Petal Power

Though subject to the whims of fashion, flowers are no mere frippery, writes PAULETTE WHITNEY.

- Paulette Whitney

I got my crimper when I turned 11 and a high side ponytail was the only hairstyle to have. After submitting to Mum’s painful ministrations, smelling the burning hair as she crushed strands between the waffle iron-like blades, I left for school, my pouffy hair bouncing at every step. But when I walked into class my heart broke. Georgia, the “popular” girl, had traded her crimped ponytail for a teased fringe three inches high. As the week wore on and more puffy fringes appeared, my crimper, so longed for, was now deemed daggy and shoved shamefully to the back of the bathroom cupboard.

When we first started farming, edible flowers were the crimpers of their day. I remember eating a crisp-fried ribbon of potato topped with eel cream and piled high with radish, heartsease, chervil, borage and calendula flowers at Garagistes. It was a perfect bite.