Please pass the pansies

F aslowers in our garden are lovely in a vase on a table or gifts to family and friends. But they can play another role.

There are the culinary uses of flowers; that is, there are flowers as popular edible foods. You might be surprised as to what edible flowers are in your garden.

Many flowers free of sprays, where you know chemicals were not used, are safe to eat. The safest place for edible flowers is your garden or where you might purchase flowers from a roadside stand and know the grower has not used chemicals.

My first experience to taste edible flowers was at Adelma Simmons’ gardens at the Caprilands Institute in Coventry, Connecticut. The famous herbalist was noted for lunches with edible

herbs.

Colorful pansies, bright nasturtiums, blue borage flowers and calendulas were scattered about on a colorful garden salad.

Even the sorrel soup did not escape a floral touch, with a single golden calendula blossom floating on top.

Violets and Johnny jump-ups floated gingerly in the festive punch bowl.

Lavender buds, scented geranium leaves, violets and rosebuds are lovely for adding to salads, decorate a cake or as an embellishment on a plate. I have frozen the tiny blossoms of these flowers in ice cubes and made a pretty garnish for drinks such as lemonade and iced tea.

With beautiful summer blooms, nasturtiums make a nice hors d’oeuvre. The blossoms filled with crabmeat, cream cheese and minced parsley are a pretty canape.

The scents of geranium leaves are many: mint, lemon, chocolate, pineapple, orange, lime and rose. The flowers on the geraniums are miniscule but also can be edible. Place them on the top of a baked and cooled sponge or pound cake and dust over them with confectioner’s sugar, then remove leaves to form a delicate leaf pattern design on the cake.

Some people are timid to try an edible flower. Going easy with first-timers can be simply adding a tall cutting of lavender to a drink as a stirrer, or enhancing a dip with the cucumber taste of a blossom of borage.

Be adventuresome and experiment. Edible flowers from your garden add a new dimension to cooking and entertaining.