Gorse flowers

[Harvestman]

The weird thing about gorse is that if you smell the flowers, 3 people in every 4 smell desiccated coconut, and the other person will say that they smell of vanilla. Apparently, what you smell is determined by your genetics, and it is a simple heritable trait.

I smell coconut, my wife smells vanilla (she has to be the awkward one!)

I don't why this is, but it seems to be true.

 

[Mang]

...runner bean...

Same here, specificlly the bean inside the er Runner bean.

 

[Jumbalaya]

Really you need to wait for a nice and warm/sunny day so that that coconut-apricot-like quality develops, and then pick the flowers. I put a video on YT the other day with a few tips on gorse at the section. Go hunt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ2oJ-cjbUk

Some folks make the flowers into a quick tea-like beverage, others make gorse wine. I'm currently exploring a gorse flower liqueur after a mate at Eden Project mentioned that he'd tried making it. He kept no recipe though so I've been using my own judgement based on related explorations into wild foods. Again, notes at end of video.