The young leaves can be eaten in salads. I've made coffee substitute from the roasted roots - and that was pretty good - tolerably similar to coffee, but with dark, syrupy licorice tones - which made it good in its own right.

Looks Familiar...

When I was washing and preparing the flowers, they kept reminding me of something, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was...

- then, suddenly, realisation dawned.

Drowned Wasps

Collectively, the flowers look like drowned wasps. That's what it was.

Pretty good.
Of course, the batter contributes quite a lot to the experience of eating dandelions, but the flavours of the flower do come subtly through.

They taste slightly nutty, faintly of honey, with a pleasant green vegetable tang, but also a hint of spicy aromatic freshness - like pine resin, perhaps.

These are inadequate descriptions. Summary: fried dandelion flowers in batter are very nice to eat - well worth trying.

Next time I'll pick some larger flowers, and get them in the middle of the day when they're wide open - as well as tasting just great, they should look a bit nicer fried, if they retain their circular shape.

I'll also try a different batter - maybe just beer and flour with no egg - the egg batter is nice enough, but does not stay crispy for long after cooking