Pumpkin Flower Feast!
My children love to cook. They don’t always cook very normal stuff so when Jesse told me that he cooked something from his Brooklyn garden I was curious. Below are the results.
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while i could have climbed out my back window and walked fifty feet to taco santana for one of their delicious pumpkin flower quesadillas, i decided i’d just reach out the window and grab a few. unfortunately there were just a few, but i made do. i found out which are males and which are females; i think all mine so far are males. i picked them and got poked a bit. seems some of the ‘hairs’ on the plant are like very fine cactus needles.
i tossed them in a pan with a bit of garlic and cooked them until they wilted a bit and browned. while they don’t have a very strong taste, they are very earthy and squashlike.
today i threw a few more on top of a black-bean burger with gorgonzola and homemade ketchup!
-jesse
2 Responses to “Pumpkin Flower Feast!”
Looks mighty tasty! Maybe placement of this immediately following the “bugs” post was not a good idea but this stuff helps me regain my appetite.
Thanks for the info and really interesting photos!
you should try them! make sure to wash the bugs off first (see, this is starting to become bug appropriate). i am pretty sure i ate a few in the first go around. also, in reading about someone picking them to eat, they went out in the morning to pull them before they opened. they grabbed one and it started to vibrate like a cellphone. turns out a bumble bee had chosen the flower as a bed for the night. an interesting natural covering i have found that many bugs use for beds. anyway i think these flowers could make a great salad too. not sure if they should be eaten raw or not.