Cooking with Wildflowers?

When I was surfing the Internet I came across a unusual topic about cooking. It was about preparing dishes with use of wild flowers from our gardens that many people think as weeds. Of course, not all of them are tasty and safe; however, many of them are edible so we should be more aware of what we are dropping out! Look what kinds of plants I found edible: sweet violet (both flower and leaves), carnelian (leaves) and also dandelion! Have you ever eaten some of them? Or maybe you know others that may be edible?

Dandelions are good, the green parts can get bitter, but the flowery bits are sweetish and also very pollen-y. I used to eat them a lot as a child. Violets are edible as well, both sweet violet and common violet. I don't remember what they taste like, but I also used to eat them as a child. Sweet violet is sometimes candied for baked goods.

Clovers are edible as well, the red clover (purple clover? Not sure) is the best in my experience, but white is good too. I prefer using them for tea, or pulling out and eating the individual tubey flowers.  They're mildly sweet.

One other flower I eat is bee balm. Its not exactly a wildflower, but it is wild other places. It tastes kind of herby to me.

Also edible (but not yummy to me) is the original and naturalized orange daylily. I have tried them but I do not like them. Another caution with these is to make sure they're orange daylilies, as I'm pretty sure only daylilies are edible. Don't quote me on that though.

As with any foraging, do your research and bring a field guide for identification if you can. Never eat anything you're not sure about.

Here you go: http://www.eattheweeds.com/edible-wild-flowers/

Thanks to Green Deanne. "I have written extensively on this site about edible flowers, both cultivated and wild. Here 103  previous separate entries about wild flowers are in one spot. So if it seems you have read parts of this before, you might have. However, this focus is just on wild flowers."

Pictures are included in the article. He has individual entries on how to identify most of these plants. Always be sure of ID before consumption! We must keep all Permies alive!