Illustration: Daniel Guidera
It’s not officially summer until the day I turn the kitchen of my place down the Shore into a factory for fiori di zucca fritti (fried squash flowers) and, somewhere around blossom number 150, curse myself for buying a whole case. My sister calls it Squashapalooza, a fitting name for a tradition involving too much produce, hot oil, and at least one existential moment.
When I was young, if my dad spotted the bright yellow-orange blossoms while shopping in the summer, he’d buy a few dozen. My mom would clean them, dip them in a batter (Bisquick, eggs, Romano cheese and water), and fry them into crispy, salty treats she called zhuzhadille, a word somehow derived from her grandmother’s Neapolitan dialect.
The annual tradition started in 2010. I was between jobs, and my mom had just finished cancer treatment. One afternoon on the beach—where all conversations inevitably turn to food—fried squash flowers came up. Neither Mom nor I had eaten them in years, and suddenly, we needed them. The next morning, I called Delicious Orchards in Colts Neck and, in a moment of questionable judgment, ordered a case. The bulk price seemed like a win—until reality set in.
The box was enormous—large enough to fill a shopping cart and attract curious looks. On the drive back to Lavallette, I kept muttering, “My mother is gonna kill me.” Mom’s reaction on seeing the box: “You’re out of your f$#%ing mind.” She wasn’t wrong.
We got to work. Squash blossoms demand respect. Each must be opened, inspected for hitchhiking bugs, relieved of its stamen (a move we now call the Mary Pop, after the friend who perfected it), and gently rinsed.
That fry session was a marathon. My mom mixed the batter while I piped ricotta, Romano and basil into the larger blossoms. One by one, we coated the flowers and slid them into the oil, where they puffed, crackled and turned golden.
We kept going until we ran out of Bisquick, eggs and oil. So we took a break for dinner on the deck, with towers of fried squash flowers, a Caprese salad with sun-ripe local tomatoes, crusty bread, and plenty of rosé. It was the perfect summer evening—except for the pile of raw produce still awaiting my attention.
After a quick supermarket run, I was back at it. By the time the last blossom was cooked and the fried flowers were wrapped in foil for sharing, it was nearly midnight.
More than a decade later, Squashapalooza continues. Each summer, I order a case, make the pilgrimage to Delicious Orchards, spend hours prepping and frying, and, somewhere around blossom number 150, curse myself. But I wouldn’t change a thing.
Though my mom is no longer with us, when my friends tuck into that platter of fried squash flowers, it feels like the tradition she and I started together lives on. And there’s nothing more delicious than that.
Jo Ann Liguori is a writer and editor who spends the summer in Lavallette, lives in Brooklyn the rest of the year, and can be found on Instagram all the time
@AuntJoCooks.
