Flowers of Virtue
It was early summer 1944, and my Uncle Sam (yes, Uncle Sam) was a Sergeant in the Army Engineering Corps somewhere in the flaxen fields between war-weary Belgium and France. He was there building bridges--portable pontoon bridges to be precise, replacing the originals that Germany had destroyed in vain. Sam was 6'2" 220lbs, had light blue eyes and a John Wayne stride. A weight lifter and handball champion of Passaic County, back home he spent his summer's on the Jersey shore, where girls would stand on his shoulders at the ocean's tideline then dive into the waves with abandon.
During WWII, food relegated for soldiers below the rank of Major was designed to be life-sustaining and nothing more. C-rations for the soldiers typically consisted of; one small tin of tasteless spam, dry biscuits, pressed sugar cubes, and a pack of Lucky Strike--sustenance for the rank and file in the field perhaps--but no fresh food in sight.
Early one misty July morning Sgt. Peluso stumbled upon a small field of large-leafed plants attached to a farm whose residents fled before fighting had gotten too grim. The plants he recognized as zucchini had no fruit, but their flowers were in full bloom. He knew of them from his mother's garden, and as a boy would pick the blossoms as she prepared a thin batter to coat and fry in olive oil. When times were flush, she would fill the delicate florets with prosciutto and Fontina simply seasoned with salt--today, a trendy appetizer. Sam loved them and they reminded him of home.
A few days later he returned to the farm and collected two bushels of the flowers. Back at the station camp he scrounged some flour, lard ,reconstituted dried milk, and fried them up for his men. At first, they were skeptical when told what they were about to eat, but after months of C-rations even flowers sounded appealing. In that moment, they were not soldiers alone in the dense fog detached from their dignity, but men enjoying a meal together that reminded them of their humanity--of something both primal and eternal--by simply eating something good.
Later that year in the brutal white of December, Sam and his men entered one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the war--the Nazis futile last stand at Bastogne, and the Battle of the Bulge. My uncle never spoke of the dehumanizing despair that he along with thousands of other soldiers witnessed there, rather, it was this story I remember hearing as a boy many years later. His tale of resilient spirit in the face of adverse circumstances not only impressed upon me the value of human connection, but of sincere and unpretentious food and the importance of sharing a meal. Cooking, as William Carlos Williams once said about writing, "is a very human thing to do." To those men that simple meal represented hope; hope that our civilizing nature would ultimately win over the animus of evil. All from a humble plant, a humble man, and a humble dish:
Fiori di Zucca Fritti.