The Scented Kitchen, cooking with flowers

I've just read in Hannah's Country Kitchen an appeal for recipes for lavender jam, and it's reminded me that I meant to write about an unusual cookery book I bought in Scotland, The Scented Kitchen by Frances Bissell.

This is a book for gardeners, because most of the inspiration can be found in an English country garden - lavender, fennel seeds, hawthorn, marigolds, roses, violets, pansies, borage, carnations .... you don't even need a veg patch to get the most out of this book.

I found the book at Valvona and Crolla, the Italian delicatessen in Edinburgh, and couldn't put it down once I'd begun. This is a fresh approach to cooking, one which is at once old-fashioned and very modern. There's something very granny-ish about the idea of eating violet-flavoured food, and yet violet souffle seems made for the 21st century.

The recipes are easy to follow, but if you're anything like me, you'll use this book as an inspiration for improving dishes you already make, to help you range wider when thinking of flavourings. I would never have thought of making lavender sugar or lavender vinegar, and am glad that I now have both. The one recipe I did follow to the letter was rose petal jelly, a beautiful if barely-set concoction which is delicious on toast and which I have recently been using to glaze plum tarts.