the calcium or vitamin C that tomatoes amply supply. Clark apparently simply relished tasty tomatoes.

For me, nutrition does matter, but there is one plant I seek each spring purely for its flavor: beach lovage. Priscilla Russell, in her book, Tanaina Plantlore, summed it up with her understatement, “the plant imparts a pleasant flavor to food.”

The leaves taste much like celery or parsley, containing some of the same aromatic compounds that give dill, celery and parsley their particular fragrances, but beach lovage’s flavor is stronger and wilder than the store-bought herbs.

Also called Scots lovage, licorice root or Ligusticum scothicum, beach lovage looks and smells much like parsley. It can be recognized by its glossy green leaves divided into three sets of three egg-shaped leaflets, for a total of nine leaflets per leaf. The leaflets have toothed edges like birch or rose leaves.

Beware: in our area, beach lovage could easily be confused with angelica species and poison water hemlocks. The latter are deadly poisonous, so it is important to be able to recognize these similar-looking plants. Beach lovage is a smaller plant than our angelicas and poison water hemlocks, but they all start out small.

Beach lovage grows on coasts around the world in the north, where it tends to be most abundant on rocky coasts and in seaside meadows. Truly a seaside plant, it grows better with some seawater than with all fresh water.

This plant prefers cool weather, generally only living where the average July temperatures remain below 60. Its fast metabolism enables quick growth in our cool, short summers, but it burns energy too quickly in hot weather, starving the plant.

Beach lovage reproduces exclusively through seeds. Insects, mainly flies, do most of the pollinating of the white flowers. Wind and water spread the hardy seeds, which can remain viable after months to a year afloat on sea water.

Multiple people groups of the North, including at least the Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Dena’ina and Chugach in Alaska have long gathered and consumed beach lovage. The leaves are eaten raw or cooked, served with seal oil, included in salads or cooked with fish. They are a good source of vitamins A and C.

By all accounts, beach lovage leaves are best harvested in the spring before the plants flower, when the leaves are most tender. On the Kenai this means about the first two weeks of June, corresponding with the tail end of the hooligan run.

When gathering beach lovage, I cut just a fraction of the leaves from each of these perennial plants, much as you would do for rhubarb, leaving most of the foliage so that the plants can continue living and growing. Population studies have shown that the individual plants can be long-lived, but they are susceptible to damage. If you harvest beach lovage, please treat these plants with care so that they will persist and flourish.

After gathering, I separate the leaflets from the leaf stalks and dry the leaflets on a dehydrator. I mince and freeze the stalks, which, due to their waxy outer coating, do not dry easily.

Dried or frozen, beach lovage has become nearly indispensable in my kitchen. I use it liberally as an herb like leaf celery or parsley. It adds fresh-tasting flavor to fish and chicken marinades, soups, mashed potatoes, shrimp scampi, omelets, and any other recipe calling for parsley. Just remember that lovage is more powerfully potent than parsley, so you might use a little less.

I recently read that beach lovage seeds have a taste similar to fenugreek or cumin, so I may try them when they mature in late summer this year. I am grateful be able raise my family in this rich place where we can continue to learn about and enjoy local, fresh foods (and herbs!).

Matt Bowser serves as a Fish and Wildlife Biologist at Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. Find more Refuge Notebook articles (1999–present) at fws.gov/kenai-refuge-notebook

A basket of lovage leaves harvested at a Kenai Peninsula beach, June 9, 2023. (Photo by Matt Bowser/USFWS)
Matt Bowser harvests lovage from a seaside meadow, June 9, 2023. (Photo by Ethan Bowser)
A lovage plant growing at Deep Creek State Recreation Area, July 7, 2017. (Photo by Matt Bowser/USFWS)

A lovage plant growing at Deep Creek State Recreation Area, July 7, 2017. (Photo by Matt Bowser/USFWS)

More in Sports

Ruby Lindquist of Seward takes second in the women's Mount Marathon Race on Wednesday, July 7, 2021, in Seward, Alaska. (Photo by Jeff Helminiak/Peninsula Clarion)
Running roundup: Items on Lindquist, Ostrander, Hope Wagon Trail Run, Skinny Raven Half

Ruby Lindquist, a 2018 graduate of Seward High School, was recently named… Continue reading

American Legion Post 20 Twins head coach Robb Quelland talks with catcher Ari Miller and pitcher Jacob Joanis during a game against West on Friday, June 13, 2025, at Coral Seymour Memorial Park in Kenai, Alaska. (Photo by Jeff Helminiak/Peninsula Clarion)
Post 20 Twins carry 14-game winning streak into state tourney

The American Legion Post 20 Twins returned just three starters this season,… Continue reading

Mike Lundgren of Homer, playing for the Kenai River Wolfpack, snatches the ball from Austin Hinton of the Bird Creek Barbarians at the Kenai Dipnet Fest Rugby 10s Tournament at Kenai's Millennium Square on Saturday, July 19, 2025. (Photo by Jeff Helminiak/Peninsula Clarion)
Dipnest Fest: Alaska Rugby Union Hall of Fame event with a Hall of Fame organizer

The Kenai Dipnet Fest Rugby 10s Tournament has been held at Kenai’s… Continue reading

Nick Varney
Reeling ‘Em In: Watching the fish roll in

The incoming tide was headed our way so we could restart our game of “Spot the violations” as the silvers rolled in.

Martin Flora leads Jerry Parsons on the way to winning the Modified Dirty 30 on Saturday, July 19, 2025, at Twin City Raceway in Kenai, Alaska. (Photo by Jeff Helminiak/Peninsula Clarion)
Flora wins Modified Dirty 30 at Twin City Raceway

Martin Flora of Fairbanks won the Modified Dirty 30 on Saturday, July… Continue reading

tease
Janssen, Fallon win 1st 2 weeks of Salmon Run Series

The Salmon Run Series at Tsalteshi Trails just outside of Soldotna drew… Continue reading

tease
Results posted for Races 1 and 2 at Soldotna Cycle Series

The Soldotna Cycle Series held its first two races of the season… Continue reading

tease
Twins sweep road trip, win 14th straight game

Editor’s note: The story corrects the length of the Twins winning streak.… Continue reading

Daniel Steffensen bats against the Post 35 Road Warriors on Saturday at Coral Seymour Memorial Park as part of the 100th anniversary of American Legion Baseball in Alaska. (Jonas Oyoumick/Peninsula Clarion)
100 years of Legion baseball in Alaska celebrated Saturday

Twins defeated the Post 35 Road Warriors

Most Read

You're browsing in private mode.
Please sign in or subscribe to continue reading articles in this mode.

Peninsula Clarion relies on subscription revenue to provide local content for our readers.

Subscribe

Already a subscriber? Please sign in