Elderflower Fritters

An unusual treatment for elderflowers, originating, it seems, in the seventeenth century, is quoted by Norman Douglas in his extraordinary jeu d’esprit, Venus in the Kitchen, written under the penname Pilaff Bey. This is now unfortunately out of print. My New English Library edition of 1971, retitled Lovers’ Cookbook; the Great Classic of Culinary Erotica, has a photograph on the cover of a young woman, naked except for a skimpy pinny, stirring