The Couple Who Ate Flowers

Tetsu brought home a bag of chrysanthemums.  No, not to look at, to eat!

Chrysanthemums sometimes find their way to the dinner table in Japan.  When I first learned of that custom years ago, a long ago recollection of a grade school teacher reading us a book called "The Boy Who Ate Flowers" floated into my memory.  I remember being so delighted at the absurd thought of someone eating flowers!

But Tetsu and I don't eat flowers very often...  For one, I don't know how to cook them.  For another, Tetsu isn't very fond of the slightly bitter tang of chrysanthemums.  But there sat a bag of chrysanthemums on my counter that someone had given him so I had to figure out what to do with them.  It turns out that they are rather easy to cook.

I could have just dipped a whole flower in batter and deep fried it as tempura.  That would have been pretty and delicious but I've gotten away from deep frying things recently and didn't want to start another whole bottle of oil.

Instead, my trusty old Japanese recipe book turned up a recipe for vinegared chrysanthemums with seaweed and I thought that would make a good side dish to my Japanese meal.

First I plucked all the outer petals from the flowers.  (The inner petals have more bitterness.)

Then I boiled them up for a few seconds (yes, seconds) in slightly vinegared water...  I don't know why the vinegar was needed.

Next I squeezed out the water and cut up some seaweed (wakame) which was actually a bit tough so I boiled that too.

Finally I tossed it all with a vinegar dressing made of 2 Tablespoons rice vinegar (I sampled apple vinegar but the dish no longer tasted Japanese) and 1 Tablespoon of sugar. 

Tetsu looked at my chrysanthemum "salad" and said,

"You know I'm not very fond of chrysanthemums..."

"You brought them home, mister, so they have to be eaten!"

And what do you know!  He had a generous portion and went back for seconds!

"Thank you.  You did a good job of eating those chrysanthemums."

"Because they were made by you they tasted all the better."

Lovely husband.

This was the rest of that meal...  Stuffed tofu pouches with dipping sauce, Chinese greens fried with garlic, and turnip miso soup.  (And that tablecloth now has a plastic sheet over it!)