Edible flowers make a pretty talking point at mealtimes, says Gillian Vine.
Lunching at a posh Auckland café some years ago, I was presented with my main course on a plate beautifully decorated with ivy leaves.
When I pointed out (shrieked, probably) that ivy was poisonous, I got a shrug and told no-one had complained before. Clearly, gardeners didn't frequent their restaurant, I snapped.
The offending ivy was removed and I ate my lunch but really didn't enjoy the treat, worrying whether the ivy had contaminated it. (I was fine, so obviously the food was untouched.)
Instead of ivy, I would have been happy to see edible flowers: roses, violets, pansies, nasturtium, calendula, clove dianthus (gillyflowers) and lavender would have delighted me. Many of these have long been used in the kitchen - rosewater, made from the petals of red roses, was first recorded in Greece in 140BC, while a couple of hundred years later, Roman gourmet Apicius was extolling the virtues of wines made with roses and violets.
In England, cowslip flowers were used to make a soporific wine or mixed with fat to produce ointments and cosmetics. A less common use of these members of the primula family was to use the flowers in cakes instead of currants.
Roses, too, have other uses. The petals of red blooms make lovely pale-pink jelly, while rosehip syrup, a vitamin C-rich substitute for orange juice, was given to New Zealand babies during and after World War 2.
People gathered the hips in Central Otago and sent them to Dunedin for processing. Unfortunately, it seems the product is not widely available but - judging from the interest in the homemade rosehip syrup on the heritage roses display at this year's Ellerslie Flower Show - it could be an industry worth revisiting.
In England, saracen sauce was made by pounding almonds with rosehips, then adding sugar and wine. It was served at the tables of the wealthy from the 14th century and Queen Victoria liked a posher version called Sauce Eglantine, made from rosehips gathered at Balmoral.
As their names suggest, some flowers were used as cheap substitutes for expensive ingredients. Pot marigold (Calendula officinalis) was dubbed poor man's saffron, elderflower "champagne" replaced French fizz and the unripe seed heads of nasturtiums were a cheaper form of caper berries. The leaves and flowers of nasturtiums are still seen in salads, adding bite and colour to the mix, while calendula petals can be added to salads or cooked rice.
Many herbs, including lavender and basil, have edible flowers, as does the dianthus, although be careful with the latter, as it is said to make a powerful love potion.
One flower that has fallen from favour is the violet, although they - and their close relatives, pansies and violas - are decorative edibles.
Candied violets can still sometimes be found and they are fairly easy to make but few would now bother with Salad Marie-Louise, apparently named after Napoléon Bonaparte's second wife. It seems the lady had a weakness for violets and the salad was a mixture of cold potatoes, raw apples and hardboiled eggs, dressed with oil and liberally sprinkled with violet heads.
If you balk at that, how about an old Scottish recipe for thistle punch, which combined whisky, vermouth, water and spices with dried thistle heads?
With more interest in gathering food in the wild, adding flowers to food or simply decorating dishes with them, it pays to know what is safe to use, so it is worth investing in a good guide.
Above all, adhere to the old rule: if in doubt, leave it out.
