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photo by frotos

Good, you're here! Just in time for lunch.

Today, we're featuring some beautiful May flowers on the menu. It seemed like a perfectly mad idea, since most of us are used to flowers as either table decoration or garnishes on dessert.

What's that? You say you'd rather look at flowers, smell them, maybe wear them, rather than actually eat them? Me too! Somehow it just seems wrong, doesn't it, to bite into a blossom?

Apparently, people do it all the time, and I'm thinking, maybe I need to get over myself and munch on a marigold. After all, flowers have been incorporated in foods for thousands of years in Roman, Chinese, Middle Eastern, and Indian cultures. The first recorded recipe was by a Roman named Apicius for eating brains with rose petals. *scrunch face*

Not exactly what I'm craving right about now, but wait a minute! Maybe I'm not as conservative as I thought. I've had jasmine tea, and lots of artichokes, cauliflowers, broccoli, capers, and lilybuds. When you consider flowers infused in oils, those used to make wines, spirits and vinegars, or the whole gamut of dried or frozen herbs, most of us actually consume flowers without really thinking about it. But I guess it's not the same as eating fresh orchids with avocado, is it?


photo by Laura Hartrich

Would you perhaps prefer some cauliflower soup with chive blossoms? 

photo by bricolage.108

Or some Flower Power Pizza?

photo by windattack

For dessert, you can either have some Flower Pot Cake (not real flowers, but so pretty I had to throw them in),

    photo by sweetie pies

or a slice of this delicious yellow cake with buttercream frosting:

photo by Dulzura Magica

Thirsty? Help yourself to some flower tea,

  Common flower teas include jasmine, rose, lotus, and chrysanthemum.
  (photo from eat-my-heart-out's photostream)

and, if you like, cool it down with a flowery ice cube.

photo by inspiredbyeverything

There now, wasn't that yummy?

Edible flowers can be found in some grocery stores and farmer's markets; a typical bagged mix will include bachelor's buttons, nasturtiums, pansies, snapdragons, and calendula. Recently, Martha Stewart offered some tips for growing your own edible flower garden, focusing mainly on a lavendar theme.


photo by rootytootoot

Always use common sense: don't eat any flowers from florists, nurseries, or those growing by the roadside, since most will have been treated with pesticides. Also, remove the pistils and stamens; for most flowers, only the petals are edible. Flowers are meant to be eaten in small amounts; people with allergies should be especially careful. For a long time, I drank chamomile tea without realizing it's a no-no for people with ragweed allergies.

I think I'm going to check Whole Foods for edible flowers this week. If any of you have any recipes, recommendations or experiences with edible flowers, please share! BTW, May is the perfect time to try them, since its National Salad Month!

            

To test your Edible Flower IQ, click here.

For a list of edible flowers, click here.

     
      Nibble, nibble!

*Hamster photo from knittingskwerigurl's photostream.
 

I mentioned in my last post that I'd been at the Medical Library Association's Southern Chapter Conference this week. I gave a keynote, and my talk was followed by remarks and comments from two excellent responders, Michele Kraft and Gabe Rios.

Michele coined a term on the spot. Reacting to my comments about "disaggregation" and "re-aggregation" of information, she came up with the phrase "information fission" to describe the way multiple atoms of information from many sources slam together to release all sorts of new energy. I told her that I planned to steal this phrase; I'm kind of surprised she didn't use it in her terrific blog entry about the program!

Gabe quoted a terrific maxim that we should all have tattooed in a prominent location: "Information that is hard to find is information that will remain hardly found."