I confess that I’ve never known what edible flowers actually are. As if they’re some exotic species of flower grown just for eating. I’ve bought and consumed them, leaving it up to the flower Gods to keep producing them in order to make my salads prettier, my soups more colorful. It just so happens that I was at the farmers’ market last week when some tattooed expert looking she-chef walked up and confidently stated that she’ll take a box of pansies. Mystery revealed, they’re nothing special, we’re just eating flowers from our gardens, but I’ll pretend that I never knew that.
ME: Ok, you’ve never seen anything like it. What are these?
LAUREN: What? Isn’t that just flowers? Are we eating flowers?
SAM: Cabbage.
ME: Yes, they’re flowers. But they’re a special kind. They’re edible flowers.
SAM: I’m not going to eat flowers.
ME: You’re not going to eat flowers? I actually ate them on my soup last night.
LAUREN: Um, can you take this off?
SAM: No, thank you.
LAUREN: Do you eat that? Do you eat this?
ME: Smell it. Yeah, you can eat the whole thing.
SAM: I want to smell it.
ME: Does it smell like anything?
LAUREN: It smells like petals.
ME: It smells like petals? Yeah, well it actually doesn’t have a strong floral smell which is probably why they’re edible flowers. You can eat that whole thing.
LAUREN: I don’t want to eat this. OK, maybe I’ll try the yellow one.
ME: Sam, you’re going to miss out. Here, do you want to try the yellow one or the purple one?
LAUREN: I tried the yellow one.
ME: Lauren tried the yellow first. You’re gonna try yellow first too, Sam?
SAM: I want to try purple.
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