Culinary Lavender
What makes lavender “culinary”?
The term ‘culinary lavender’ refers to both cultivar (type) of lavender and the way it’s processed.
Some lavender cultivars are better than others when it comes to cooking.
Popular culinary lavender cultivars (types) include:
L. angustifolia ‘Folgate’
L. angustifolia ‘Melissa’
L. angustifolia ‘Croxton’s Wild’
L. angustifolia ‘Wykoff’
L. angustifolia ‘Miss Katherine’
L. angustifolia ‘Royal Velvet’
L. angustifolia ‘Buena Vista’
Notice anything about these cultivars? They’re all L. angustifolias – commonly known as True Lavenders.
Each cultivar has a distinct taste. ‘Melissa’ is slightly peppery. ‘Croxton’s Wild’ has an earthy, cinnamony taste. ‘Miss Katherine’ is sweet and floral. A great go-to culinary lavender cultivar is ‘Buena Vista’ and ‘Folgate’.
There are many, many types of culinary lavender cultivars, but most of them are types of True Lavender, vs. Lavandin, for example.
Lavandins (L. x. intermedia) is edible, as is all lavender, but its flavor can be resinous and pungent. A Lavandin type will make a dish taste bitter.
The process:
Culinary lavender is defined partly by cultivar and partly by process.
First, we begin by harvesting lavender at the optimal timefor culinary use.
Processing lavender buds begins by drying bundles of lavender and de-budding the bundles (separating the dried buds from the stems). The buds then need to be “cleaned” – sifted through through screens to remove leaves and bits of stem.
While crafting lavender might also be sifted, culinary lavender is sifted multiple times so that all that remains is the lavender buds (and not leaves, stems or dried calyxes, which enclose the petals and form a protective layer around the lavender flower).
This extra step, cleaning the buds, is more work, but the end result is dried lavender buds that are free of stems and debris that change the taste that have a much more pungent and bitter taste, vs. the pleasant floral notes of the lavender flower.
Why do some lavender foods taste like soap?
If a lavender dish tastes like soap, either the wrong cultivar of lavender was used, or too much lavender was used.
