— Ruth Charlesworth

Edible flowers. Okay interesting question and I'm going to turn this around okay and consider this as what edible flowers go with plant-based meals or menus and that's going to be you know, the I think the question that I've you know, come across a number of times and that's probably most common in the kitchen. Okay, whether it's plant-based cooking or something else. All right, edible flowers have some different Aromas and different flavors and tastes. And you know, sometimes they're pretty mild and they're not particularly noticeable other times. They're bitter. Sometimes they're sour and then of course they have different Aromas that we're probably familiar with. Okay and They really can go with a lot of different foods. Okay, I mean number one edible flowers are used for a garnish and you know, in which case you can place in a whole flower, you know at the edge of a presentation and serve it or you can pluck the pedals and sort of sprinkle those on top as a Finishing Touch in both cases. They're probably not going to be very noticeable. Okay for the diner and there are and so you might be able to use whatever you want. Okay, but it's always a good idea to taste the flowers ahead of time. I recommend that with any ingredient that you're using if you're not certain how it tastes on its own go ahead and just put Mouth I have always told my students when in doubt put it in your mouth and just taste it. If you don't like it, you can always expel it. Okay, and that way you'll know if it's very sour or very bitter or just lightly so or something else and then you can proceed from there. Okay. Now another way to approach the use of edible flowers is as a more significant ingredient and we will commonly see edible flowers incorporated into salads. And you know, these would be of the leafy green style of salads. In other words not a potato salad, right? But some sort of a tossed green or even a somewhat composed salad, but made of greens and in this context we can put in flowers or again. We can pluck the pedals and just toss those in the salad with the greens. Okay, and in a similar manner also consider herbs and they can be holy for they can be torn leaves. You can just toss those in or fold those into a salad for some additional Aroma and flavor. Okay, then the the other benefit with edible flowers is that they add a nice visual component to your food? Okay now when it comes to Hot items, you know, edible flowers are usually used as a garnish off to the side or on top because they tend to be pretty sensitive to heat and you know, they will will to discolor and in otherwise look less than appealing which is contrary to what we're trying to achieve with edible flowers. Okay, so Ruth in summary think about a couple of things primarily is going to be the taste and you know, how you might how the flower might go with whatever your pairing it with and you can also control some of that through sauces or dressings that you might use. Okay, and then think about the the color or that visual aspect that comes along with the edible flowers.