by Flora Foodie

Created on: July 15, 2007

One of the oldest flower recipe we have (a kind of rose petal and brain flan) dates back to Imperial Rome and late Antiquity, so men have been cooking with edible flowers for quite a while. In Medieval and Renaissance times it was mostly elderflower fritters and various flower tarts redolent of exotic spices. Then came sugar and the triumph of candied violets of France and rose petal jam of Bulgaria.

Salad enthusiast John Evelyn in his "Acetaria, a Discourse on Sallets" (1699) devotes a whole chapter to flowers that can be used in salads, such as nasturtium, sage, rosemary, cowslip etc. but advises to infuse them in vinegar first. Although most of these flowers are sparingly used in modern cookery and almost never in conjunction with vinegar, there is still one kind of pickled flower that most of us do consume quite regularly if we like pizza, pasta and other food of Italian origin.

I am speaking of capers, buds of prickly Mediterranean flower that are usually pickled in vinegar and salt. The smaller the capers the better their taste and quality. They are available all year round and their tart tangy flavour is perfect for spiking sauces such as Italian salsa verde (green sauce') for boiled meat or enhancing French steak tartare (minced raw beef). Capers are even sometimes used to garnish cocktails, such as martini.

All other flowers are still mostly seasonal, although this is changing rapidly, as the demand for edible flowers is increasing. Many top end restaurants use flowers in their cuisine on a regular basis. Moreover, even some of artisan cheese-makers have recently begun using organic flowers such as bright velvety pansies and marigolds for their cheeses, a stunning example of this is Canadian fresh goat cheese from British Columbia (see picture at http://www.tasteto.com/2007/06/28/whats-in-a-cheese/ #more-1196) .

But my favourite flower recipe hails back to my childhood. Our family used to make dandelion honey', an infusion of golden dandelion flowers, strained and boiled to syrup consistency with sugar and orange juice. If one tasted that dandelion preserve in winter one got a most wonderful Ray Bradbury feeling. Even if it wasn't dandelion wine it still was the heady golden essence of early summer, a captured in a jar sunny antidote for bleak winter days.

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