Flower Cuisine
There are edible flowers, but they are not your usual desserts, like the colorful sugar flowers that are used as cupcake toppers. Sure there are broccoli and cauliflower, which look like vegetables but are actually flower buds. However, what we mean are those beautiful flowers which you would be more likely to put in your bouquet than in your mouth. Do not, however, think of going to a flower shop, and start tasting each one of the flowers on display. That would be a dangerous thing to do, because if a flower is not edible, it might be poisonous.
High-end restaurants like garnishing their food with flowers, such as nasturtiums, roses, calendula, violets, Johnny-jump-ups, and squash blossoms. Flowers, like daylilies and asparagus are made as hot soup. Jasmine, chamomile and even hibiscus are popular teas around the world. Favorite salad ingredients are lilac, violets and dandelions, which in some countries are eaten boiled or raw.
Some food products that are made out of a flower ingredient have become very popular in the world. Example is the sunflower oil, which has become a widespread cooking ingredient. Also famous is the jasmine syrup of the French, which in the United States, is being used as ingredient for the jasmine scones and marshmallows. The elderflower cordial, which is a softdrink made largely from a refined sugar and water solution, uses the flower of the elderberry.
Be wary though in eating food with flower ingredient, and much more in cooking with flower ingredient. There are flowers that are truly edible, but when not correctly prepared or cooked, they become toxic. Others are outright poisonous, except that they look exactly like the edible ones. Sometimes, however, the problem is not with the edible flowers but with the person eating them. There are people who have allergic reactions or who are attacked with asthma after eating a particular ingredient of a food.
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