Alain Chow has written to the festival to ask: I see that Kuitert (Japanese Flowering Cherries, Timber Press, 1999) says, on page 187, that the "Oshima cherry is not only loved for its flowers, but also appreciated in Japan for its edible leaves, which are used to make a nice rice cake called sakura-mochi." I infer from that sentence that not all leaves are used. Some internet articles mention which leaves are best. For instance, from http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/20...m-captures-the-flavor-of-spring/#.VSy9_ZPrQwA I see a page that says that while Oshima-zakura leaves are best, you can use the leaves of any cherry. Of course, there is no way to whether this person is an authority on the subject. http://recipesfortom.blogspot.ca/2013/03/sakura-no-ha-no-shiozuke-salted-cherry.html Here is a page with a warning about cyanide compounds in some but not all chokecherries, and suggests avoiding any "weed, leaves, or seeds with an almondlike scent, a characteristic of the cyanide compounds." http://www.wilderness-survival.net/plants-1.php Would anyone like to help with a more definitive answer?
If you can find it at a library there Facciola, Cornucopia II (Kampong Publications) may have bits you aren't finding on the web. Of course, people have traditions of eating plant parts in various places that maybe they shouldn't be - and F. only lists and describes reported uses, as you have done here. As I remember it Japan is also where it was seen that people were getting stomach cancer from eating bracken.
www.pfaf.org is an excellent site which consolidates most of the info. for the edibility of a given plant--you can search by Latin name or common name (a few Japanese Flowering Cherries are listed). If detailed info. isn't provided in the actual listing, the footnotes typically direct the reader to the appropriate source material.
