A Field of Possibility: The “Edible” Label
Walking down the grocery produce aisle, we often see bananas cascading over tiered towers, granny smith apples threatening a “bruising” as they balance on their perfect stacks, and (always) some person sneak-tasting a grape from piles of perforated bags. Our question is: in all this abundance, where are the flowers? Of course, grocery staples like broccoli, cauliflower and artichoke are technically flowers. However, we don’t often find cartons of edible viola blossoms next to the cartons of raspberries, no potted marigolds next to the potted basil (insert crying face emoji here). That is, not in a typical grocery store in the United States.
Just as Y2K maximalism has crawled its way back into our wardrobes over the last few years, an ancient habit of consuming flowers has made a comeback in recent decades – and not just at Eat Your Flowers. Architectural Digest touts recipes for a nasturtium pesto and chamomile roasted sweet potatoes. A package of edible flowers sold at Whole Foods contains geranium, rose, lavender, nasturtium, cornflower and snapdragon. This brings up our second question: why those flowers? Of the estimated 400,000 living species of plants, between 200,000-300,000 are edible – yet we eat only around 200.
A FLOWER DIET
The reason we eat what we eat is not so black and white. Through trial-and-error, ancient civilizations identified flowers as “edible” and “non-edible” and passed those identifications down generationally. These days, a lab can establish whether or not a plant is edible by testing the amount of alkaloids. But it’s not just about what’s technically edible and what’s not. There are foods we may not consume for religious reasons, such as with kosher guidelines in Judaism or lent restrictions in Catholicism. A vegetarian or keto diet might also decide our eating habits. Then, there’s just pop-culture. Eating rice for breakfast may be popular in Japan and at the same time atypical in North America, where toast (or in my case, a short stack) is the more common breakfast carb of choice. These dichotomies are determined by years of cultural factors – whether they’re religious, geographical, biological, or historically-charged.
TAG, YOU’RE IT
So, while the “eat me” tag is different depending on where you are, it’s also always subject to change thanks to globalization. Years ago, when the Spanish colonists came to Mexico, there was initial prejudice against the common Mexican practice of incorporating flowers in food, the Spaniards associating this with poverty. However in time, the Spanish ended up cooking with flowers in place of meat during their Catholic customs like lent. The ebb and flow continued, and edible flowers were later left in the dust again in favor of more easily transportable or routinely growable items. Our global history is full of stories like this, where preconceived notions give way to necessity or simply a trend that catches on. When introduced to Europe from Central and South America, the tomato was initially thought of as an aphrodisiac, deeming it an “apple of love” by some as well as the “devil’s fruit” by the Roman Catholic Church. Now, an Italian menu without tomatoes would be sacrilege.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
So while we see this shift towards flower-feasting in modern cultures, it’s clear that there’s a lack of central, comprehensive information about edible flowers. No official list or intake guidelines have been produced by international agencies like the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation (FAO), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), or European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). The FDA does have a list of “substances generally recognized as safe,” though it’s fairly limited in species and detail. For instance, even though the Aztec marigold is one of the most popular edible flowers in Mexico, it’s nowhere to be found on the FDA’s list. For example, the California Poppy, which is edible flower, but also not on the FDA's "generally recognized as safe" list.
So if you’re feeling a little skepticism about edible flowers - or at least, with foraging your own - we get it. There are things to be cautious about when it comes to ingesting flowers, such as toxic lookalikes, allergic reactions, or potential pesticide contamination. Some flowers require specific preparation to be eaten, some are only partially edible, and some have maximum intake caps. So maybe it’s just easier to generalize, eat what we know, what’s uncomplicated. But that’s hard when we know that things once deemed too “out there,” like the tomato, can become a staple of cooking across the globe.
While we wait for global agencies to present their badges of legitimacy, books and media help spread the edible flower gospel: “Edible Flower Garden” (1999) was an early information source in the States, and more recently, books like (shameless plug!) “Eat Your Flowers: A Cookbook” (2023) provide insight into the subject. And there is also our Practical Guide to Edible Flowers, which is Loria's very in depth guide with images, flower tasting profiles and her favorite way to use each of these flowers. What's cool is that there’s always social media, our modern folklore, connecting us with culinary trends from across the world.
We’re eager to see what happens as the popularity of edible flowers continues to bloom! It’s odd that there was a time that people associated edible flowers with poverty, and now they are – in some places – considered luxury items. It goes to show that culture is fluid and ever changing, and we look forward to a world where edible flowers can be cherished by everyone. Words by Tess Ryan
