Eat Your Flowers, Part 2--Daisies and Elderflowers

July 8, 2019

OK: I was a bit perturbed when I wrote my last post on edible flowers. I had wanted to include DAISIES, but already, by early July in Massachusetts, there was not a daisy to be found! I had to drive all the way to Maine to find daisies in bloom--and then taste them.

They were mild, tasted kind of yellowish (if that's an allowable adjective). They would be lovely as a salad ingredient or garnish. The wild flowers above are Oxeye Daisies. Like the cartoon flowers kids draw, they have a yellow button center surrounded by a single row of petals.

Shasta Daisy--cultivated cousin of wild Oxeye Daisy, and also edible

Last week, I sampled some Shasta Daisies from my neighbor's garden (shhhh. . . ). These cultivated blooms are similar to their wild Oxeye cousins, but heartier, sporting a double row of petals, thicker stems, and larger leaves. These blooms are also edible, and because the blossoms are more substantial, the buds are too. I picked a bunch of them and added them to my pickling experiment (more on that project to come). They turned out quite cute and tasty.

Elderberry Bush--common along New England highways in late June and early July

The other sample I needed to travel to Maine to find was the flower of the Elderberry Bush, aka Elderflower. Blooming season was done in Massachusetts, but just getting started north of Portland. In late June and early July you'll see these shaggy bushes with their flat, hand-sized flowers* all over alongside the roads. (For foraging purposes, you should avoid plants growing along highways, as they have likely been contaminated by pesticides and auto emissions.) As a child, my father and I gathered buckets of Elderberries, for my mom to make into (delicious!) pies and jams.

For years I've been reading about Elderflower pancakes, and I was determined to try them. The recipe

Elderflower

(this one's from motherearthliving.com: https://www.motherearthliving.com/cooking-methods/elderberries-elderflower-pancakes) sounds easy enough: Pick, wash, and dry the flowers; dip in pancake batter (Aunt Jemima's from the store was deemed by many commentators as "good enough"); fry like a pancake; enjoy.

Well, maybe I did something wrong. Full of high hopes, I drizzled my goodies with maple syrup, cut them into bite-size pieces, and sampled.

Hmm. That tastes like a pancake with something green and weedy inside--more a crepe than a pancake--a crepe that might be at home on a dim-sum menu, wrapped around shrimp.

Perhaps there are health benefits to elderflower pancakes, that would recommend a second try? Perhaps my culinary attempt went horribly awry? If you have any answers or ideas, please add them in the "comments" section below.

For now, I think I'll wait for the berries to arrive in the fall. Or, try the elderflowers in a cordial or other boozy beverage: there are tons of recipes out there. St. Germaine, you better watch your back. . . . I'm coming for you. . . .

*CAUTION: Elderberry is a shrub or small tree. Poison hemlock flowers look similar, but they grow atop the stems of individual plants.