Quezi

Nasturtiums on attractively composed salad (Photo by Sancho Papa - CC-BY)

The first flower salad I ever saw was covered with bright nasturtiums like the visual treat in the photo. It impressed me with the idea that some garden flowers are not only edible, but look wonderful on food. You can grow them as well as the better-known herbs to add interesting colours and flavours to your cooking.

Salads, soups and other dishes can all be made more beautiful with flowers. If it’s a salad where you can include leaves from the same plant, so much the better. Nasturtiums work well, with brilliant orange or yellow flowers that look wonderful against a green leafy salad.

You can add smaller orange highlights to your dishes by sprinkling pot marigold petals on salad or soup. Be sure they’re from the pot marigold, or calendula, and not from African/Mexican marigolds (tagetes).

More subtle colour schemes use blue-mauve flowers from herbs like borage, rosemary, or lavender. Violet and pansy flowers are also edible. Use them for their looks, as the flavour is quite dull. Arrange the flowers as a removable extra if you think some people at the table will be doubtful about actually tasting them.

Violets, like roses, tend to be associated with sweet recipes, although violets can look attractive in savoury salads too. Don’t use African violets (saintpaulia), as they are not true violets (viola). Fresh or candied/crystallised violets and pink or red rose petals look pretty ornamenting cakes and desserts, as do soft yellow European primroses (primula vulgaris). Rose petals, like rose water, are regularly used in Greek and middle-eastern cuisines.

Rose petal jam has a slightly exotic, fragrant sweetness. For a good flavour you’ll need nearly the same weight of scented rose petals as of sugar, unless you’re mixing the roses with strawberries or some other red summer fruit.

There are hundreds of traditional recipes for flower wines and cordials. Elderflower drinks are well-known in the UK, where elder trees bear abundant but dull off-white blooms that the gardener hands over to the cook more willingly than a spectacular rose. Wines made from apple blossom, Californian poppy, and day lily (hemerocallis fulva) all have their supporters.

Please – always take reasonable care.

• If in any doubt about whether you’ve identified a flower correctly, consult a good reference book. For example, although the best-known American day lilies have edible flowers, some other plants are called day lilies in certain places and can make you sick.
• Check which parts of the plant are edible. Common honeysuckle (lonicera periclymenum) has good sweet nectar, petals that are edible in moderation, but the berries are poisonous.
• Don’t prepare food or drink from flowers that have been sprayed or been near any chemicals.

Enjoy making your summer salads into artistic compositions in all the colours of the garden!