Fried Zucchini flowers festival

Fried food

Original name: Sagra del Fiore di Zucca fritto

Place: La Serra (hamlet) in municipality of San Miniato, in Pisa province.

First year of the festival: 2011

Period: first half of June

Opening times: only dinner

2023 scheduled on: June, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 10th, 11th.

Local Specialties

• Appetizers: antipasto toscano, Tuscan appetizer;
• First courses: penne ai fiori zucca, pasta with zucchini flowers' sauce;
• Second courses: braciola fritta, fried chop; bistecca di manzo, T-bone steak;
• Side dish: fiore di zucca fritto, fried zucchini flowers;
• Dessert: cantuccini e vin santo, Tuscan dessert wine and biscuits.

Fried zucchini flowers are an ancient, Tuscan favorite dish, very popular among peasants back in the old times. This dish is still prepared nowadays, especially in countryside areas where traditional recipes often survived better. It's an appetizer (antipasto), but in this sagra it's served as a side dish in the second part of the meal, just to give it a more central place.

Zucchini flowers are seasonal, they blossom on late spring till summer. In La Serra menu, other than fried, zucchini flowers enter in a sauce for a first pasta course, the "penne ai fiori di zucca"; this is a traditional sauce too, although coupled here with a not Tuscan kind of pasta, the penne, which are from south Italy but nowadays largely en vogue also in Tuscany.