What if we put flowers on our plates? In herbal teas or in salads, in jam or in vinaigrette, in sweet or salty, they add that little touch of color and taste that makes the difference. Overview of edible flowers.
Do not throw yourself on the pretty tulips that we have just offered you, not all flowers are edible. On the other hand, many are, and would benefit from being better known. Because if the idea of passing plants, leaves or petals from our gardens to our palates sometimes frightens us, know that this practice dates back to prehistoric times. If they then gradually disappeared from our plates, today, many creative chefs are bringing them up to date, and that's good. Much more recognized for their olfactory qualities, flowers are now also known for their flavors and nutritional properties. Decorative but not only, enriching dishes with new aromas thanks to edible flowers is the trend that is rising behind the stoves.
What flowers can we eat?
There are nearly 250 varieties of edible flowers. Difficult to make an exhaustive list. Among the most popular among florophiles, we made a small hit-parade of the varieties most often used in cooking.
- Borage is recognizable by its starry shape, its "hairy" stem and leaves and its blue petals, to be eaten raw – before flowering – or cooked. Used since Antiquity, borage is known for its many therapeutic virtues, which are found in its oil, very popular. Many like to accommodate its little iodized oyster taste in salads. Others like to fry the leaves to eat them on their own or incorporate them into all kinds of dishes like omelettes, quiches, soups, donuts or even crystallized with sugar in pastry.
- Elderflower, recognizable by its small white petals, strewn our countryside in spring. A good reason to go to the picking to refuel and thus decorate your homemade lemonades, sauces, syrups, fruit salads or jams. Among the multiple benefits of the little white, its depurative properties would also cleanse the body and would be indicated against the problems of overweight. Be careful, however, not to consume it raw, but always infused, and not to confuse it with the poisonous (black) elderberry.
- The flower of marigold, better known as calendula or "saffron of the poor", is recognizable by its orange petals. Healing, anti-bacterial, appreciated by gardeners for its propensity to repel pests, this flower also wins all the votes with herbal tea lovers, who immerse its dried petals in water to infuse it. Others sprinkle them with their cakes or any other form of dessert, their rice, and all the dishes that usually go well with saffron (much more expensive). Convenient.
- The violet, this recognizable little wild flower, as its name suggests, with its sparkling color, is very popular with pastry chefs for its ability to provide an amazing and tasty tangy flavor. Panna cottas, fruit pies, meringues, jams, it adds a note of originality in sweetness, but also in salty, where it goes perfectly with fish or soups, which it skillfully manages to thicken.
- Bear's garlic, recognizable by its six pointed white petals, is also recognizable by its sweet smell of garlic which it diffuses during its flowering. Bulbs, flowers and flower buds can be kept after picking in March / April and used to decorate many dishes, raw (in salads, pesto or various visual and taste decoration) or cooked, adding them to your cheeses, meats, fish or vegetables, cooked like fresh garlic.
- Nasturtium, recognizable by the large orange petals from which it takes its name (they were said to resemble the hood of monks), is as beautiful as it is good. Formerly called "cress of Peru", nasturtium can be used in cooking in a thousand ways, from seeds to leaves, from bud to flower. Perfect in a large salad or on raw vegetables, its buds and seeds can also be candied and used as condiments. With their light chili taste, its flowers brighten up meat dishes in a very pretty way.
- Roses, perhaps the most famous flowers, are all edible according to their varieties, from the hollyhock to the iconic red rose, via the Vence rose or the Damascus rose. With their little taste of strawberry, pepper or green apples, its petals go wonderfully with jams, salads, desserts or yogurts. The blue cords compete in creativity to make room for them in the form of chic ice cubes (by freezing them in ice cubes), flavored butters, elegant spreads or good, original and organic jams.
- Flowers of rosemary, thyme, chives or basil, zucchini, but also daisies, begonias, dandelions, geraniums, marigold, chrysanthemum, bellflower, poppy …, so many of our varieties of flowers are edible and above all delicious, if we take the time to educate ourselves, to pick them at the right time, to preserve and use them in the most appropriate way. Do not hesitate to open the imagination in your kitchen.
Where to get edible flowers?
If some of them are wild, many others can be bought commercially or, better still for the lucky ones, planted in his garden, next to it or in the vegetable patch. By obviously not using any pesticide (and by not picking them, suddenly, on the side of the road but in places free from the slightest suspicion).
In your garden: how to cultivate them?
We cannot repeat it enough: the number 1 rule when you want to grow flowers and eat them afterwards is to do it in a 100% natural way. Exit therefore fertilizers, pesticides or any toxic matter. It is therefore not recommended to plant flowers bought in a garden center, since we cannot be sure how they grew, even an organic label does not guarantee what you will be able to monitor from start to finish yourself. Prefer seeds, ideally also from organic farming.
When you plant them, do not hesitate to take advantage of their virtues to place them near certain vegetables (if they repel pests, for example, just to kill two birds with one stone). To find seeds online, go to Les Graines de France, Le Comptoir des Graines, Cityfarmer, La Semence Bio or Graines et Seeds, where you can pick from the large catalog of flower seeds to consume for your gardens. Come on, let's get started?
In commerce: where to buy them?
In markets, organic stores, delicatessens or herb stores, edible flowers are more and more common. And even in supermarkets, where sometimes you can find trays of edible flowers, fresh section, ready to use. But if you have trouble getting them, the web is also slowly making a nice place for them on sites like Le Domaine des herbiers, Marius Auda or Fleurs et saveurs.
Then keep them in the vegetable drawer of the refrigerator, between 6 to 10 days maximum. You can also opt for dried flowers, to be found in herb stores or in the spice departments of certain specialized shops. Ready-made mixes are also available on Amazon, such as the Spring Flower Mix – Edible Rose, Cornflower And Marigold or kits like this one from the Cultivea brand: 100% Ecological and Organic French Seeds (Calendula, Cornflower, Malva , Cosmos, Hibiscus).
Have you always liked being offered flowers? From now on, you will dream that they are edible. Not true ?
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