This is an interesting question. In some languages, German and Swedish for example, the word for carnation is the same as for clove, so the first thing I'd check is that the recipe is not a mistranslation. Once you're sure it is the flowers being referred to I would imagine these would be more the old fashioned pinks than the modern garish carnations of the florists' trade. Clove pinks were named such exactly because they smelled like the spice. The fact the recipe refers to 'whole carnations' makes me think it is cloves being talked about rather than flowers, because only the petals are used in cooking, not the whole head.

I would agree with flora, just checked 3 glög or gloegg recepies online, they all mention clover and cinnamom but no flowers, so probably an actual mistranslation,

And probably via German because in Swedish the spice and the flower Dianthus are completely different words.

Skall, bye, Lin

Thanks for the additional info, Linaria - I do speak German (Nelken) but I got the Swedish from an online dictionary. They are notoriously unreliable. 'Nejlika' was given for both meanings.

BTW, I'm sure it was a typo but 'cloves' not 'clover' is the spice. That would be a whole other flower recipe ;-)

Hi flora,
dear me, yes, no Trifolium :-)

probably just was lucky, picked the first dictionary that popped up.

and I just love all these questions that popp up here on the forums.

Bye, Lin

Here is a link that might be useful: clove in Swedish and German