Exploring Edible Flowers: Sensory, Cultural, and Multispecies Dimensions of Edibility
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Abstract
This article situates itself within the plant turn and proposes an interdisciplinary framework that brings together sensory anthropology, food studies, and multispecies ethnography to examine edible flowers not merely as ingredients but as sensory-cultural agents embedded within ecological relationships. Drawing on diverse case studies, the article reconceptualises edibility as a contingent phenomenon shaped by cultural ontologies, landscape ecologies, and multisensory perception rather than as a fixed biological or nutritional quality. It argues that the edibility of flowers emerges through the interplay between human perception (smell, taste, appearance), cultural memory, and interspecies relations, including pollinators, microbes, and traditional agricultural systems. In certain contexts, a flower may be considered edible and desirable, while in others it may be taboo, sacred, or symbolically charged. Through rituals, local knowledge, and culinary practices, communities define the boundaries of what counts as food. As edible flowers increasingly circulate as commodities in global markets, this shift disrupts earlier meanings and invites renewed attention to how food systems are entangled with nonhuman lives. The article calls for moving beyond anthropocentric frameworks and instead examining food systems as dynamic multispecies assemblages. In doing so, it contributes to expanding the scope of contemporary food studies to include ecological, cultural, and affective dimensions of eating in a more-than-human world.
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