“A little farther on she managed to find some zucchini she was happy with, and back in the kitchen he watched as she sorted them into two piles, one of wrist-thick vegetables with veined orange flowers at the end, the other of star-shaped open flowers.
"These are pretty," he remarked, picking up one of the blooms.
"They taste good too."
"You eat the flowers?" he said, surprised.
"Of course. We have them stuffed with mozzarella, then dipped in a little batter and fried. But only the male flowers. The female ones are too soft."
"I hadn't realized," he said, taking one and tucking it behind her ear, "that flowers could be male and female. Let alone edible."
"Everything is male and female. And everything is edible. You just need to remember to cook them differently."
"In England we say, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander."
"How very stupid. A goose has a light taste, so you would cook it in a gentle white wine sauce, perhaps with a little tarragon or oregano. But a gander has a strong, gamey flavor. It needs rich tastes: red wine, perhaps, or mushrooms. It's the same with a gallina, a hen, and a pollastrello, a cock." She glanced sideways at him. "If the English try to cook a pollastrello and a gallinathe same way, it explains a lot."
"Such as?" he asked, curious. But she was busy with her cooking, and only rolled her eyes at him as if the answer were too obvious to mention.”