Whether drying hibiscus petals to concoct a soothing tisane, harvesting nigella seeds to use in savoury biscuits or baking a lemon-scented pelargonium cake, Carolyn Dunster shows readers how garden-grown flowers make wonderful ingredients and transform dishes into floral feasts.
Flowers have probably been used in cooking for as long as people have been preparing and flavouring food. In China cooks were experimenting with chive flowers in 3000 BC and the Romans frequently added blooms to their dishes. Today flowers are often seen as an exotic extra employed only by professional chefs. Whilst we are all taking a greater interest in the provenance of our food, adding more plant-based ingredients to our diets, experimenting with growing our own vegetables and eating to follow the seasons, edible flowers remain a bit of an unknown quantity.
Edible flowers are difficult to source therefore Dunster shows how to grow an abundance of edible flowers to guarantee a regular and plentiful supply of chemical-free ingredients. A Floral Feast covers harvesting, drying and preserving methods, and a wide range of culinary uses and techniques.
Dunster is a botanical stylist, planting designer and author of books such as ‘Cut & Dry: The Modern Guide to Dried Flowers from Growing to Styling’ and ‘Urban Flowers: Creating abundance in a small city garden’.
A Floral Feast: A Guide to Growing and Cooking with Edible Flowers, Foliage, Herbs and Seeds (Pimpernel Press) will be released on the 7th of March 2024.