Hi @rosaprimula,

I have been hoping to collect a bunch of rugosa hips to make some jam this fall, but it looks like my rugosas are still too young to give me enough of a harvest, so it'll be a project for next year. I will also try making jam from my damask petals next spring.

I bet PhenoGeno's new food themed offerings would be fun to try!

I have just ordered my first PhenoGeno rose this fall, a rugosa called Aromatic Aurora. Their Aurora collection is touted as heat and drought tolerant rugosas so it seems very interesting to me. PhenoGeno seems like a very innovative and promising hybridizer!

If you end up getting Pear I hope it will be delicious!

I would really love to make a jam or syrup out of the flowers themselves, and have wanted to since I started collecting my roses 2 years ago, but I bought them all as bands and they're still working on growing big enough for me to harvest the flowers without completely stripping off the spring flush. One day :)

I like the idea of using my own flowers to cook with but I have taken the shortcut of buying some rose extract. I didn't like it...it tastes fake, at least in tea. I recently bought some Torani rose syrup to try in iced tea. I had some delicious rose flavored iced tea with pine nuts at a Middle Eastern restaurant in New Orleans. I haven't tried the syrup yet but have expectations that it'll be better than the extract.

I have a recipe for a Persian Love Cake which has rose petals on it. That looks good to me. Rose hip jam would be high in vitamin C. I think tiny Cecile Brunner blooms would be pretty decoration on a cake.

We had edible flowers on our wedding cake...can't remember what kind they were. You can infuse oil with rose fragrance by using petals. :) I've never done that.

rosa - I love what you wrote: dispiriting daily job of endless cooking for philistines. LOL :)

During WWII Britain was being "embargoed" by German submarines to the tune of hundreds of thousands of lost shipping. Since they imported most of their food, etc., it almost lost them the war. One thing I remember reading about - there was also a shortage of Vit C, a must for preventing scurvy. The Govt. just told the numerous rose gardeners all over the country to harvest the hips off their roses. The govt. made Vit C capsules directly from the rose hips. It worked. Roses have been used for perfume, food, vitamins, etc. for thousands of years.

Jackie

I still want to find the best rose variety for harvesting hips - someone told me Canina.

It depends on what you want to do with the hips. There is a rose in china which produces hips with soft spikes all over them which are huge - they sell them on the street as snacks!

Jackie

I've made rose petal jam. It's good, and very easy if you grow the right roses. The best I've made was from Hippolyte, which gave it a nice rich color. Ispahan tasted good, but the color wasn't nearly as nice. When dealing with once bloomers, all it took was a few quick handfuls of petals, and I had the ingredients.

Recipes using rose hips scare me. Years ago, we had our front stoop redone by a mason who have grown up in Germany. When he saw the R. eglanteria growing next to the stoop, he started talking about the itching powder he and his friends made from the hairs around the seeds in eglanteria hips. So anything using hips, I wonder if the hairs should be cleaned out, which sounds tedious, time consuming, and like nothing I want to deal with.

So I make rose petal jam.

If I am misinformed, I'd love to hear about. Or if there is an easy way to clean relatively small hips, like canina or eglanteria.

I'm not particularly interested in edible roses, but when at the start of this month I went to our local plant show-market Paderna (after two years not attending because of Covid--it was like going home) I found an exhibitor specializing in woody food-producing plants who had roses which had been bred for flavored petals. I don't know who the hybridizers were.

Rosaprimula, I too enjoyed your reference to philistine offspring and the joy of no longer having to cook for them, though that's not my own case. My own daughter when very young was famous as the toddler who liked green olives and blue cheese, and she's continued as she began.

My daughter is an adventurous eater who likes her veggies, but my son is of the "philistine" variety lol. He turns his nose up at most things I like to make. I wonder if they'll try the rose jam I'll eventually make.

Jackie - I had read that somewhere about rose hips/Britain. Gardeners saved the day! :) :) That is interesting about the rose/snack in China.

Mad Gallica - that sounds delicious! I didn't know you could make jam from petals...I thought it would be from hips. :) Do you add a fruit to it...or just sugar? :)

Melissa - flavored rose petals! Amazing!

Magpie - you have my sympathies over your son's pickiness. I'm so glad I don't have to deal with that anymore. :)

Sounds like a classic basic/acid reaction to me - great that it ends up pretty!

Jackie

Madgallica,

Fabulous jam recipe !!! Love it!

I looked up this you tube video for cooking w/ roses….. my fav video for ideas to cook w/ roses!!! She makes rose water, tea, syrup, jam, rosey rice, bread, and rosey chicken…. my mouth is watering afterxwatching her video!

https://youtu.be/OSX3ik9Z4X8 try this link!!!! Fabulous! She’s the best cook! “The Life of Roses. “

Lol I remember posting that ages ago! Aren't her videos the best?

KITTY ! Thanks for the video link, instead of saving it for tonight after chores are done, I watched it first thing this morning, how INSPIRING ! Magpie, you are so natury it doesn't surprise me you found the videos first.

Wow, she is so youthful and moves swiftly, everything about it was beautiful. She certainly has a system of doing things. I want a house like that, don't you love her outdoor kitchen and I love that oven !

Can't wait to watch more episodes but better get my work started.

Is there a sequel of how Granny cooks ? that would be more geared to my pace.

Swan puffs I want to make someday...

Magpie, That is my fav rose video!!!!!! Thank you! I need to keep it!

Berry, I saw 2 granny cooking roses videos, Lol!

Mad Gallica - oh!! I love the color and translucency of the rose petal jam...I wish I could taste it. I'm not a big fan of using jam...so I won't make some...but I would like a taste. :)

Berrypie - those swan puffs are darling! I am terrible at doing anything that requires finesse...I shudder at the mess I would make of them. LOL

I envisioned myself making the swans , but then to be realistic a store bought bagel with cream cheese is easier to prepare and goes down the hatch just as well. I could stick a few Madame Anisette rose petal wings on my bagel and call it good.