For the past few months, on Instagram, cakes have been confused with floral compositions. In New York, the mounted pieces bristling with marigolds, carnations or tulips (stems included!) by Yip.Studio andFrance (@yungkombucha420) are all the rage, while California pastry chef Sasha Piligian (@sashimi1) lays various petals on its entremets. Wiser, Jennifer Hart-Smith, French pastry chef and naturopath, decorates her Tookies shortbread with blueberries or begonias. It’s naturally very pretty, but are all the flowers edible?
As with mushrooms, to avoid poisoning yourself, it is better to consult a reference book, for example The vegetable treat. Recognize and cook edible plants, by François Couplan (Blood of the Earth, 2015). As a general rule, it is better not to ingest flowers bought from the florist, who tends to treat them with pesticides, but rather to grow them at home or obtain them from a safe place (Grand Frais or on a specialized site, maisonauge. en, for example).
Not all flowers have the same qualities: some are worth more for their aesthetics than for their flavor, such as pansies, which cooks sometimes use and abuse, because their mauve and yellow colors are perfect for waking up a dish that is too dull. In terms of taste, we will have more fun with calendula flowers, peppery and spicy, or those of fennel, which are reminiscent of liquorice. Special mention to borage flowers, royal blue in color, almost as salty as oysters.