Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Edible Flowers guide to Common Mallow along with all the Common Mallow containing recipes presented on this site, with 3 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Cornish recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Common Mallow as a major edible flower.

The Common Mallow, Malva sylvestris, is one of about 25 species of herbaceous plants in the Malvaceae (mallow) family. It is a biennial/perennial plant growing to 0.5m tall (though it can reach 1m) which is a native of Europe. In the wild it's found on roadsides, banks and waste places as well as woodland verges. The cultivar 'Mauritania' is a garden flower.

Common mallow bears crinkly five-lobed (ie ivy-shaped) leaves that are slightly clammy to the touch when young. It is in flower from June to September, bearing spectacular pink broad trumpets. The seeds ripen from July to September. Though the leaves stay green almost all year round they are best picked during the summer months. Flowers, leaves and seeds can be eaten. The leaves are slightly mucilaginous and are a little slimy if steamed. However, as they have a mild and pleasant flavour young leaves make an addition to salads where they can act as a substitute to lettuce (and flower petals can be used to add colour to salads). The leaves are best used as an addition to soups where they both add flavour and act as a thickener. Immature seeds pods are often called 'cheeses' can be eaten raw as a nibble and have a pleasant nutty flavour. They can also be lightly steamed and served as a vegetable. The leaves can also be used to prepare a herb tea by infusion.