Edible Flowers: From Garden to Palate

Barash ( Evening Gardens ), a gardener, a writer and a photographer, here offers a more than generous anthology of ideas for bringing together flowers and foods at the table. The book is not recipes only. Barash also includes information about the etymological history of plant names, the plants' growing habits, how to cultivate them, identify them in the wild and gather them for eventual use in the kitchen. She makes an admirable effort to provide inventive and appealing offerings: ``Candied Pea Blossoms on Salmon Toast Points,'' for example, lays 20 pea flowers on an array of toast slices; clover finds its way into biscuits and pickles; lavender goes into soup, chutney, cookies, ice creams and fish dishes. It may seem fanciful to consider adding lilac blossoms to yogurt, then downing it, but she convinces, and sometimes entrances, with floral crossovers. And wisely, the author includes a list of poisonous plants and flowers, along with a generous bibliography. Photos not seen by PW. (Sept.)