When the squashes (Cucurbita pepo) blossom, the whole vegetable garden looks like an ornamental one.
Even if the beautiful yellow corollas, simple but elegant, do not scent the air, they may make some of us salivate. Especially if we are of Mexican origin. Or we have already tasted it!
In fact, Mexico is the country where most flowers are eaten. Pumpkin flowers are eaten for centuries. Perhaps the most utilized variety is the zucchini.
What's curious in pumpkins (and relatives, like the cucumber) is that the flowers are differentiated by sex: males and females! So, we have to harvest only the male ones, in order not to lose the crop. To differentiate between them, we have to watch at the stalk: if there is a minute pumpkin, the flower is female and we should not pluck it. The suave flavor of the petals combines with that of many foods.
Commonly, garlic and onions are sauted, mixing hot chilly. Once seasoned, when garlic has turned transparent, we add some washed, minced flowers, with the stalks removed. After that, the mixture is covered and let at slow fire for some minutes.
We can also add to the mix chopped zucchini, fresh corn grains, some butter and spices.
The mix is placed on a tortilla, folded, and put on a grill; this way, we have got a delicious pumpkin flowers quesadilla. This quesadilla is not only tasty, but also nutritious, because the flowers contain, in small amounts, proteins, calcium, iron, thiamine (vitamin B1), niacin (vitamin B3), ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and retinol (vitamin A).
With the same flowers, we can also prepare an exquisite soup. To the recipe above, we just add broth. It is eaten warm, often accompanied by cheese and fried tortilla chips. And there are so many other ways of cooking pumpkin flowers …
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