It’s the season for edible flowers her in Mallorca. Other parts of the years offer other things but now everything is in bloom and the mountains and the fields are full of flowers! I rarely use wild greens for my clients when operating as a privat chef, retreat chef or doing events. It’s a little too time consuming with all the rest of the prep that needs to be done. But I do have a local contact who grow all sorts of edible flowers, including wild ones and I love using those for decorating the plates.
Out of curiosity and for foraging for personal use I’ve done a couple walks with Mallorcas wild food expert Uta, from My Wild Greens. She knows pretty much everything about the flora here and I learn so much every time. I’ve actually arranged to do another one with Uta, more focused on the shore line (inspired by my trip to South Africa) with a bunch of friends, in a couple of days. Super excited about that!
The other day I went searching for flowers and I found a whole bunch of them. The goal was to make ice cubes. I remember doing things like this as a kid with whole roses in big ice blocks. Once they were done I didn’t quite know what to do with them and ended up using them for some sort of decoration for my snow cave/tunnel. I also decorated that tunnel with candles which looked pretty in the dark, midwinter night but made the whole thing melt and shrink and that was the end of that.
Not many snow tunnels here to be decorated so I’m popping the ice cubes in my glass and pour on a bit of elderberry cordial (or why not some gin and tonic?) instead. Spring is definitely in the air! And I’m lapping up the sunshine along with the drink on the terrace.
A little tip; if getting calendula or other similar flowers, it might seem tempting to pop the whole flower in the tray, like I did. Don’t. These flowers actually gives flavour to your drink (especially with alcohol) and that yellow thing in the middle is quite bitter. Instead, remove the petals, discard the middle bit, and put petals in the ice cube tray.
xx Ida
