7

In Mexico, flor de calabaza is sometimes served on quesadillas, in soups, or in other dishes. The literal translation of flor de calabaza is "flower of pumpkin/zucchini/squash". As calabaza is a rather broad term in Spanish, I don't really know specifically what kind of flower(s) are used for this.

Quesadilla de flor de calabaza

I'm interested in cooking with some of this myself, and am happy to grow the squash plants in my yard, but which type of squash plants shall I grow? Or are various varieties of squash equally suitable for the harvesting of their flowers?

Community
  • 1
Flimzy
  • 2,774
  • 10
  • 31
  • 46

2 Answers2

8

They're commonly called squash blossoms in English - as you might guess, this is because it doesn't matter too much what kind of squash they're from. They'll most commonly be from smaller summer squash plants (e.g. zucchini) though, since they produce many small squash instead of a few large squash (like pumpkins), so you can get more blossoms for your trouble.

Cascabel
  • 58,065
  • 24
  • 178
  • 319
5

The flowers you're picturing there certainly appear to be zucchini flowers.

As for what's traditional, Mexican cuisine also uses a lot of pumpkin seeds, so I'd think that pumpkin flowers, which are also quite edible and tasty, would be considered appropriate as well. In the USA, zucchini flowers are much easier to find than pumpkin flowers, however.

FuzzyChef
  • 58,085
  • 18
  • 142
  • 218
  • 2
    I think some other summer squashes may tend to produce similar blossoms to zucchini, and given that there are other popular squashes in Mexico, I wouldn't be completely confident that those are zucchini - though they do look like it! – Cascabel May 12 '12 at 04:54
  • Yeah, I'm not entirely certain what, for example, a chayote blossom looks like. – FuzzyChef May 12 '12 at 19:00