A Salad of Raw Zucchini, Lemon, and Toasted Parmesan

Preparation

1. Step 1

   I was once rebuked for putting raw zucchini in a salad. Rather than tasteless, I found them to be nutty and pleasingly lactic. After having had my wrist slapped, I forgot about the idea for several years.

   Step 2

   In the wet July of 2008, I spent a rare hot afternoon at Petersham Nurseries in Richmond, filling the car’s trunk with wine-colored pelargoniums and pots of thyme for the back steps. Lunch was in the hands of Skye Gyngell, whose food I find tantalizing and delicately balanced. Her menu included a salad of raw zucchini. I felt vindicated. Perhaps I had been before my time. Skye had used zucchini the size of my little finger, sliced lengthwise and layered in a fragile pile with the vegetable’s own flowers—eaten raw—and a dressing of basil oil and lemon zest. The real revelation was the pepperiness of the flowers and the extraordinary creaminess of the young zucchini. They had the quality of freshly picked wet walnuts, something they possess only when very young and fresh from the vine.