Well, some folks on the Straight Dope Message Board were talking about eating the flowers fried like breaded mushrooms - that sounded pretty good, so I went off and picked a few

I didn't pick many, as I wasn't sure how good this was going to be - and they were picked late in the day, so they were starting to close up - not exactly ideal. Anyway...

Also in there are some flowers from wild three-cornered leeks that are growing in the woods near my house.

I made a quick batter from an egg, an ounce or so of plain flour and a pinch of curry powder.

I washed the flowers carefully and coated them in the batter.

Then I shallow fried them, for about three minutes in total, turning once in the middle of cooking.

They came out looking like this. Crispy and fluffy.

I sprinkled them with a little salt and we all tried some. Everybody agreed they were really very good. A definite thumbs up for this wild food.

Other Uses For Dandelions

The young leaves can be eaten in salads. I've made coffee substitute from the roasted roots - and that was pretty good - tolerably similar to coffee, but with dark, syrupy licorice tones - which made it good in its own right.

Looks Familiar...

When I was washing and preparing the flowers, they kept reminding me of something, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was...

- then, suddenly, realisation dawned.

Drowned Wasps

Collectively, the flowers look like drowned wasps. That's what it was.

What Do They Taste Like?

Pretty good.
Of course, the batter contributes quite a lot to the experience of eating dandelions, but the flavours of the flower do come subtly through.

They taste slightly nutty, faintly of honey, with a pleasant green vegetable tang, but also a hint of spicy aromatic freshness - like pine resin, perhaps.

These are inadequate descriptions. Summary: fried dandelion flowers in batter are very nice to eat - well worth trying.

Next Time

Next time I'll pick some larger flowers, and get them in the middle of the day when they're wide open - as well as tasting just great, they should look a bit nicer fried, if they retain their circular shape.

I'll also try a different batter - maybe just beer and flour with no egg - the egg batter is nice enough, but does not stay crispy for long after cooking