Delectable blossoms

07/18/2002
Delectable blossoms

The French potager traditionally includes a lot of flowering plants--and not only for good looks! France has one of the most evolved floral cuisines in the world. Flowers are just more grist for the mill of French culinary creativity. To prove it, I've counted at least eight cookbooks currently in print here in France just on recipes using flowers. Floral cuisine is especially pleasing to the French sensibility because it is at once very sensual--full of unusual flavors and beautiful forms and colors, creative, and, well, romantic. Who can deny that there is something romantic about eating blossoms for dinner?

While I've always scattered herb blossoms and nasturtiums over my salads, actually concocting dishes around flowers is new to me and stimulates my own creative juices. I believe that to cook creatively with any ingredient, you have to become intimately familiar with its complex of flavors and perfumes, and with how those react in the kitchen. So, as my adventures continue, I'll share with you my newfound recipes on the Dans la cuisine page.

Meanwhile, let's get back to the garden. Even a slightly above average vegetable garden--assuming it includes some herbs--is bound to offer a bouquet of edible blossoms to enhance any salad or presentation. Take a look at the main photo above. In that old olivewood bowl are nasturtiums, coriander, dill, and various thyme blossoms, lavender, starry sky blue borage flowers, and (somewhat buried) some rose petals. The herb garden is the best place to start experimenting with edible flowers, because the blossoms of almost all herbs are edible. In addition to the ones pictured, try chive blossoms (separated into florets), basil flowers, mint, rosemary, and the lovely blue spikes of hyssop, favored by the late, great cook Richard Olney as a last-minute scattering over a summer salad of tiny green beans.

If you taste the flower of any particular herb, you'll find the flavor reminiscent of the leafy part of the plant--but more delicate and with decidedly floral, slightly sweet notes. The blossoms of coriander, for example, are not only beautiful (lacy lavender white), but much milder in flavor than the leaves.



While you're nibbling and expecting the delicate flavors just described, you'll get a surprise when you bite into a nasturtium blossom (pictured growing with peas in my own garden, right). Probably the most pungent of blossoms, nasturtium tastes like a cross between a peppery radish and a sprig of watercress. But wait! Eat the entire blossom, and you'll discover a sweet finish as you munch the nectarous tube at the base of the flower. A perfect example of the complexities of floral flavor!



One of the great pleasures of having a potager is that you'll be able to enjoy cooking with squash blossoms. For me, this is one of the most delectable edibles the garden has to offer. You can use the female blossoms with the tiny squash already formed at their bases, or the simple male blossoms with a short length of stem attached (see my latest harvest at left).

Before cooking with the blossoms, check their interiors for insects, and delicately remove the fleshy pistil, which has a bitter flavor. You may need to use tweezers to do this if you don't want to rupture the tube of the flower (for instance if you're going to stuff the blossoms with ricotta cheese). Whether stuffed, used in a risotto, tossed into a summer pasta, or served as a puffy, crunchy beignets, squash blossoms are exquisitely delicious. What do they taste like? Well, a bit between a squash...and a flower. Delicious.

Believe it or not, I've only mentioned the tip of the iceberg of edible blossoms. But before you embark on your culinary adventures, be aware that not all flowers are edible. Some are very toxic!.

Here is a short list of edible blossoms to perk your appetite: Calendula officinalis, Viola spp., Allium caeruleum, Trifolium repens and Trifolium pratense (white and red clovers), Malope trifida, Dianthus spp., Fuschia spp., Phlox paniculata, Lavatera trimestris, Hosta spp., Hemerocallis spp., Primula spp., Sambucus nigra, Robinia spp., Acacia spp., Hesperis matronalis, Lonicera spp., Rosa spp., Crataegus spp., Cydonia spp.,Papaver rhoeas...

Have I whetted your appetite? It's a wide, wide world of delectable blossoms.

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Products of Interest:
Average soils--Field marigold
Average to dry soils--Wild borage
Average to dry soils--Hyssop
Champagne perennial pruners