Black Locust Flower Update

My favorite story of the week: the little boy in the picture is Yub Yub's "best friend." We have play dates every week and last week Thag came home with a bag full of locust blossoms which the kids loved and the little boy's mom was excited to try. This weekend, his family attended a high school graduation and his mom forgot to pack a snack. She looked up and saw locust blossoms in full bloom. "Voila!" she said, "Instant snack!"

We have been feasting on black locust flowers all week. The two biggest hits have been adding locust flowers to fruit salad and adding them to an alfredo sauce. Their sweetness really comes through in the fruit salad. The rather bland nature of alfredo allows the locust blossoms to shine as the dominant flavor. To make, simply follow any alfredo sauce recipe. Add a lot of locust flowers--until the sauce is thick with them--remove from heat. Allow to sit and let flavors mingle. And enjoy. Enhanced (as is everything) by parmesan cheese!

We also made a locust flower and corn pancake which was not such a big hit. They tasted fine, but despite adding more locust flower than corn, we really couldn't taste them. They looked great though!

It has been really fun watching the locust flowers change over the last week. We found those with green calyxes sweetest. As the calyx turned to tan, they lost some sweetness though they still tasted okay--however, after their superior predecessors, they were not so appetizing. But you can tell they are past now. Although the trees are still thick with flowers, the smell no longer permeates the air and the ground beneath the trees is covered with a layer of locus flower snow.