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China's food culture has a long history and is profound, among which "flowers as food" is unique in China's food culture.

in ancient times, our ancestors used their taste buds to explore which foods were both delicious and edible when they were in contact with nature. At the same time, flowers with fragrant taste inadvertently triggered their taste buds, so eating flowers gradually entered the vision of our ancestors and became an indispensable choice in their diet.

Taking flowers as food means taking flowers of four seasons as raw materials, cooking them and making them into dishes or snacks. As early as Shang Dynasty, Yi Yin, a minister proficient in cooking, was good at making delicious food with flowers. Eating flowers has a recorded history of nearly three thousand years.

"Spring is late, and the flowers are numerous and colorful" in The Book of Songs, Youfeng July, is about people picking white wild chrysanthemums in the spring season. In The Book of Songs, Elegance, the phrase "Zhou Yuan is in full swing, and violets are in full swing" refers to the situation that people in the Book of Songs picked hibiscus flowers as food. In the book of songs "Xiaoya Picking Wei", "Picking Wei, picking Wei, stopping Wei" refers to the scene where people eat wild pea flowers.

The poet Qu Yuan's "Nine Songs" contains "Drinking osmanthus wine and stirring pepper oars", and "Drinking Mulan in the morning and dew in the evening, and having autumn chrysanthemum in the evening" in Li Sao. It can also be known that in the Warring States period when Qu Yuan lived, osmanthus wine, pepper wine, magnolia and autumn chrysanthemum, which were the main elements, were very common on people's tables.

In the Warring States Period, when Qu Yuan lived, chrysanthemums entered the literary field from food, and then gradually formed an elegant tradition of loving chrysanthemums, enjoying chrysanthemums and eating chrysanthemums in parallel. Tao Yuanming's "Picking chrysanthemums under the east fence, leisurely seeing Nanshan" in Jin Dynasty and Meng Haoran's "wait till the Mountain Holiday, I am coming again in chrysanthemum time" in Tang Dynasty are the ideal pastoral life of the ancients. From their poems, it is not difficult to see that chrysanthemum has always been a beautiful image of poetry, and chrysanthemum is also considered to be the embodiment of romantic feelings.

apart from the cultural connotation of "taking flowers as food", osmanthus fragrans is also one of the flowers with profound cultural connotation as a food.

The famous dim sum "Baihua Cake" in the Tang Dynasty is a delicious food with flowers as its food, which was initiated by Wu Zetian. One year, during the Flower Festival, Wu Zetian was infected by the sight of flowers in full bloom. She asked the maids to pick all kinds of flowers, mash them with rice and steam them into cakes, which were named "Baihua Cake". This kind of flower cake has the fragrance of petals and grains, and tastes excellent. From then on, during the Flower Festival, Wu Zetian would make a hundred flowers cake and give it to the ministers to taste.

Later, Osmanthus Jelly was also inspired by Wu Zetian's pioneering work of eating flowers and became a delicacy on people's table. In addition to making Osmanthus Jelly, osmanthus fragrans can also make more foods, such as sweet-scented osmanthus Yuanxiao, sweet-scented osmanthus cake, lotus root starch Osmanthus Jelly, etc. In addition, sweet-scented osmanthus can also make salted sweet-scented osmanthus, sweet-scented osmanthus wine, sweet-scented osmanthus fish bones, sweet-scented osmanthus tenderloin, sweet-scented osmanthus porridge and other foods.

in the song dynasty, monographs on flowers came into being. In Song Dynasty, Lin Hong's book "Shan Jia Qing Gong" is widely collected and collected, which contains foods with vegetables and fruits produced in Shan Ye as the main raw materials, and describes the names, materials and cooking methods. There are anecdotes, poems and so on, among which there are as many as 15 kinds of records of eating flowers.

In Ming Dynasty, Dai Xi's book "Keeping the Full Moon" is divided into years and years, and is accompanied by various books such as Silkworm, Fish, Bamboo, Peony, Peony, Orchid and Chrysanthemum. There are 16 kinds of flowers and foods recorded in this book. In addition, in the Ming Dynasty, Lu He said in Food Materia Medica that "the aroma of rose food is sweet and refreshing"; In the Qing Dynasty, Gu Zhong also wrote a flower cookbook "Fanfang Spectrum", which clearly described the edible parts and conditioning methods of flowers.

From Qu Yuan's "drinking the dew of Mulan and eating the beauty of autumn chrysanthemum" to Wu Zetian's picking flowers for cakes and giving them to his ministers; From Lin Hong's "Mountain Family's Clear Offering", Gao Lian's "Food Materia Medica" in Ming Dynasty to Gu Zhong's "Fanfang Spectrum" in Qing Dynasty, the pace of time never stops, and people's complex of eating flowers is increasing day by day, and eating flowers has also become the embodiment of romantic feelings.

Nowadays, taking flowers as food has become an art of eating. Introducing flowers into cooking can not only make dishes colorful, but also make use of the aroma and appearance of flowers to increase the taste of food and satisfy people's taste and visual enjoyment.

many places in our country still keep the tradition of eating flowers. Day lily, also called day lily, fresh yellow flowers can be eaten, and it is also an indispensable good companion in some foods after drying. Fried cakes with pumpkin flowers flour, fragrant Huang Liang, unique delicious and tender Sophora japonica flowers, because of their slightly sweet fragrance, have become the best raw food for people and children.

Plum blossoms can be made into plum porridge or plum soup cakes. Chinese rose can be used to make Chinese rose sauce, Chinese rose cake, Chinese rose jam, Chinese rose sugar douban and so on. Jasmine is an excellent raw material for smoking tea. Jasmine tea smoked with fresh jasmine has a rich and refreshing tea taste and a pleasant floral fragrance. White orchid has a strong fragrance, which is a good raw material for spice industry and smoking tea. At the same time, white orchid can also be eaten in porridge. Others such as lotus, cherry blossom, epiphyllum, carnation, Luoshen flower and so on can be eaten.

Taking flowers as food has been sublimated into a food culture in China, which integrates health care and nutrition. Among our common flowers, fragrant and pleasant roses can clear away heat and quench thirst and benefit people's faces; Chinese rose can promote blood circulation, reduce swelling and treat carbuncle pain; Chrysanthemum is known as "longevity-prolonging guest", which can improve eyesight, nourish liver and prolong life; Orchids can clear lung heat, osmanthus has the effect of warming stomach and dispelling cold, jasmine can grow hair and strengthen muscles, and peach blossom beauty looks and so on.

Modern medical research also shows that flowers contain a variety of trace elements and nutrients beneficial to human body. Taking flowers as food is not only delicious in color and fragrance, but also has high edible value, and also has medical and health care effects of promoting metabolism, improving human immunity, treating diseases and prolonging life.

Taking flowers as food is a concise philosophy of life interest and health preservation in China's food culture, an organic part of China's food culture, and a reflection of romantic feelings in China's food culture.