A rose by any other name would taste just as sweet... —Ginny
It’s summer, so let the feast of flowers begin. You read that right. Eating flowers is a thing. Go ahead. Sprinkle some petals on your plate and add a little variety and a great deal of color to your meal.
I was in my Nature Girl phase the first time I tried this frivolous feast. I had just finished reading “Stalking the Wild Asparagus” by Euell Gibbons, a very famous flower-eater, and he swore that the common daylilies, Hemerocallis fulva, growing along the edge of my driveway, were delicious.
This bright orange flower, which my mother called a backhouse lily, was originally brought over from Asia. Although it decorates ditches in the Appalachians, it is considered invasive. You know the saying, “When God hands you daylilies, eat them.” So, rather than try to control it, I decided to add it to my salads.
I ran outside and plucked a few buds from the slender stalks swaying beside my front gate. The result was like eating a cross between a snail and a raw okra pod. Green and slimy. Despite the taste and texture, I still eat the first daylily bud I spot each June as a way of acknowledging my inner hippie (now hippy) flower girl. I’ve heard the buds are slightly better sautéed, but I’m not messing with my tradition.
I tried nasturtium blooms, Tropaeolum majus, next. They are peppery and fresh like arugula and make a pretty addition to a plate of tomatoes or a bowl of fresh greens. These carnival-colored flowers, which come to us from Spain, are so easy to grow that even a brown-thumbed gardening newbie can do it. They don’t like fertilizer and once you poke a few seeds a half inch into the ground, you can ignore them unless the weather turns terribly dry.
Perhaps my favorite floral treat are the little wild violets, Viola oderata, (not to be confused with African Violets which are not edible!) which grow in the moist woods above my house. By the time you read this, their season will be past, but remember them. The sugared blossoms make the perfect decoration for a vanilla-iced cake, and I’ve been trying for years to gather enough petals to make violet jelly.
Pansies are grassy and minty and lend themselves to the sweetness of a fruit salad. Rose petals, with their light floral taste, make a fanciful garnish for many desserts, and yield a beautiful, pastel jelly which Martha Stuart likes on buttered toast. Lavender blossoms add depth to peach crisp, while zucchini blossoms can be stuffed and fried, or sautéed and added to pizza.
There are many on-line sites that discuss recipes and medicinal uses for far more flowers than I’ve listed. All warn users to be sure their flowers come from pesticide-free locations. If you don’t want to forage for flowers you can grow them. The seed company Gourmet Sweet Botanicals specializes in edible blooms.
My Nana used to always say to me “Beauty is more than skin deep.” It turns out that flowers, are like most people. They have much more to offer than meets the eye.
The story above appears in our July/August 2019 issue. For more – including a recipe for Wild Violet Jelly – subscribe today or log in to the digital edition with your active digital subscription. Thank you for your support!