For a short couple of weeks in late spring, maybe even less, the country roads of the Maremma are lined with thin trees bearing bunches of pretty white flowers. Hanging down like miniature chandeliers, they have a heavy intoxicating perfume, quite like jasmine or orange blossom. You can’t miss them. Known as Black Locust trees (or False Acacia, Robinia pseudoacacia) in English, they are native to North America, and were brought to Europe in the early 1600s. In Italy they go by the name acacia.
You can serve fried blossoms as an afternoon snack or as part of an antipasto. The result is similar to fried zucchini flowers (courgette or squash blossoms), which are really just a vehicle for eating deliciously crisp, fried batter – but with black locust blossoms, you have a delicate flavour of nectar and spice mingling with that perfume reminiscent of orange blossom. They can be sprinkled with sea salt, dusted in icing (confectioners’) sugar or – my favourite – drizzled with locust honey (also known as acacia honey), a pale, delicate and fragrant honey.
You can use this same batter for frying sage leaves, zucchini flowers and heads of blooming, fragrant elderflower (Sambucus nigra), which overlaps the black locust season in southern Tuscany – together they make an impressive platter of fried flowers and herbs to serve as antipasto. If you’re using the amount of batter in this recipe, it’s plenty to fry about four of each type of flower.