Simone Jelley

I love, love, love violas and pansies. We get them here in winter and spring. They look like little faces and they’re always happy. When I started going into doing this back a decade ago, I coined “palette profile for chefs” to understand edible flowers. How does an edible flower taste? How does it fit in to a flavor profile? So, a lot of people don’t like eating flowers unless they’re culturally trained to, because they consider that as a gift in Australia that you buy to give as a bunch, right? However, with violas and pansies, they’re what we describe as vegetative, so they taste like weird lettuce. The kids call it weird lettuce. It’s weird lettuce, it doesn’t taste like much, it’s just a leafy, herbaceous feel. So, that is one of them.

Now, I have to say that I love calendula, which is called pot marigold, Calendula officinalis, because it’s a spring product here, but it’s a very potent anti-inflammatory, so it really crosses into very significant health benefits. But it’s also a beautiful thing that you can grow in your garden, use and incorporate it within salads, on desserts or in vinegars. Vinegar is an incredible thing to consume every day. So, I consider that to be one of my other favorites.

And my new favorite, I’ve shunted off other ones like roses and whatever else, but my new favorite is dahlias. In Spain, Portugal, they eat the tubers as potatoes, but they come from Mexico. They’re new world plant, and the whole floral form is delicious to eat, and then you can eat the tubers like potatoes.