Resplendent yellow-orange squash blossoms look positively posh on the table. Delicately fried fiery petals and vibrant green, pepper-like stems peek through fingers of golden batter that partially conceal the rich, seasoned cheeses within.
They seem leveled-up from everyday cooking, bringing elegant sunshine to salads and glowing in magazine spreads where you might find them adorning bruschetta or frittatas or gracefully wilted into bowls of spaghetti. But all this glamour belies the truth.
The squash blossom is humble, with origins firmly rooted in la cucina povera — the kitchen of the poor.
It’s not limited to Italy, though. Wherever squash grew, from Mexico to the Mediterranean, the peasant community — accustomed to using everything available — employed them, developing beloved recipes in the process. Some people know them well.
“At the market, we’ll hear them say things like, ‘Oh, my grandfather used to cook with these!'” says Jordan Cooper, co-owner of Clermont’s Sugar Top Farms. Here, along with wife and partner, Jessica, Cooper grows all sorts of things. Right now, that includes peaches, arugula, tomatoes, onions, bok choy, microgreens and more. Squash blossoms, too.
Some people know them straightaway, he says.
“Usually they’re northeastern. Most often Italian,” he says. “Some of them prefer cooking with zucchini blossoms — which have more of a pointy edge, almost like a king’s crown — but the squash flowers are bigger, poufier. You can fit a little more in them if you want to stuff them.”
Both male and female squash blossoms are edible, but if you’re growing the squash yourself, you’ll want to be careful. Snatching off too many female flowers — the ones that actually produce the fruit — will seriously reduce your haul. The Coopers are adept harvesters. Their crop yields plenty of Zephyr squash, a favorite for its dramatic, bi-color appearance, the ample size of the blossoms, “and because it’s our son’s middle name,” Cooper tells me, chuckling.
Sugar Top Farms produce graces so many of Orlando’s top tables, I can’t list them all, but I can name a bunch off the top of my head. Much of what I ate at The Foreigner last month was grown there. 1921 in Mount Dora is another regular.
“Last year, chef Chris (Edwards) was taking a lot of squash blossoms and making a squash blossom butter,” says Cooper. “That’s more of a cheffy thing than most people would do, but it’s very good. Nutty. And it gets a really strong orange color.”
READ MORE: DomuLab and Camille: Best New Restaurants in 2022 Orlando Sentinel Foodie Awards
Right now, you’ll find them on the table at Camille, which is wrapping up its residency at The Neighbors at East End Market. Its team will be heading into their very own Baldwin Park space in early June, Chef Tung Phan tells me. In fact, Camille’s final menu in the space begins with a course called “Sugar Top Farms Produce,” which takes a popular Vietnamese staple and takes a creative stroll with it.
European-influenced Vietnamese fare is Phan’s M.O., melding dishes — many of which he grew up eating — with the fine-dining chops the Le Cordon Bleu grad’s been cultivating since his days at Victoria & Albert’s.
Chả giò, though, is not precisely a deep dive into the Vietnamese compendium. Here in Orlando, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who hasn’t eaten a fried spring roll. But it’s safe to say that very few, if any, have enjoyed them with rabbit as the protein.
“It’s very untraditional,” Phan says, chuckling. “I don’t think there are any Vietnamese dishes with rabbit in them. But we ground it up and used all of the flavor components that usually go with chả giò. I like to eat it wrapped in fresh herbs and then dipped into some kind of a dressing, like a peanut sauce.”
This is how Camille’s current guests will find it, but beyond the bunny hop of Phan’s version, “the twist is wrapping it with fresh green lettuce, some microgreens — cilantro, onion — and then after it is fried, we cool it just enough so it won’t wilt the salad and place a beautiful, raw squash blossom on top to cover it completely.”
Courtesy Tung Phan
Camille chef Tung Phan showcases the chả giò dish named for Sugar Top Farms. (Courtesy Tung Phan)Tied with a garlic chive, the dish presents as an elegant, romantic gift guests eat by hand.
“I wanted to present it fresh and keep it nice and light for spring and all of its color,” says Phan.
Both he and Cooper appreciate the flower’s versatility. So, too, they say, should you.
“The old-school way is very labor intensive, stuffing these delicate flowers and pan-frying them. But sometimes you can’t even tell what’s in there. It could be a sock!” Cooper says, laughing.
“It feels like in America, we always want to fry everything, so I try to steer people away from it. Or tell them to use the air fryer — healthier and less messy. But since the people who know them often have that family memory attached, there’s nostalgia to overcome.”
Courtesy Tung Phan
Rabbit-filled chả giò, topped with a Sugar Tops Farms squash blossom, is on the menu right now at Camille. (Courtesy Tung Phan)A lot of it, actually. They sold out at the market last weekend, he tells me.
“You can use them for everything, torn up in a salad or lightly sauteéd. We have a customer who makes a tart with them — olive oil and squash blossoms. She brought it to the market for us to try.”
He recently enjoyed them at a traditional, Italian, farm-to-table in Asheville, North Carolina, called Cucina 24. “They did squash blossoms with ricotta and blackberry preserves. It was so simple, but executed so well.”
It tugged at his own childhood heartstrings.
“I’m Jewish and grew up in South Florida,” he says. “My mom would make me cream cheese and jelly sandwiches. This reminded me of that. Like a pastry, almost. It was the best [preparation] I’ve had yet.”
Phan’s first use of the dish at Camille was cooked — fried with a crab rangoon filling and presented with caviar. And when Camille, which was the Critic’s Pick for Best New Restaurant in the 2022 Orlando Sentinel Foodie Awards, opens in its Baldwin Park space you’ll likely see a new iteration.
“It’s the beauty of how we work,” he says. “Each time, we like to do things differently than we’ve done them before.”
A quick search online will reveal dozens of ways to use squash blossoms but hit up the market fast as the summer season is coming. You’ll find the Coopers at the Winter Park Farmers Market every Saturday from 8 a.m.- p.m. (200 W. New England Ave. in Winter Park). They also have a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) box available. See their website, sugartopfarms.com, for details.
Want to reach out? Find me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram @amydroo or on the OSFoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie. Email: amthompson@orlandosentinel.com. For more fun, join the Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group or follow @fun.things.orlando on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
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2023-05-10 09:01:16Z
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