Flower salad, anyone?

An organic farm in Mangatarem, Pangasinan serves flower salad to its guests. Here's an article written in 2013. 

For the diet-conscious, there is now a healthy alternative to green salad: it is called flower salad, a mixture of common edible garden flowers.

Former Marikina City councilor Lea Astrud Santiago, who introduced this recipe during an organic farmers convention in Pangasinan province, says many people were surprised that some ornamental flowers can be eaten. 

Photo from Our Farm Republic FB page

“Since we are into integrated organic farming, this is one of our advocacies, eating flowers and even weeds, which we call weedibles,” Santiago says.

She serves her recipe in her five-hectare organic farm, Our Farm Republic, in Barangay Torre 2nd in Mangatarem town.

Santiago, 40, whose mother is from Pangasinan, came home in 2010 and went into organic farming after her stint as public official in Marikina City, where she served since she was 19 years old.

In her flower salad, she says there is still the usual salad ingredients, like cucumber, carrots and lettuce.

“We add to that some herbs that you usually find in organic farms, such as gotu kola. If it’s not available, we use our version, the viola. Then we add a weed, which is often disregarded, the talinum, which is sour,” Santiago says.

Then flowers are added. During her recipe presentation, Santiago used blue ternate, orange cosmos, red and white katuray, and red gumamela petals.

“These are actually common flowers,” Santiago says.

Blue ternate, which is locally known as samsamping, is a common backyard garden vine. Its fruits can also be cooked as an ingredient of the Ilocano fare bulanglang. 

Cosmos, gumamela (hibiscus) and katuray, Santiago says, are also very common because they are easy to grow.  

“And then another ingredient that surprised many is the wild cucumber. These are small thimble-like fruits no one thought was edible,” she says.

“For its sauce, you can either use kalamansi or pineapple juice, and then vinegar. Then add brown sugar plus, of course, salt and pepper to taste. That's it,” Santiago says.

Armi Bangsal-Lorica, who is managing a restaurant in Binmaley town, says that she found the flower salad attractive and tasty. 

“Because there are different colors, it’s attractive. Also, the different texture of the flower petals makes it a delicious combination,” Lorica says. 

She says that the flower salad is something that one would want to eat upon seeing it.

“You don’t even notice that there are flowers in it. The dressing is also good,” Lorica says.

She says she wanted to include it in her restaurant’s menu, making it the first to offer the recipe in the province.

Santiago says that flower salad is safe to eat because its ingredients were all organically grown.

“I'm pretty sure, that these were not sprayed [with chemicals], no urea or whatever synthetic fertilizer was used,” she says.

Santiago says that the flower salad is also healthy because its ingredients are known to have medicinal values.

“For instance, the katuray, it has an element that can lower blood pressure. And then you have gotu kola, it's a memory enhancer, brain booster,” she says.

Santiago says that side from flower salad, she also serves in her farm banaba juice that tastes like the popular street drink sago at gulaman.