Picture this scenario: you are throwing a dinner party. The cooking is well underway, the house is tidy and the table is ready to be set. Placemats, glassware, candles all take their places. Next comes fresh flowers, arranged into a billowing bouquet or dispersed organically in bud vases around the table. This all sounds normal, well, lovely, right? Wrong. There is a new ‘cut flower’ on the scene: the vegetable bouquet, and it has been taking the internet by storm.
Take a look at Instagram or TikTok and you will find the same tastemakers whose sage advice on decorating, cooking, tablescaping and general aesthetics that we all heed are recommending the vegetable bouquet as a fresh addition to our houses. Former Masterchef finalist and current TikTok and Instagram influencer Hope Bachelor is one of the many showing us how it is done. One video in particular, which has garnered an impressive 1.5 million views, sees Hope guiding her audience through a shop at the supermarket to pick up radishes, celery and dill before carefully assembling the produce into a vibrant edible arrangement. ‘It’s such a good way of giving a host a gift that isn't just flowers,' she points out. Aside from its obvious edible qualities, the ingredients for the bouquet amount to less than £7 – a bit of a steal compared to a bunch of flowers, which can have you running up a much heftier bill.
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If you are looking to recreate Hope's viral bouquet, you will be pleased to hear that it looks relatively simple. Untrimmed, leafy celery goes in the middle, with smaller, colourful clusters of other produce – radishes, spring onions and herbs – circled around it. Wrapped in florists brown paper (though really, baking parchment would be fine, we're not looking for extreme elegance here), the overall effect is quite pleasing.
The number of images tagged to #vegetablebouquet on Instagram is hovering around 20,000, and they come together in a grid of eye-catching, vibrant assemblies which can provide year-round inspiration.
Vegetables as decorative objects have been growing in popularity for some time. Imogen Kwok is a chef/stylist whose artful displays have long attracted the masses, and event planner to the stars Mindy Weiss has proven that a table bedecked with carrots, artichokes, and cauliflower can be just as elegant and inviting as one laden with seasonal blooms.
‘We grow a lot of fruit and vegetables to use when tablescaping and designing flowers - everything from heritage tomatoes in shades of purple and green to pink radicchio, rainbow corn, artichokes and golden raspberries’, says Hannah Bryce, founder of Hampshire-based Minnow & Wolf Flowers. Hannah points out that an added benefit of the bouquets is that they are safe for those who suffer from hay fever. ‘Adding fruits and vegetables brings a playful element to bouquet design and is a fun alternative to flowers’, she says.
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Hannah believes that edible bouquets, much like food in general, are at their best when made with seasonal fruits and vegetables.
‘We are heading into the best time of year for British grown produce – it’s full of flavour, colour and texture', she points out, reminding us that seasonal produce will not only taste better when you come to eating or cooking your arrangement but it will stay fresher for longer too. Hannah's pick at the moment includes rainbow beetroot, artichokes (with their leaves), rainbow corn, purple carrots, yellow runner beans, purple sugar snap peas, celery. Golden raspberries, incidentally, add movement to a bouquet, which is much needed as Hannah believes that ‘there is a risk of the vegetables looking a bit rigid so by adding fruits on the vine it will soften the overall look’.
‘You can grow or buy so many wonderful varieties of tomatoes’, says Hannah. ‘Keep them on the vine and look out for ‘black Russian’ tomatoes, known for their unique, dark mahogany-red to fruits, or ’green zebra', which is also striking'.
A winter bouquet could be just as beautiful if made with broccoli, pink radicchio, kale and turnips.
‘If you want to add scent, try herbs such as chocolate mint, lemon thyme or rosemary. Strip the bottom leaves off the stem and pop into water so it has a good drink before adding to the bouquet. Poppy seed heads and sunflower heads also look fabulous in arrangements’, adds Hannah.
To keep your bouquet looking healthy and fresh for as long as possible, Hannah reminds us to make sure everything is well hydrated before picking it or adding it to the mix (that's if you are buying veg from the supermarket). If you have leafy stems such as kale or chard (and make sure these have straight, sturdy stems and compact heads, avoiding yellowing or damaged leaves), she suggests adding them to a glass of water overnight to avoid them wilting in the bouquet.
When time is tight, there are also ready-made options too. Online gift shop fruitygift.co.uk sells a number of elaborate arrangements, including an enormous ‘deluxe' one, complete with avocados and brussels sprouts which comes in at a whopping £149 (though it could easily double as a weekly shop, if you are looking to justify it).
If you really want to please your guests (or, be a good one yourself), serve your vegetable bouquet with a dip of some sort. If ever an argument were needed for this new wave of centrepieces, the fact that they can be picked at and repurposed as a starter is a rather good one.
