Pumpkins: The flowers of the poor but wise kitchen

Let’s start referring to them as they sound in our ancestral folklore: pumpkin balls! In some regions, they’re known as pumpkin flowers, or even pumpkin seeds. Regardless of what we call them, these were the first flowers that graced our tables in a cooked form, infusing our meals with their unique flavor. They epitomize the wisdom of a cuisine that believes in waste not, want not, transforming every ingredient into a delight, courtesy of the imaginative minds of those who live in harmony with nature.

What today, under the glittering auspices of the Michelin Guide, are considered revolutionary trends in gastronomy – zero waste, farm-to-table, and a keen interest in the origin of our food – were once commonplace in traditional societies and fundamental to their sustainability. The humble backyard garden, often located just outside the kitchen door, provided the necessary answers. Skilled cooks were also adept at understanding the potential and evolution of their raw materials, thus ensuring self-sufficiency and wealth, not just in fresh ingredients at their peak, but also in original ideas.

To enjoy squash blossoms at your table, you need both a garden and a dash of creativity. This beautiful yet delicate flower doesn’t have a long shelf life. It doesn’t keep well in the fridge, and you can’t order it for delivery from afar.

The seemingly surplus “male” pumpkin flowers, despite their impressive dome, will never develop into a gourd. Instead, they must be pruned to boost the fruiting “females”. However, if you rise early in the morning with the dew, pick them while they’re still open, and then arrange them upside down on your table to prevent them from closing, you have the chance to create a meal that is arguably more enjoyable than the pumpkins themselves.

To enjoy squash blossoms at your table, you need a garden and a bit of creativity. This lovely, yet fragile flower, doesn’t last long. It doesn’t keep well in the fridge, and it’s not something you can order from a distance. It blooms in the dry morning dew, and if you miss it, it gathers its petals and closes up, waiting for the next few days of its brief life.

Before haute cuisine chefs started garnishing their “fine dining” dishes with flowers, the squash blossom was the most well-known edible flower. The simplest way to turn it into a delicacy was to dip the flower in a batter made from household staples – flour and water – and fry it in olive oil.

However, such food was insufficient for those who toiled away at laborious tasks all day. Yet, if you filled the squash and transformed it into a sumptuous stuffed dolma, you’d have a meal that was not only empowering but also rich and delightfully satisfying.

Rice, a staple of long voyages and grand expeditions, was seamlessly integrated into traditional cuisine and even folk rituals. Its countless grains symbolized prosperity, enduring life, and food abundance. Today, rice plays the same role in stuffed zucchini balls. Long after the feast in honor of Alexander the Great in Bactria, where pilaf made its debut, the role of enriching meals was fulfilled by wheat for many millennia. This goes back as far as the Agricultural Revolution, some 12,000 years ago, when wheat was coarsely ground into flour.

Back then, all food ingredients were sourced from the immediate environment, and tasting them was like savoring the fruits of one’s labor. Pumpkin seeds, herbs, crushed wheat, fresh tomatoes, olive oil, natural sea salt, and the wood used for cooking were all produced or gathered by the same people. Even flower stems, in an early display of “zero waste,” were chopped up and added to the stuffing.

This cycle continues in the Vafeos, in the hinterland of Lesbos, specifically in the Molyvos area. Nikos, from April to October, begins his morning by collecting open pumpkin blossoms from the garden behind his restaurant. By midday, these blossoms will have made their way to the tables of his patrons. They are served in three different ways: as classic Lesbos stuffed zucchini flowers with rice, grated tomato, onion, mint, and parsley, served with herb-flavored yogurt; as Vafeio’s special spicy pumpkin flowers fried in a tomato crust, filled with kefalotyri and Lesbos oil cheese, and served with tomato sauce; and the simplest version, fried pumpkin flowers dipped in a porridge flavored with fennel, fresh onion, and dill.

In this future “primeval” setting of the zucchinis in Lesbos, one element is missing: the natural fire from local woods, gathered from the surrounding hills. This isn’t just a typical step in the cooking process, but a crucial one, as the wood fire imparts flavor and deliciously chars the edges of the food.

You’ll find these unique pumpkin balls across the Aegean, nestled in the northern region of Karpathos, in Olympus, on the mountain slopes overlooking the Carpathian Sea. There are no public bakeries here. Instead, the locals ferment their own bread every Saturday at home, baking it in communal outdoor ovens fueled by “foranas.”

At her restaurant “Mill” – an authentic windmill complete with functioning sails that still grind wheat into flour – Mrs. Sophia stokes her wood-fired oven daily. Alongside cakes, pies, and buns, she cooks a variety of dishes, including pumpkin blossoms stuffed with rice and dolmades. The sight of the working mill, the glowing oven, and Mrs. Sophia’s deft movements around the kitchen create a charming backdrop for savoring these “primitive” delicacies, which are as timeless as they are delicious.