Katie Herring is sales and marketing manager at Cultivate

WHAT links an Italian edible succulent and a window pane?

Perhaps it would make it easier if I told you that I'm talking about agretti or monks beard, which also goes by the Latin name salsa soda.

If you can't guess the link I'm not surprised: having never even heard of agretti myself until last week, I would have struggled too.

But when I heard we'd be stocking some on the Cultivate VegVan I thought I'd better do some research.

It turns out that monks beard, so-called because it was supposedly first cultivated by Capuchin friars in Italy, was once used as one of the main sources of sodium carbonate, a key ingredient in the manufacturing of glass.

In fact, soda-lime glass accounts for 90 per cent of the glass used in the world today, in everything from windows to lighting and beer bottles.

Nowadays the sodium carbonate is created synthetically, leaving the fields of agretti free for us to harvest for our dinner plates.

If you've never come across agretti I would say it's vaguely similar to samphire as it has a succulent texture but with slightly more delicate leaves.

Its flavour is like a salty combination of spinach and asparagus. In fact, it's what’s known as a halophyte, or salt-tolerant plant, and it's so salt-tolerant it can be irrigated in seawater and be perfectly happy.

In Italy agretti is prized in the same manner as truffles, and over here in the UK it's pretty tricky to get hold of, so, we're really pleased that George at Sandy Lane Farm has been cultivating an organic variety just down the road in Tiddington.

Much like samphire it only needs a light steam if you want to cook it, but it also works well uncooked in a salad to add a bit more bite.

Apparently the Italian way to enjoy is to steam lightly and cover in olive oil and lemon juice, but I’m looking forward to using its tangle of green fronds to create a verdant nest in which to place a perfectly poached organic egg, delish!