Why India, Italy, and Oaxaca Eat the Same Flower

How do you cook the sun? Easy! Pluck sunshine-hued squash blossoms off the vine and eat them. Gently vegetal-tasting with a restrained sweetness, the flower heralds the advent of spring and summer: freshness, light, and warmth.

Perhaps one of the most delectable squash blossoms is that of the pumpkin. People across Bengal and Bangladesh, Odisha, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, and Sikkim fry them into golden fritters. In Kerala, they slice the flowers into a thoran or cook them into a coconutty toor dal. In Uttarakhand, they flatten them into golden chillas, or crisp them into pakodas. Odisha’s Khond community stir fries them with the flesh of the pumpkin; Jharkhand’s Santhali tribe cooks their kohda ke phool in a tomato, potato, and onion gravy. In fact, pumpkin flowers show up everywhere, from Bengali to Italian and Mexican food. How did one blossom unite such vastly different cuisines?