Edible Flowers--The Last Hurrah

The oniony taste of chive flower blossoms sprinkled across fresh salad greens. The tart and lemony garden sorrel flowers, making you pucker in a sort of child-like Lemonhead memory. The mysteriously unidentifiable essence of lavender baked into a cookie or sweet bread. And the saffrony gold of calendula flowers coloring a soup or brightening eggs. Edible flowers such as these are not essential to cooking, like perhaps sea salt or tomatoes or balsamic vinegar, or whatever else it is you you use with a heavy hand. They are an edible garnish, a last-minute accent that elevates the dish from everyday to a head-cocking, what-is-that-flavor awakening. What's more, most edible flowers are not specifically grown for the flowers. They are the last hurrah of a plant you may have enjoyed for its leaves, like arugula or cilantro. These plants may have even been left in your garden too long, accidentally, because of life getting in the way of clearing them out and making room for the next season's crops.

Edible flowers remind me of so many older people I see, quietly quilting and painting and creating such beauty, expressing a lifetime of stored energy and inspiration, while younger, more supposedly productive life buzzes on around them. There they are, in all their glory, flowering exuberantly, reaching their arms boldly to the sun, singing a final song and leaving an indelible mark on all they touch as their seeds spread to foster new growth long after they are gone.

I try not to be so quick to "clear out and make room for the next season's crops." Because, if I do, I miss it. I miss the connection between generations. And I miss out on the indescribable flavor of the final stage of life.

Edible Flowers--The Last Hurrah