This pesticide sounds good on a salad
By Bill Duncan
The View From Here
A columnist has to be careful what he writes or he may be required to eat his words. So it was with last week’s column, in which I extolled the virtues of a vegetable garden and downplayed the importance of a flower garden. I acknowledged there are some edible flowers, but I never expected Better Homes and Gardens to print pages of recipes for cooking up a mess of marigolds.
I plant marigolds in my vegetable garden, particularly around my cabbage plants because the pungent aroma of marigolds is supposed to discourage the pesky Cabbage Butterfly, a common name applied to the adult butterfly of the cabbage worms that love to lay their eggs in cabbage leaves and have the larvae poke holes in the leaves eating their way to adulthood.
But eat marigolds? That would be my last choice of edible flowers.
Yet in its August 2006 edition that arrived in the mail Friday, Better Homes and Gardens featured an article on marigolds by Doug Hall and Stephen Excel titled "Summer Gold," with an artistic display of the marigold recipes by Dianna Nolin, a food stylist. The magazine devoted two pages to recipes using marigolds.
Admittedly this kitchen experimenter is going to try a few, using the magazine’s tip:
"When cooking with marigolds select blossoms and young leaves with no sign of wilting or browning. Immerse the blossoms in cool water to rid them of any insects. Dry by patting with paper towels. … Use marigold petals and foliage in salads, breads and egg and vegetable dishes."
Immerse the blossoms in cool water to rid them of any insects? That’s why I planted them in the garden — as an organic pesticide. Don’t tell me my horticulturist friend, Jerry Maul, was correct when he pooh-poohed that idea in a class he offered for Master Gardeners. Maul said research concluded marigolds are not effective in reducing insect damage on vegetable crops.
Oh, well, marigolds have kept my white fly infestation under control for the 50-odd years I have been gardening, so why change. But eating marigolds is going to be a new experience. Marigolds are a native of Mexico and have been used in gardens throughout the world for hundreds of years. They are my kind of flower, simply because they reseed themselves year after year if you let them die a natural death.
So my advice is don’t eat yourself out of a new crop.
However, Better Homes and Gardens has some interesting recipes, including petal tea sandwiches, marigold biscuits, marigold pancakes and an interesting drink called a marigold sipper. All these recipes are in the August edition of Better Homes and Gardens, including one I am going to try:
Marigold Vinaigrette
1/3 cup olive oil or salad oil
1/3 cup rice vinegar
2 Tbsp. Signet marigold petals
2 Tbsp. Signet marigold leaves
1 tsp. sugar
In a screw-top jar combine oil, vinegar, marigold petals, marigold leaves and sugar. Cover and shake well. Drizzle vinaigrette on lettuce wedges. Top salads with additional blossoms and leaves. Makes about 1 cup of dressing.
Signet marigolds are different from most marigolds. The plants are bushy with lacey foliage, the blossoms have a spicy tarragon flavor and the foliage has a lemon fragrance.
I am not sure this vinaigrette is going to replace my favorite wild blackberry vinegar, but I am willing to give it a try, so long as I don’t eat so many marigolds that I cease to protect my cabbage from those white flying things that seem to find my garden every summer.
(Bill Duncan can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470, or via e-mail at elderstatesmansblog@yahoo.com)