Pass the (organic) roses please

Borage for courage, a friend once said, handing me an iced tea into which she slipped a silvery-green leaved sprig of the herb, its blue flower balanced on the rim of the glass. Now that particular friendship has melted away, but the memory of a warm June afternoon spent overlooking White Pond, in Concord, MA, will remain, I suspect, forever.

If you’ve caught scent of the happy fusion of flowers and food lately, in restaurants, upscale markets, and organic farm stands, you are clearly on the path to all that’s current, chic, and aesthetically pleasing about the food revolution. Flowers have regained their place at table, and I don't mean as centerpieces to admire, but as integral ingredients in soups, rice and pasta dishes, salads, omelets, and desserts. Petals not only look pretty, they taste good – crunchy, peppery, sweet, fresh, redolent of field and forest.

In truth, food and flowers have long kept company. Only, now, as the boundaries blur between so many things formerly thought opposing (fiction and nonfiction for example), imaginative chefs and organic gardeners unite old world practices with new world taste buds and aesthetics to bring flowers to meals in novel ways. (Yes, flowers as decorative and tasty curatives have been around forever. Indeed, there are certain ancient cures we may not care to try. Who will rise to the challenge of a 16th-century cure for insanity involving daisies steeped in wine with sage and southernwood, for example?)

Chosen well -- use organic only, please! and when added to simple dishes that will not overwhelm their delicacy, flower petals bring elegance, color, flavor, texture, wit, and famed curative powers to many a dish.

Try It
We’ve all put nasturtium leaves (for their peppery flavor) and flowers (for their vibrant red-orange-yellow dash of color) in salads, but what about rose or peony petals, violets, violas, and gladiolas tossed between the radicchio and endive? Or tulip petals with the crunch of cucumbers? Or tender white sweet pea blossoms? Apple blossoms (in moderation, please, they are cyanide precursors ) add flavor to fruit compotes, as do garlic flowers to salad dressing, marigold petals (known as Poor Man’s Saffron) to soups, pasta, rice dishes, herb butters, and salads. Carnation petals steeped in wine or other drinks add a faint sweetness and are said to be calming, chrysanthemum petals have a slight peppery taste, bee balm tastes like oregano, and daylilies (cut away from the bitter white base) make marvelous desserts, I hear.

In Mexico, hibiscus flowers are used in jamaico, a cool drink infusion, as well for making ice cream and sorbet. In Asia and North Africa, a cup of mint or jasmine tea may reach your hand afloat with orange blossoms. In Asia, too, daylilies find their way into salads and hot and sour soup.

Five marigold petals floating in a bowl of pale green spinach soup, just seems timeless, does it not? Like goldfish in a Zen water garden.