We have been enjoying the flowers this spring! The typical smattering of flowers lives in our yard: daffodils, tulips, forsythia, wisteria, and lilac. (But is any flower really typical? Each one is so amazing!)
Tony has been busy making his salves and syrups, and has been preparing flower teas in order to make (experimental) flower jelly. Last year we made a delicious forsythia-dandelion jelly, so he is going to do that again by popular demand, but now that we have made one or two flowery things, I have begun to let my mind wander.
“What is that yellow flower that stands so high in the field?” I asked Tony on the way home.
“Yellow rocket, or Winter cress,” he answered. “It’s a strong bitter, good for kidneys and helps cleanse the blood.”
“Would it make a tasty jelly?” I ask. “It looks like liquid sunshine.”
“If you like the taste of mustard,” he answers.
Sigh.
But my questions are making him think along the same lines, I think. Yesterday, I asked him about the wisteria in our yard. He got curious and started pulling out his books and checking things online. This morning while he was collecting greens in the yard before mowing, he casually mentioned that the wisteria flower can be used for a wide variety of foods, and that it is related to sweet pea.
I got very excited thinking about the sweet fragrance of both the wisteria and the sweet pea, and asked if we could make a jelly from it. This year, our wisteria is out-doing itself!
He answered in the affirmative, and so I set about the process of gathering flowers. I wasn’t sure how many would be needed, and he answered that we could use as many as I could gather, even 50 cups. (He gets as excited as I do sometimes.)
I stood under the beautiful clusters of flowers and just enjoyed them for a few moments. They won’t be there after I harvest them, I thought, and they are so graceful. I just wanted to drink the beauty in for a little bit. I walked around and took a few pictures, and then he called out: “Go ahead and taste them. You can eat them right now.”
I reached out and took hold of one of the clusters, smelled the fragrance, and then pulled a newly-opened flower off the cluster and popped it into my mouth.
It tasted like peas.
I chewed and swallowed and then alerted Tony.
“What?” he said. In a moment he was there beside me and tried one for himself.
Now, I actually enjoy peas under the right conditions: smothered in butter and salt, or part of an Alfredo dish, or in a legume salad with a vinaigrette dressing. But I wasn’t expecting that taste to come from something that smelled so sweet. I could see from Tony’s face that he wasn’t expecting it, either.
“How could that make a good jelly?” I asked.
He shook his head, sadly, and then recovered. “It would make a good sauce, but we don’t have time for that right now,” he said.
He went back to harvesting greens. I headed back into the house with my empty bowl and my scissors.
The beautiful wisteria swayed in the breeze behind me almost as if it were silently laughing to itself:
Catastrophe averted.
The Fullers Four 