Does anything taste better than a spring flower added to your salad, desserts or as a savoury garnish to vegetable dishes? Flowers are not just intended to look lovely in a vase, many are delicious to eat and add an extra depth of flavour to food.
Cooking with flowers has a long history and today, flowers are making a comeback in the kitchen as more than just a sweet garnish, but as an important component of consuming a varied organic and local diet. Flower varieties and their toxicity may vary in different locations so always check with a qualified specialist to ensure the flowers you are considering are safe to consume. Never consume flowers grown with pesticides or toxic chemical soil additives.
Borage
These pretty blue or pink flowers make an uplifting addition to desserts, salads and summer drinks. Use them in lemonade or mineral water with frozen organic blueberries and lemon slices. Borage flowers can also be frozen into ice cubes to make sweet summer frozen garnishes for beverages or punchbowls. Children will love homemade borage, blueberry and lemonade popsicles.
Chamomile
These small daisy-like blossoms have long been a favourite for herbal teas, tinctures and even soothing baths and balms. However, they are simply delicious when added to a sweet salad or as a desert garnish. Chamomile blossoms also make a dainty addition to lemonades, ice-teas and other summer drinks.
Chive
These pretty purple or pink blossoms make a savoury addition to salads, pastas and cooked vegetable dishes with their light oniony flavour. Use sparingly as too many chive blossoms will overpower a dish.
Dandelion
The much-maligned dandelion has got a bad rap from gardeners who insist upon eradicating it from their suburban property. What most suburbanites don’t realize is that young dandelion flowers are a delicious addition to all types of salads. Dandelion flowers are particularly tasty (and very colourful) with a light vinaigrette salad dressing.
Garlic
Garlic flowers add a wonderful pungent addition to savoury dishes, stir-fry and salads. The flowers can be quite strong in flavour so use sparingly, but garlic flowers make a tasty and visually interesting addition to foods.
Honeysuckle
Sweet, wild honeysuckle flowers are orange, red, yellow or pink in colour and make a delightful addition as garnish to desserts and summer drinks. Honeysuckle flowers are also a popular addition to maple syrup and honey used for pancakes, waffles and toast. The subtle flavour of honeysuckle does last longer when flowers are not overcooked or cooked on high heats.
Lavender
These medicinal flowers have to be one of the most versatile additions to the kitchen. A touch of lavender will work wonders as a compliment to a savoury dish or as a main component of any number of dessert dishes. Consider lavender shortbread, lavender cheesecake, lavender vanilla ice-cream, lavender milkshakes and lavender even makes a wonderful addition to any number of fruit- based pies or crumbles and as a wonderful, refreshing addition to lemonade.
Lilac
These lovely flowers are also tasty to eat. Flowers tend to have quite a strong, fragrant flavour, so use in moderation in salads and as a garnish on desserts. Lilac flavoured honey is a delightful addition to morning muffins.
Mint
Wild, bountiful mint produces an abundance of tiny, fragrant flowers each year that make wonderful additions to pretty much all savoury and sweet dishes. Mint types and flavours vary greatly; remember to experiment with taste prior to adding mint to your recipes.
Nasturtium
Spicy, gregarious and abundant nasturtium flowers make a wonderful addition to salads and as a lovely garnish on all savoury dishes. Serving nasturtium flowers with sharp apples and fragrant cheeses makes a lovely finish to any meal.
Pansy
The delicate pansy flower has to be one of the most delicious tasting flowers and is a lovely addition to sorbets, cakes, pancakes and waffles. Pansies are also popular flowers to ‘candy’ by coating the flower with egg whites (or a safer egg free substitute), dipping the blossoms in fine sugar and leaving the pansy flowers to dry for several hours.
Strawberry
Sweet strawberry flowers are a graceful, extremely versatile flower that is a sweet garnish on strawberry shortcakes, strawberry pies, lemon cakes and in summer drinks.
Squash
Squash, zucchini and pumpkin blossoms are wonderful tasty additions to any savoury dish or salad. Try lightly steaming or sautéing a variety of blossoms with light oil for a colourful and tasty summer meal.
Violets
The fragile violet flower is perhaps one of the most widely used flowers for cooking and flavouring. With their ntoxicating aroma and taste, the violet makes a wonderful addition to all baking, jellies and jams, ice-creams and sorbets, aromatic sugars, summer drinks, in teas, and as elegant colourful garnishes for meals.
Valerie Williams is a writer living on Salt Spring Island. She is also the editor of GreenMuze.com.
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