When you go traveling, stop and smell the roses — and then eat them. Slideshow

Kait Singley demos the edible aspects of rose hips.

What is a rose hip? Are they edible? And what’s happening at Oakland’s Morcom Rose Garden?

Oakland gardener and herbalist Kait Singley has often stopped to smell the roses. But until recently, she didn’t pay roses a whole lot of attention beyond that. “I thought of them simply as decorative and frivolous,” she says.

That was before Singley became aware of their nutrition and healing properties or roses and learned that she could collect rose hips and use them to make a range of delectable and healthy edibles: Tea, sauces, jelly, jam, puddings and more.

On the second Saturday in January, Singley set up a functional al fresco kitchen at Oakland’s Morcom Rose Garden and while 130-plus volunteers deadheaded (pruned) roses in preparation for spring, Singley focused on the culinary complexities of the rose and the rose hips that were being removed.

Singley teaches people how to cultivate edible and medicinal gardens. She runs workshops, consults, and lives by the Hippocrates quotation: “Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food.” She uses rose hip syrup (see recipe below) in tarts, bread, pies and cereal. She dries rose petals and slow-simmers them in olive oil to create a fragrant body oil, and other health-filled things.

So what are rose hips?
The photograph, right, shows rose hips in Morcom Rose Garden. You’ve probably seen them on rosebushes awaiting deadheading, but maybe you didn’t realize that they are the fruit of the rose.

And did you know that rose hips have up to 60 percent more Vitamin C by weight than oranges?

Rose hips are the little hard round objects, which can look like small apples on bigger rose bushes, that are left behind once your rose had grown from a bud into a bloom and then faded and died.

At Morcom Rose Garden, some roses that had withered had no hips. “A flower has to be pollinated (fertilized) to get a hip,” explained Thomas Bolden, president of the East Bay Rose Society, in the garden teaching people how to prune.
“All varieties of rose hips are edible,” says Singley. “Just avoid the hairs inside [which are sometimes used for itching powder] and don’t eat roses that have been sprayed.” Plus, she adds, heirloom varieties are generally better, as in tastier.
“Take a nibble when you’re pruning,” Singley suggests. That way, you can start to find your favorites.

Chances are, you’ll get rose hips in any rose garden anywhere in the world, which means if there’s a rose in sight, you need never go hungry.

Morcom Rose Garden tidbits

The Morcom Rose Garden is at 700 Jean St. in the Lake Merritt district of Oakland. It is an 8-acre city-owned park with 5,000 rose bushes. And how it looks these days is a testament to the vision of a few and the commitment of many.

Two years ago the garden was in decline. It had lost its All American Rose Selection (AARS) accreditation.

That was before Tora Rocha, who works for the City of Oakland in the Parks Department — and who happens to have a personal passion for public gardens — took on the rose garden as a project.

“Oakland is meant to be the fourth-greenest city in the country,” she says. “And let’s face it, there is nothing greener than a garden, is there?”

Spurred on by the challenge of getting the garden its accreditation back, Rocha (in photo, right) began working with volunteer neighborhood residents two years ago. When the budget cuts came last year and parks and gardens came under the axe, she knew she needed to up the ante and get more volunteers.

The garden now has an enthusiastic team who, if they attend two learning sessions with qualified rosarians, earn their psychedelic T-shirts and the status Dedicated Deadheaders.

Oakland tech guru Anca Mosoiu designed and built a Friends of the Morcom Rose Garden website that volunteers can use to coordinate their efforts. (See Mosoiu, pictured right, below, in Morcom Rose Garden, in conversation with Eddie Dunbar, who runs the nonprofit online insect sciences museum, Bug People. On Saturday, he was identifying bugs in the Oakland rose garden.)

The garden has been reborn and has won its AARS accreditation back.

Returning to the rose hips
While you can nibble on them raw and horses apparently love them, what Singley does is cook them up in stainless steel or glass (avoid aluminum, she says).

To make a basic rose hip syrup
You can add this to any recipe in place of liquid and to reduce your reliance on a sweetener, says Singley.

• Put your rose hips in a pot.
• Add water and sugar or honey to taste.
• Bring to the boil, then simmer until the hips are soft, at which time you will mash them with a potato masher or toss them in a blender.
• When pulverized, strain your mixture through cheese cloth or a jelly bag, add a squeeze of fresh lemon to preserve, and store in the fridge.

Rose hip tea

• Chop or mash 2 Tbs of rose hips.
• Add 2 cups of water (hot or cold).
• Bring to a simmer and simmer for 10 minutes and, “Ta Daa,” says Singley, you have your rose hip tea, which blends really well with hibiscus and lemon mint.

Story © Wanda Hennig, 2010
Photos: Wanda Hennig