Gorse flowers

[Shewie]

I shoved a handful of gorse flowers in my gob at the weekend as I've never tried them before. Not too sure what I thought as they didn't really taste of much, are they supposed to taste of almonds or something ?

 

[Toddy]

Yellow dye to me

cheers,
M

 

[Prawnster]

They taste a bit like coconut to me. I quite like 'em.

 

[w00dsmoke]

A mild soporofic to me...

 

[Shewie]

A mild soporofic to me...

Funny you should mention that, I did have a nap in the car on the way home but I put that down to the nine mile walk finished off with steak and ale pie with a couple of pints of best in the pub.

 

[w00dsmoke]

Aye...you need to be VERY careful with gorse flowers if you are going to eat them in quantities. ;-) In the old days they were used by some folk as analgaesics and soporofics.

 

[JonathanD]

Sometimes you find cunningly concealed stingy things in them too

 

[Matt.S]

I understand they taste vaguely of coconut to some people, I'm not one of them. Closest thing I can think of is linseed.

Ah well, we'll see how it likes being turned into wine

 

[gregorach]

I've always found them vaguely pea-like...

 

[Melonfish]

i have a recipe for pickling them somewhere, similar to the ash key recipe.
i did try one recently and it was a bit coconutty i must admit.
thankfully nothing stingy hidden within!

 

[Seoras]

I've always found them vaguely pea-like...

One of my students compared the to pea like last weekend.

 

[DavidJT]

They certainly smell of coconut when the sun gets on them

 

[Nagual]

I find they smell of coconut but taste of runner bean. I tend to pull off a couple of the larger petals as I think they can be a bit bitter. Anyone got any idea on how many you would need to make wine?

cheers,

 

[gregorach]

Anyone got any idea on how many you would need to make wine?

Quite a lot.

 

[Matt.S]

Quite a lot.

Well if you're making 15 litres of wine yes Scaling that down you need about half a pint per 750ml bottle, or about 3 pints of flowers for a one-gallon demijohn.

 

[gregorach]

Well if you're making 15 litres of wine yes Scaling that down you need about half a pint per 750ml bottle, or about 3 pints of flowers for a one-gallon demijohn.

I'd call that "quite a lot". It's about three times the rate at which I normally use elder flowers for wine.

 

[Nohoval_Turrets]

Anyone tried to make a tea from them? The raw article doesn't taste of much to me. Well, it tastes of 'plant', but that's hardly unique. But the smell of coconut is unmissable. I always thought there should be some way to capture that.

 

[Asa Samuel]

Horrible things. My girlfriend says she can taste a little bit of coconut but all I can taste is grass

 

[w00dsmoke]

Yup I've made tea with them and lime flowers with some honey. A very nice pleasant brew indeed that I used in the past for pain management.

 

[locum76]

They seem to be a 'love it or hate it' thing. After reading this thread I'll have to give them a go. Like many weeds I've never bothered with them before.