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Market flowers brighten the plate as well as the table
By Joan Obra
Fresno Bee
May 13, 2008
There are many treats to eat at the farmers markets: hollyhocks, pansies, bachelor's buttons, borage and nasturtiums.
Not exactly what you were thinking of, right?
If you're like most farmers-market shoppers, sugar-snap peas and strawberries take top priority this time of year. After all, summer will arrive all too soon — and its heat will yank these delicacies away from us.
But it's worth your while to devote some attention to flowers. Edible flowers share a characteristic with strawberries and sugar-snap peas — it's best to snap them up before summer hits.
It's no wonder that chefs such as Karsten Hart of Erna's Elderberry House Restaurant in Oakhurst get excited about edible flowers.
"I come up with ideas based on the market," Hart says. "It instigates ideas and forces you to look at things differently."
At Erna's, arugula, borage, chamomile, thyme and rosemary flowers adorn salads. Hart tucks flowers into terrines. He steeps chamomile in fish broth.
"The chamomile gives this a really nice nose," he says.
Hart is not a fan of battering and frying flowers — a common technique.
"It's appropriate if the flower is bruised," he says. "But if it's perfect, you want to show it off."
For that reason, it's best to use edible flowers immediately, Hart says. But some of them will keep for up to a week if handled properly. Hart recommends loosely wrapping flowers in a moist paper towel and storing them in a plastic container.
Before folks start experimenting with edible flowers, they should be sure the flowers come from a reliable source. Certain types are poisonous or bitter; others contain pesticide residues.
In "The Book of Food: A Cook's Guide to Over 1,000 Exotic and Everyday Ingredients" (Henry Holt & Co., $40), Francis Bissell describes how to infuse butter with flowers, make flower-flavored sugars and use marigolds and nasturtiums in savory dishes.
"Wrap a piece of fresh, unsalted butter in cheesecloth, bury it in a bowl of flower petals, cover and leave it in a cool place for about 12 hours," she writes. "Then unwrap the butter, which is delicious on toast or scones.
"Flavored sugars for ice creams, sorbets and custards can be made by grinding one part clean, dry petals to two to four times their volume of sugar. The proportion depends on the strength of the flower's scent. Lavender will take plenty of sugar; violets and mimosa will take less."
As for nasturtiums and marigolds, "They are particularly good finely chopped, with one or two of their leaves, and added to cream cheese, omelets, souffles or vegetable terrines."
The flavor of the flowers should dictate their use, Matson says. "If using a flower for a dessert, then you're going to want to use the sweet-tasting flowers," she says. "The more vegetable flavor, you would tend to use those more with vegetables or meat dishes."
And just because a flower is edible doesn't mean you should eat it. "Like snapdragons," Warner says. "They're safe to eat, but they just taste horrible."
Reach Joan Obra at jobra@fresnobee.com .
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