Blossoms on the plate – just a food trend or really healthy? We checked with our Green PearlsⓇ partners and learned: Edible flowers are not only a visual highlight, they also enhance the dish with fragrance, texture and flavor.

Right off the bat, not all flowers are suitable, and certainly not the ones you buy at the florist or in the supermarket. Only fresh, unprocessed petals, preferably from your own garden, should appear on your dish. Dried or candied flowers are also suitable for use in desserts and tea. Read on to find out what else to look for and how the professionals use flowers to create culinary masterpieces.

Cut flowers from the supermarket do not belong on your plate!

Bred for performance, cut flowers are a global commodity. They grow fast, bloom beautifully and last a long time. In most cases, however, it’s impossible to trace the origin of the flowers. The importing country in Germany is almost always the Netherlands, the world’s largest flower exporter. Flowers arrive here, from all over the world. Especially in winter, but all year round, it is possible to buy flowers from Kenya, Uganda, Colombia or Ecuador in supermarkets or flower shops. The large growing areas in Africa and South America pose a problem: According to FIAN (Food First Information and Action Network Germany), the massive use of pesticides pollutes the soil and harms the workers*. Add to that the CO2 emitted when the flowers are flown over long distances to Europe.

Surprise: European flowers from conventionally heated greenhouses are not more sustainable than flowers from Africa in various comparative studies (e.g. Max Havelaar Foundation, 2018)! The level of pesticides is lower, but not the ecological footprint (which is due to the greenhouses heated with fossil fuels).

Bottom line: Only flowers grown by yourself or from a trustworthy source are suitable to ensure that the floral decoration on your plate is edible.

Green PearlsⓇ accommodations with their own farms and gardens

Many of our partners maintain their own small farms to grow their own vegetables, fruits, herbs and sometimes even grains. In accordance with the “farm to fork” principle, the products from the 0-km farm end up directly on the plates of our guests.

This is a typical spring salad (photo taken in March 2023) from the Guntrams Estate. As you can see: The flowers on the plate are not decoration, but the main ingredient. The fresh goat’s cheese is rolled in the blossoms.

Agriculture and hospitality go hand in hand at our Green PearlsⓇ partner Gut Guntrams in Austria. Nearly 3.6 hectares of land is farmed, and the produce goes straight to the guests’ plates.

When it comes to flowers for the plate, Gut Guntrams uses

• Marigolds
• Clove flowers
• Fennel flowers
• Lavender
• Buckwheat flowers
• Coriander flowers
• Daisies

For the breakfast tea, the herbs and flowers are gently dried in the hotel’s own drying facility. For example, the hotel uses:

• Nettle
• Sage
• Lime blossom
• Lemon verbena
• Spearmint
• Lemon Balm
• Caraway
• Marigold
• Candied flowers enhance the desserts at Gut Guntrams. Here are some of the flowers used
• Lemon flowers
• Daisies

Candying means: You preserve something by adding sugar. Candied violets, for example, are said to have been a favorite dessert of Sissi (Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary).

Candied blossoms

In the classic version, flower petals are dipped in beaten egg whites and icing sugar. They are then rolled in granulated sugar and left to dry on a wire rack. For a vegan version, make a sugar syrup with water and sugar, or whip aquafaba (chickpea stock) like egg whites.

Fish with fresh flowers on the plate

Also located in Austria is the gourmet Hotel Die Forelle, where chef Hannes Müller prepares exclusively regional dishes according to the Slow Food principles. Wherever possible,  fish is caught in Lake Weissensee in front of the hotel, and herbs and flowers are picked right outside the door.

In the restaurant of the gourmet hotel you can often find flowers on the plate from May to August. „ We never use flowers as decoration, but as an important flavor/texture of a dish,” says Hannes Müller. Lake trout is marinated raw and flavored with flowers, herbs, and salt in his “Spring Signature Dishes”

Blossoms left honest and natural

Most importantly, the flowers on the plate at STURM in the Rhön Biosphere Reserve remain untreated. They are “simply washed” and then put on the plate “completely fresh and untreated”. All the ingredients come from the hotel’s own garden. It was planted more than ten years ago. On more than 5,000 square meters, guests will find fruit trees, vegetables, herbs and edible plants – an oasis to linger in and a source for organic cuisine.

This is also works with the Snack Garden of the SCHWARZWALD PANORAMA. Depending on the season, the flowers used vary. Particularly popular are

• Primroses
• Wild garlic flowers
• Sage flowers
• Nasturtium
• Jasmine flowers

You probably know (and use) the sage leaves for herbal tea or pasta sauces. But you can also eat the sage flowers. They have a milder flavor. They go well with salads or cream cheese.

At the ADLER Lodge RITTEN in South Tyrol, Italy, the 4,000 square meter sustainable garden is designed according to the principle of mixed cultivation. This means that different varieties grow side by side and are constantly rotated so that the soil is not depleted. Edible flowers for the plates are not only stolen by the cooks from their own field, but also from the nearby forest 🙂  

Sesbania flowers from Thailand

In Thailand, at our Green PearlsⓇ partner Keemala, the flowers growing in the hotel garden are of course different from those of the above mentioned partners in the DACH region. On Phuket, where Keemala’s sustainable “villa wonderland” is located, there are no seasons like here. There is a year round tropical climate with temperatures around 30°C and high humidity. (Water temperatures are only slightly lower at about 28°C).

A very famous edible flower of Thailand is the yellow sesbania. It grows wild on bushes and is also sold on the market in Thailand as a popular ingredient for cooking and baking. For example, the flowers are used for omelettes, Thai curry or bua loi (a dessert made of rice flour balls). At Keemala, this crab salad was decorated with edible flowers from the hotels’s garden. 

Puralp offers edible flowers in addition to organic bee products

For those who don’t grow their own, edible flower decorations are also available from trusted organic farms. Our partner HUBERTUS Mountain Refugio Allgäu works together with Puralp. The Allgäuer company meets the strict Bioland guidelines and is primarily known for bee products such as honey or propolis. Occasionally, however, they also deliver edible flowers – like these sunflower petals, which the HUBERTUS Mountain Refugio used to decorate the appetizer, as you can see in this picture.

Drying flowers

If, like the Hotel Klosterbräu in Tyrol, you are only going to use an flower on your plate occasionally, you can also dry the flowers and use them to make tea. At the Hotel Klosterbräu, located within the walls of a monastery that is over 500 years old, both the main restaurant and the à la carte restaurant rely primarily on fresh herbs, which are dried for the in-house organic herbal tea.

At home, flowers and herbs are best dried on a kitchen towel on a rack or grid. Air should come in from all sides. After 2 to 3 days, the flowers will be dry enough to rub with your hand. You can then store them in a box or jar in a cool, dark place.

Do you want to save this article for later? Use one of our pins or the button at the end!