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Black Locust Flowers - We’ll See Them Sunday

May 12, 2009
Melissa
General Posts, Raw
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Black Locust Flowers

Black Locust Flowers

If you are in Pittsburgh, we hope you’ll join us on our next wild edible walk this Sunday, May 17. We’ll have the window of opportunity to see and taste Black Locust Flowers! These delicious flowers are the only part of the tree that is edible. They only bloom for a few weeks each year, and they just started! Now is the time to taste these beautiful delights.

This time of year when you are out walking and you smell an awesome flowery smell, to the point where you are looking around for the flower, look up, because very likely Black Locust Flowers are what you are smelling.

Black Locust Tree in Bloom

Black Locust Tree in Bloom


These are very best eaten raw, they are incredibly sweet-tasting and flowery. They are excellent just to nibble while you are out walking, to throw on salad, into a smoothie, or put in your water for a delicious tasting flower water.
Black Locust Flower, picture from Wikimedia Commons, GNU Free Documentation License

Black Locust Flower, picture from Wikimedia Commons, GNU Free Documentation License


If you aren’t in Pittsburgh and can’t make it Sunday, we’ll take excellent pictures and post more information for you so you can go find these treats yourself.

Other highlights promise to be: mulberry trees! They are full of unripe mulberries right now, but in a few weeks they’ll be ripe, juicy and sweet. Come find out how to identify these trees and berries as well.

Plus we’ll see how our old friends are doing: dandelion, burdock, mugwort, garlic mustard. You’ll be surprised to see how some of these plants have grown!

For more information on the walks and how to register, visit our Wild Events Page.

Hope to see you soon!

~ Melissa

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  • xinan

    I just cooked it according to Weihua's recipe. It tastes great. I'll try the tea version too. There are 5 or 6 huge black locust trees by the high school close to our house. When I was a kid, my mom cooked this for me.

  • Great! Thanks for the feedback!
    Melissa

  • Weihua

    I am from China. There we have a way of cooking black locust flowers, I'd like to share.
    Pick the flowers when they are ready to blossom but yet to fully blossom.
    rinse, dry and coat the flowers with a generous coat of flour.
    steam the flour-coated flowers for 10-15 minutes, let cool.
    prepare a sauce: mince garlic, pepper, green chili pepper,with salt, vinegar, saseme seed oil to the taste you like, pour the sauce over cooled flower and serve. This is heavier than a salad, could eat as a meal.

    Another way is to dry the flowers in shade, and cook the dried flowers in meat stew. It adds texture and flavor.

    Enjoy!

  • That sounds fantastic!
    Thank you so much for sharing this information.
    I am really looking forward to trying this next year, when the black locust flowers are back. The sauce itself sounds extremely delicious...I'll have to make that very soon.
    We really appreciate your sharing this recipe!
    ~ Melissa

  • Cameron

    Do you know if the Purple Robe Locust is also edible? We just got one, and would love to know if the flowers or pods are similar to the honey or black locusts.

  • I hadn't heard of this tree, but I did google: Purple Robe Locust Edible, and the websites I found do list the flowers as edible. You may want to do more research yourself, but from what I read they look ok. It sounds like a beautiful tree!!
    ~ Melissa

  • Mrs3575

    i knw this is off topic fr. what u guys were talking about but i was wondering if the Purple robe locust was bad idea to get if i have allergies? i looked around on the web but couldn't seem to have any luck: (. thanx in advance.

  • I'm not really sure about that. Maybe check with a landscape store or a cooperative extensive (which is usually affiliated with a university.) They may be able to help you get the information you need.

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