Cooking With Flowers book

One of my more unusual flea market finds is a book in rather good condition called Cooking With Flowers.  Copyright date inside is 1971, and the subtitle is Wherein An Age-Old Art Is Revived.  Written by Zack Hanle, who is/was a woman, and illustrated by Donald Hendricks ... neither name is familiar to me, but this isn't exactly a mainstream topic.  While I do have individual recipes in various cookbooks using flowers like squash blossoms and lavender blooms, I had never seen an entire book dedicated to the subject, so of course I had to snap that one up gleefully.

Cooking With Flowers, copyright 1971
by Zack Hanle; illustrated by Donald Hendricks

For me, this book was well worth the $1 I paid for it.  The table of contents lists: carnations, chrysanthemums, dandelions, day lilies, elderflowers, marigolds, nasturtiums, roses, squash flowers, violets, and yuccas.  I had already known dandelions, elderflowers, roses, and squash blossoms were all edible (or fermentable, in the case of elderflowers) but I did not know about marigolds, which I have always been able to grow as garden perimeter flowers, or carnations, mums, violets, and day lilies.

I've only browsed this book so far, but I do love the line drawings.  Since today is definitely a cooking day (light rain since before sunrise) I figured this would make some interesting rainy-day reading.

You can find some of the neatest stuff at flea markets, if you just look.