The sight of wild sea vegetables always fills me with a sense of delight. Why do we ignore them? They grow in abundance on our shores. If it were not for the Nordic food revolution and the likes of restaurants such as Noma in Copenhagen, would we ever have noticed them again?

Of all the sea herbs we use daily, my favourite is sea beet. Sea beet is a leafy perennial with shiny green leaves that occupies most of our Irish coastal habitats, popping up out of the shingle and old sea walls. You’ll find it too in the grasslands and sandy places just behind the dunes. Sea beet is the wild ancestor of many common vegetables including beetroot, sugar beet and Swiss chard.

Its leaves have a pleasant texture and taste whether served raw or cooked. Because it lives by the salty coast, the leaves are on the leathery side. Sea beet is unmistakable; it cannot be confused with any other beach herbs.

Clip the leaf an inch under its stem. Place beside some gently poached monkfish. Just slip a few portions of monkfish in barely-simmering butter for five minutes. Alternatively, duck fat is a great alternative.

You can cook sea beet as you would spinach or chard: gently, in a little butter and water. Or try it panfried with wild garlic leaves, hazelnuts and sultanas. I love to mix sea beet with other sea herbs, such as samphire. A handful into a bowl of steaming mussels or clams is excellent.

Despite its new-found fame in the culinary world, sea beet was first described by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1753 in his Species Plantarum. Linnaeus is often called "the father of modern taxonomy" as he first formalised the modern system of naming natural organisms. Enjoy your greens and as your mother says: always remember where they come from.