She Had Me at Zucchini Flowers

Lisa Minucci

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2 min read

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Aug 12, 2023

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As is typical in bella Italia, there was a long, dramatic story, this one about a favorite white horse who got loose in her husband’s zucchini patch, the untrampled production needing to be immediately harvested. I stopped listening when I saw the flowers were still attached to the baby squash.
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Goat cheese ricotta, scored from the attractive herder with the sparkling eyes at the Friday market, was mixed with grated Parmesan, and chopped basil pinched from the garden. Sicilian pine nuts toasted just beyond golden were mixed in with eggs gifted from the sweet neighbors’ flock and whipped to a froth with black pepper and my beloved Maldon salt, now purchased in five-pound buckets (I’ve decided I want to be embalmed with the pyramid-shaped crystals and left to marinate in the fields for the cinghale, an Italian twist on my original Three B’s death plan: Bordeaux, barbiturates, and a beach). A fistful of breadcrumbs, made from crusts and butts and stale odds and ends seasoned aggressively with dried oregano, sage, fennel, coarse black pepper and said embalming salt are added to the filling.
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Ideally, this mixture is gently teaspooned into the delicate flowers, but my fat fingers clumsily rip at their edges, reminiscent of trying in vain to open a cornstarch compostable bag at the market, furtively swiping fingers through any condensation remaining on any of the produce, muttering, swearing under my breath, losing yet another fight with a cornstarch hand puppet.
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Sometimes, raw spring garlic smells almost too strong: feral, fetid, musky; pungent of earth and feet. But then it begins to caramelize in the olive oil, mingling with Calabrian chilis, sending comforting scents of home into the air; my body instantly exhaling, sated before first bite.
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Cooked in a blazing oven, the flowers toast at the edges, cheese escaping the crudely sealed envelopes, the little zucchini melting softly on the tongue before being chased by a piquant hit of garlic and hot pepper. A glass of old Barbaresco from the days-open bottle on the kitchen counter compliments the use-what-cha-got rusticity of the meal.