Specialty Produce Stores (Looking for Zucchini Flowers)

Hi,

I'm new to this board, but am looking to make an Italian dish called Flori di Zucca. I can't seem to find Zucchini Flowers anywhere. I know they're hard to come by at stores, but I was wondering if anyone on this board would be able to point me to a produce specialty store that might carry them. I'd even buy them off a person that has zucchini's growing

Regards
Sandro

I know you can find them canned in Mexican grocieries - it's possible that you can also find them fresh. I'd call around Clark St., you're looking for "flor de calabaza"

I bought the gorgeous squash blossoms below a couple of weeks ago at City Farm market stand.

They are also available at the Green City Market.

a word of warning, at least about the City Farm blossoms. Though they were delicious and worth the hassle involved, they were also absolutely swarming with ants. I did the best I could to wash out most of them, but I know my final dish had quite a bit more protein than one might expect.

At Green City Market, Nichols Farm has indeed had some nice looking squash blossoms lately. Expensive, though - a dollar apiece, IIRC.

You might try Caputo's. I've seen them there before (but haven't been recently).

I've never been to the Green City Market, but I'd take a drive into the city Sat morning if they have them. Is the City Market a group of producers? What are the odds of finding the flowers come this Sat?

Regards
Sandro

The odds of finding them are very high at this time of year, but I would suggest arriving early to avoid disappointment. They often sell out rather quickly. I purchased some at the market on Wednesday.

spseminara wrote:I've never been to the Green City Market, but I'd take a drive into the city Sat morning if they have them. Is the City Market a group of producers? What are the odds of finding the flowers come this Sat?

Regards
Sandro

Almost any decent farmer's market should have someone selling them this time of year. I've seen them all over. What's your nearest big farmer's market?

Nichols also had them at the Federal Plaza and I've seen them at the Daley Plaza market as well.

Suzy

Two questions. One is how much should I expect to pay for them at a Farmers market, and also does anyone know of any good Farmers markets in the SW burbs. I'm in Orland

You can find a great basic guide to the Farmers Markets in both the city and suburbs here:

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/sidebars/food/farmersmarkets08/

And while you might find a good market near you -- i totally recommend checking out the Green City Market anyhow. It's a really lovely way to spend a Saturday morning -- interesting people, lovely flowers, great food -- both produce and meat and dairy as well as great bakeries -- and all the producers focus on organic food.

And man -- so many fabulous dogs to pet!

I just saw them at Fox & Obel over the weekend.

I've seen them around in various places at various times but only consistently at Green City... I haven't been there this year, since they raised the parking prices so nastily but such is life these days... Incidentally, I think I saw small bunches of them last year there going for something on the order of $7, which struck me as fairly steep given that they are a by-product of cucuzze-husbandry, as it were...

Anyway, I am regularly overwhelmed with them in my small but productive garden and though we ate prodigious amounts of them, we also must needs let vast number of them go to waste, simply because... well, man liveth not by squash blossoms alone... Perhaps I should open a highly specialised stand at Green City to offset the obscene parking prices...

This post has thus far not been very helpful with regard to the finding of fiori di zucchina but I will try to make up for that a wee bit by adding a link to an old and now seemingly neglected but robust and potentially useful thread on this very topic that I started and serially revived over a good span of time back in the good old days of LTH:
viewtopic.php?p=36890#p36890
The thread includes lots of pictures from this writer and some from others...

Bon pro'!
Antonius, a.k.a. Blümke/Kwiatkowski

Nichols had squash blossoms at the Green City Market yesterday from 7AM until 7:30AM (at 7:30, I watched a cook from Spiaggia buy them all). No one else had any, as far as I could tell. Sorry, OP, if you made the trek to the market later than that.