Flowers as food
- Fiona Martindale
- Oct 21, 2024
- 3 min read
I know really that this would be a better post in the spring when the flowers are just coming up, but I keep thinking about flowers as food now .. and who knows, maybe this will give us all time to plant the right things to eat in the spring.
So which flowers are edible and how might you use them?
Most of us know that rose petals and violets can be frosted and eaten, and that jasmine flowers and hibiscus flowers make nice teas, but it goes so much further than that, and many are flowers that are growing, either planted or wild, in most of our gardens.
Here is a run down of my top 5 favourite edible flowers, with a little about their taste and nutrition to go alongside.
1) Forget-me-knots
These tiny bright blue gems taste a bit peppery - similar to rocket - and add a beautiful and unusual colour to a green salad. There has been some concern that parts of the forget-me-not plant could be hepatoxic (that is bad for the liver) and the advice is that for various reasons pregnant and breast-feeding women don't eat them (although that advice seems to be based on the levels of extract found in forget-me-not supplements) but generally a few flowers added to a salad are not, in my small experience, problematic.
Forget-me-not flowers are particularly high in antioxidants such as Vitamin C, however the small number of flowers one is likely to eat in a mixed salad means that really these are more decorative and fun (how many bright blue foods do we get to taste?!) than anything else. .
2) Nasturtiums
These are great in salads and decorating soups. The leaves of nasturtium are also edible and highly nutritious. I have used them in soups, salads and sandwiches - substituting for lettuce, rocket and other strong flavoured leaves. They are properly peppery and a bit lemony at times. The leaves and flowers taste similar, although the flower flavour is milder and has a slight sweetness in comparison to the leaves. They are high in potassium, phosphorus, calcium, zinc, copper and iron as well as vitamins A, C and D. The flowers are various shades of yellow, orange and red and keep their stucture for a good few hours after picking, so can be used whole and fresh to decorate cakes.
3) Pansies
Like nasturtiums, pansies come in a range of rich bold colours. .. but unlike nasturtiums which are a summer flower, pansies will flower in the cold, giving the added benefit of a boost of anti-oxidants and bioflavinoids at a time when our diet can be struggling with such things.
Interestingly a study by the Food Technologies institute in 2019 found that different colour pansies contain differing proportions, not only of mimcronutrients, but also of protein and carbohydrates. It is difficult to describe the flavour of pansies - certainly it is more "floral" than the 2 previous mentioned flowers. It still goes well in mixed leaf salads in my opinion, but possibly lends itself more to sweet foods and puddings in general.
4) Dandelions
Most people are aware that dandelion leaves are edible (but most people also avoid them as they are know to be strongly diuretic) but many fewer people are aware that the flowers can be eaten. Saying that, they do still have some diuretic properties, so like the forget-me-not are best sprinkled. In the case of the dandelion I pull off the petals of a couple of flowers, mix with a handful of forget-me-not flowers and sprinkle onto a fresh green salad of mild leaves and cucumber as a simple and unexpected centrepiece on the salad table at a barbecue.
5) Daisy
yes even the humble daisy is edible and tasty.
Most of us probably think about where we see daisies growing (the grass verges along roadsides are their most common haunt) and rightly think "no thank you very much" ... Obviously the risk of dog wee, car fumes and worse is clearly going to far outweigh any health benefits or flavour cravings here. However if you are lucky enough to have daisies growing in your own lawn and you do not own a dog then picking a few once they first open in the morning can give you some lovely additions for many dishes. Daisies maybe have one of the more adaptable flavours of flowers and pair well with carrots, wilted spinach and steak (scattered over the top of each after cooking) as well as with lemon cake, lavender and rose scented things.
For some really excellent information and ideas regarding edible flowers: https://www.beckyocole.com/guide-to-edible-flowers/
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