East Coasters eat the weirdest stuff: deep fried squash blossom

I’ve lived on the East Coast, in the South and here in the Midwest. In my time in those places, I’ve gotten to sample lots of the regional cuisine. And as much fun as is made of us, the Southerners and the East Coasters eat some weird stuff.

I didn’t have to go any further than this morning’s NPR broadcast. Morning Edition is doing a series on road side vendors and farmer’s markets. A reporter from the DC market, Neda Ulaby, visited a farmer’s market in what was once an open air drug market in our nation’s capital. Now, thanks to gentrification, it’s an open air food market.

The hot item? Squash flowers. In that typical Washingtonian clenched-jaw voice, Neda tells us how the squash flowers come from a farm in Virginia’s Northern Neck. To eat them, they are stuffed with a soft cheese and then fried or baked. The blossoms are breaded with a mixture of tempura batter and beer.

While I can get with the fried and beer part, it’s still a flower. And frankly, I’m just simple enough I’d rather see blooms in a vase on the table as opposed to steaming on my plate.