Book Reviewed: Eat Your Flowers: A Cookbook by Loria Stern

Feasting on Flowers The book has numerous color pictures which make the recipes look delicious, but be careful when you use flowers in a recipe because it is a non-traditional ingredient that must be suitably processed so that the bitter tastes of the flower do not dominate. Chamomile is one of the well-known flower products that is widely used for making tea. No tall botanicals are edible, but the author gives a list of edible flowers on pages 18-23 with their flavors, food uses, and comments such as the aftereffects of baking. Many flowers have an unpleasant taste, and they must be blended with appropriate ingredients in suitable proportions. Useful hints include pressing your own flowers, and drying flowers. Some of my favorite recipes from this book are Scarborough herb-pressed biscuits, golden curry lentil soup with apple, flower-pressed chapatis, and green papaya salad. There are numerous books available on Amazon.com that describe the use of flowers in cooking, and this book is good for illustrations, but I have seen much more enticing recipes from other sources.