Mesquite–Ancient Food for the Future

May 30, 2014June 2, 2014 / Savor Blog Partners / Leave a comment

Yes, we gotta admit it—Tucson and ALL OF BAJA ARIZONA is a FOOD-COLONY! To feed ourselves here, we currently import over 96% of our foods from out of state or out of country. If there were to be a transportation stoppage or disaster (perish the thought), we have less than 4 days’ food supply in local groceries. (info from Fry’s managers and Pima Co Emergency Mgmt.) This is a scary and sobering reality, and we need to remedy it for the good of all.
When it comes to food security in the Desert Southwest, if we are smart we’d best turn to those whose ancestors not only survived but thrived here, before European food fads invaded, and long before bio-technology pretended to save us–Let us listen to Native People! If we look to traditional O’odham cuisine, and to that of all low-desert Traditional People in the Southwest, we learn that one of their most important and consistent staple foods was MESQUITE. Meal ground from the whole, ripe, dry pods was prepared in diverse ways by every tribal group, and stored safely against lean times, providing them amazingly tasty nutrition.

Now….its up to “newer arrivals” to the desert to expand our cultural tastes–and enjoy lessons from local tradition….

Harvesting ripe velvet mesquite pods–an old Chuk-shon tradition (RodMondt photo)

Everyone enjoys mesquite’s shade, its smokey flavoring and fuelwood in BBQs. But what about mesquite as food and food-security? Sweet and yummy are first. Culinary versatility is up there. Nutrition is paramount. Recent nutritional analyses show what Native People have ALWAYS known intuitively, that mesquite’s sweetness is healthy (complex) sugars, and that it gives sustained energy (from slow-release complex carbs.)

A major plus for arid-lands food-security is that mesquite trees grow plentifully in the desert WITHOUT ANY HELP from humans. Having evolved with large Pleistocene herbivores, mesquite’s survival strategy is to over-produce quantities of tasty pods to entice mammoths or (extinct) ungulates to eat them and spread their seeds, scarified and delivered in ready-made fertilizer packages. In more recent centuries, cattle have provided a similar service to spread mesquite. Hungry bi-peds can benefit too from mesquite’s plentiful productivity. With global climate change and the promise of expanding deserts, mesquite offers us a healthy staple food and a fitting dry-lands crop for our stressed Planet.

Velvet mesquite pods (Prosopis velutina) in green phase (maburgess photo)

[Mesquite pods are ripening as I write–so heads-up!]

A most timely gathering of mesquite experts—both traditional and innovative—is about to happen at a MESQUITE CONFERENCE open to the public and not to be missed………Attention–Novice mesquite-harvesters, cooks and culinary artists, bakers and chefs, nutritionists and clinicians, ranchers, farmers, gardeners, athletes and fitness fans, survivalists, nature buffs, climate-change planners…. this conference is for you.

MESQUITE: NEW AGRICULTURAL TRADITIONS FOR AN ANCIENT FOOD will be held in Benson, Arizona, all day Friday, June 13, 2014, at the Cochise College Campus, 8:30am-4pm.
There will be talks by leading Mesquiteros, including traditional Tohono O’odham harvester Clifford Pablo, new crops innovator Dr. Richard Felger, the one and only mesquite agronomist Mark Moody, wild-harvester Amy Valdes Schwemm, creative desert rancher Dennis Moroney, animal feed expert Dr. Howard Frederick, desert foods ethnobotanist Martha Ames Burgess, and Cooperative Extension outreach educator Mark Apel.

In addition, generously sharing their knowledge, techniques and recipes will be demonstrators, including desert foods writer Carolyn Niethammer, wild-food teacher Barbara Rose, solar cooking expert Valerie McCaffrey, mesquite millers from San Xavier Farm Coop and Tohono O’odham Community College, and children’s book author Laurie Melrood. This is the place to contact producers of mesquite meal for your home cooking, for nouvelle local-source eateries, and breweries. Get your tastebuds ready for samples of delectable new culinary mesquite delights!

Sponsored by Baja Arizona Sustainable Agriculture and University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, with extra support from USDA Western SARE, we have been able to keep the registration fees to a minimum– accessible to anyone. $30 covers the whole day conference including luncheon ($20 for students or members of BASA). Space is limited so register soon. Registration is online via the BASA website http://www.bajaaz.org. For further info call 520-331-9821.
Once registered, please group your travel plans in carpools. For carpooling ideas check out the Native Seeds/SEARCH or BASA facebook sites. Let’s not let anyone miss this conference who needs to be there!

Select sweet velvet mesquite pods dry and ready to grind (maburgess photo)

Delicious honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) with ripening pods.

ADDITIONAL MESQUITE HAPPENINGS–Plan to Harvest, Plant, and Celebrate Native Bean-Tree Abundance Before the Rains…

DESERT HARVESTERS is organizing events to help people dramatically enhance the quality of their mesquite pod harvests, what to make with them, and how to better sync with the Sonoran Desert’s seasonal cycles in a way that enhances our shared biome.
We are teaming up with local culinary businesses to increase offerings of native foods in their cuisine, and to encourage landscaping with native food plants in water-harvest earthworks beside their buildings.

Mark your calendar for Thursday June 19, 2014!

Guided Mesquite Harvests and Plantings
Hosted at the Santa Cruz River Farmers’ Market
100 S. Avenida del Convento, Tucson, AZ

5pm harvest on foot, 6pm harvest by bicycle
Led by Desert Harvesters including Amy Valdés Schwemm and Brad Lancaster
$5 to $10 per person (sliding scale)

These hands-on harvest tours show you how to:
• Identify and sample the best-tasting mesquite trees
Every tree is different, but some varieties are consistently much better than others. Taste the differences. (We will also likely harvest from desert ironwood and palo verde.)
• How to harvest safely, ethically, and responsibly
Harvesting pre-rains is best practice to avoid invisible toxic mold. Harvesting from the tree avoids fecal or fungal ground contamination. Check out http://www.ediblebajaarizona.com/calling-all-mesquiteros/ for more on why pre-rain harvests are the traditional practice, and so important.
• Use cool tricks such as the harvest cane.
• How and when to plant the best bean trees
Participants are encouraged to bring sun protection, reusable water bottle, and carry-bags for harvested pods.

Iskashitaa, an organization that helps resettled refugees integrate into the Tucson community, will be offering their beautiful hand-made harvest bags and fresh-squeezed juice from fruit they’ve gleaned. Also there will be AravaipaHeirlooms’ prickly pear pops and chiltepine-infused cold brews from Exo Roast Co.

Bean-Tree Processing Demonstrations
Before and/or after the Guided Harvests and Plantings
4pm to 7pm–FREE
Taught by Barbara Rose, desert foods farmer/fermenter/cook extraordinaire of Bean Tree Farm (see their website for more awesome workshops), will show you how to turn milled or whole desert ironwood seeds, palo verde seeds, and mesquite pods into tasty dishes. Native foods such as mesquite flour, cactus fruit pops, drinks, syrup, and cholla buds will be available for sale, along with seeds and seedlings of the best-tasting native bean-trees and chiltepines.

AND THEN DON’T MISS Sunday, June 22, 2014!

Pre-Monsoon Mesquite Milling
Sunday, June 22, (alert–in the event of rain, it will be moved to Sunday, June 29)
6am to 10am
Bring Your Own Pods!
Pods for milling must be clean, dry, and free of mold/fungus, stones, leaves, bugs and other debris. Cost: $3/gallon of whole pods, with a minimum of $10.

Also at the milling event:
• A native wild foods demonstration – highlighting what’s in the wild-harvest season now
• Exo’s mesquite-, mole-, and chiltepin-infused coffees
• Mesquite baked goods and cactus fruit popsicles
• Seeds and seedlings of select native bean trees and chiltepines — so you can plant yours in time for the rains.

Our thanks to hosts Exo Roast Co. and Tap & Bottle,
403 N. 6th Ave.,Tucson, AZ
Harvesters’ Happy Hour at Tap & Bottle
Come join fellow harvesters in fermented merriment. Tap & Bottle will have local brews on-hand, some infused with local native ingredients. And they will donate a percentage of all the sales to Desert Harvesters. Learn more online at: http://www.DesertHarvesters.org

Mesquite can help us into a food-secure future– fittingly, sustainably, healthily, and sweetly– as we face heating and drying of our desert home. What a gift mesquite is, as we begin to declare our independence from being a FOOD-COLONY!

Desert Mistletoe for Food and Fun

May 23, 2014February 10, 2015 / Savor Blog Partners / Leave a comment

Jacqueline Soule here today to discuss a edible “weed.” Most people associate mistletoe it with kisses and winter holidays. Sad to say, here in the desert southwest, many homeowners think of our local mistletoe as a weed to be eliminated from their trees. In reality, they should be thinking of it as a crop to be harvested!

Phoradendron_californicum_6 by Stan Shebs

Desert mistletoe fruit is the only mistletoe fruit that is edible. Photo by S. Shebs.

There are many species of mistletoes around the world. The mistletoe plants themselves are all toxic. The berries of most species are toxic. The one exception is our local desert mistletoe, Phoradendron californicum, bearing not only edible but highly palatable white to reddish translucent berries. Native peoples ate only the fruits of mistletoes growing on mesquite, ironwood or catclaw acacia. Found growing on palo verdes or Condalia (desert buckthorn) the fruits are considered inedible.

Phoradendron_californicum_1 by Stan Shebs

Plants of desert mistletoe can become quite large and offer a bountiful harvest of berries. Photo by S. Shebs.

According to literature, the Seri consider mistletoe fruit ripe and harvestable once it turns translucent. Harvest is done by spreading a blanket below the plant and hitting it with sticks to release the fruit. Seri consumed the fruit raw. The Tohono O’odham also consumed the fruit raw. River Pima ate the fruit boiled and mashed, which made it the consistency of a pudding. The Cahilla gathered the fruits November through April and boiled them into a paste with a sprinkle of wood ash added to the pot. (Bibliography at the end of this article.)

Some desert mistletoe are more red and less translucent. This is just normal variation within the species. Photo by S. Shebs.

By the way, desert mistletoe plants (not the fruit) contain phoratoxins which can easily lead to death via slowed heart rate, increased blood pressure, convulsions, or cardiac collapse. Some of these compounds can cause hallucinations, but there is no way to judge dosage. People seeking a “high” from mistletoe still turn up in morgues each year. Native peoples used plants other than mistletoe to seek visions, and if one desires visions, one would be wise to follow their example. Although toxic, if used in a well-ventilated place, the foliage of desert mistletoe can be used in crafts and as a dye, producing a pale beige to dark sienna.

Mistletoe dye on cotton. Photo by J. A. Soule

Harvesting and Use.

Mistletoe berries are ripe once they turn translucent and you can generally see the red seed inside. They also become soft and squishy, losing their hardness. Watch the phainopeplas, when they start devouring berries, then the fruit is ripe! I have only eaten the berries fresh, and find them reminiscent of elderberry in flavor. I was going to experiment with making a jelly this year, but missed my window of opportunity.

When ripe, the berries turn translucent and fall off the plant easily. Photo by S. Shebs.

As a dye, mistletoe plants themselves are used. They can be fresh or dried. Place the herbage in the pot, cover with water, bring to a boil, strain. Add an alkalizing agent (ammonia) to intensify the color. You can dye both protein fibers (wool, silk) and plant fibers (cotton) with this solution. Ideally mordant with alum prior to dyeing, but post-mordant baths also work.

A blend of half paper pulp and half mistletoe plant material yields a nicely textured craft paper. Photo by J. A. Soule.

All manner of desert plants can be used in papermaking. Photo by J. A. Soule

Rather than discarding the spent mistletoe herbage from making dye, I have frozen it for later use in papermaking. Grind the cooked mistletoe in a blender and mix it half and half with paper pulp to create a lovely, rough-textured, craft paper with a warm brown hue.

Note: This month I have been looking at desert mistletoe in some of my other online articles.

Desert mistletoe and human use is presented here, the third in a series on the topic.
Desert mistletoe and wildlife can be read at: http://www.beautifulwildlifegarden.com/?s=mistletoe
Desert mistletoe as part of a native garden caan be read at: http://nativeplantwildlifegarden.com/?s=mistletoe

This article copyright Jacqueline A. Soule, 2014. The topic is covered more extensively in my book “Father Kino’s Herbs: Growing and Using Them Today” (2011, Tierra del Sol Press, $15). If you live in Tucson, I hope you will consider purchasing a copy locally at Antigone Books, Arizona Experience Store, Magic Garden, Mostly Books, or Rillito Nursery.

For the last eight months, Savor the Southwest has been brought to you every week by four Savor Sisters, me (Jacqueline), Tia Marta, Aunt Linda and Carolyn. Look for our fifth Savor sister, Amy Valdes Schwemm will make her first appearance in June, otherwise she will return to post whenever a month has five Fridays.

Bibliography for this article
Felger, R. S. and M. B. Moser. 1985. People of the Desert and Sea. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ.

Hodgson, W. C. 2001. Food Plants of the Sonoran Desert. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ.

Kearny T. H. and Peebles R. H., et al. 1960. Arizona Flora. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.

Rea, A. M. 1997. At the Desert’s Green Edge. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ.

Tohono O’odham Nation (s.d.). When Everything Was Real: An Introduction to Papago Desert Foods. Tohono O’odham Nation, Sells, AZ.

© 2014, Jacqueline Soule. All rights reserved. I have received many requests to reprint my work. My policy is that you are free to use a very short excerpt which must give proper credit to the author, and must include a link back to the original post on our site. Please use the contact me if you have any questions.

Celebrating la Fiesta de San Ysidro Labrador

May 12, 2014 / Savor Blog Partners / 2 Comments

Tia Marta here to tell you about a beautiful and legendary soul, San Ysidro Labrador, Saint Isidore the Farmer, Patron Saint of Farmers and Laborers – whose feast day is May 15. A major celebration is planned in his honor this Saturday, May 17, in Tucson.

Retablo, painting on metal of San Ysidro plowing with angel, in style of traditional New Mexico folk arts. From Burns/Drees Collection (Photo MABurgess)

San Ysidro (a poor Spanish peasant farmer who lived from around AD1070 to 1130) is revered traditionally, along with his good wife Santa Maria Torribia, for generously sharing bounty from their fields and hearth to those in need—hungry animals and fellow peasants. Legend tells us that San Ysidro, at prayer every morning, was often late to labor in his master’s fields, but the angels, seeing his devotion, would already be plowing for him. Another legend records him with an angel plowing on both sides his oxen so that his labor yielded three times that of his neighbors. Yet another tells how, as he carried corn to be milled, he took pity on poor birds in the snow and gave them half his grain; when his leftover corn was ground, it yielded twice what he had brought. His generosity produced miracles.

San Ysidro retablo art, courtesy of Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace

Residents of Madrid, Spain, go all out in celebrating San Ysidro’s feast day, as he is the city’s patron saint. In Tucson, it is customary in traditional Hispanic families to celebrate San Ysidro with prayers for rain as his day falls usually in our most arid fore-summer. According to Jim Griffith’s Saints of the Southwest, images of San Ysidro were taken from the church to observe the fields or even buried in the fields until rains came. Here he has become patron of ranchers and crops–even gardeners. Dia de San Ysidro Labrador is a perfect occasion for us to become mindfully aware of where our food really comes from—the Earth, the soil—and also to fully appreciate the labor, the human care, human energy and other forms of energy that all go into bringing good food to our mouths and bodies. (I guess now we shouldn’t say “food to our tables” anymore, as that is unfortunately kinda passé. I hope some families still sit together at table to eat. We do and it is always a joy. Gosh imagine, we learn so much when we actually prepare and sit over a good meal and converse with each other!) So San Isidro Labrador reminds us of what is critically important with food—its origins in good earth and honorable labor!

NW Mexico craft-arts collector and expert Dr.Barney T.Burns with santo of SanYsidro showing the oxen and angels. (photo MABurgess)

Cottonwood root carving by Mayo Indian, Sinaloa, Mexico, depicting San Ysidro with ox, plow, corn motif, and angel watching him. From Burns…Drees Collection (photo MABurgess)

This year the Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace has arranged a public celebration of San Ysidro not to be missed, where this tradition is revived in a most appropriate setting—in the new Mission Garden, a living history orchard and garden on the very site of Padre Kino’s original Mission San Augustin de Cukson, at the base of Sentinel Peak. Plan to get there early— procession starts from the Santa Cruz River at 9:00am (May 17) going west to enter the adobe-walled Mission Garden. There, near the living orchard of Mission Period fruit trees and the productive winter vegetable garden coming to fruition, will first be the blessings. A Native American spiritual guide will bless in the four directions, followed by a Christian blessing of the fields, food and animals. Heirloom White Sonora Wheat grown in this living-history vegetable garden is getting ripe and will be ceremonially harvested. There will be tastes of Pozole de San Ysidro, the traditional pozole de trigo. Mariachi music by Las Aguilitas from Davis Elementary will fill the air; the Desert Indian Dancers from San Xavier will bless the earth; and Hispanic historian Bobby Benton will sing. A highlight will be a talk by none other than “Big Jim” Griffith reminding us of our roots in Tucson traditions of San Ysidro. Info tents will have volunteers on hand to answer questions. Native Seeds/SEARCH has donated varieties of heirloom seeds known from the Mission Period and earlier, planted in vegetable and timeline gardens to demo the prehistory of plants used by ancient people of the Tucson area. NSS volunteers will provide info for contemporary gardens. Tucson Herbalist Collective shares medicinal plant knowledge for Mission Garden and will have volunteers available for herbal questions. Baja Arizona Sustainable Agriculture will be selling heirloom White Sonora Wheat (grown organically by BKWFarms in Marana) and demonstrating how to cook the delicious ancient grain in a modern solar oven! (Great recipes for White Sonora Wheat are available by scrolling back in this blog.) It will be hot– come prepared with hat, sun protection, and water. The celebration is over at 11:30am. What a wonderful way to rejoice in local food, local tradition, and neighbors to share it, on this little piece of floodplain where agriculture has been happening for over 4100 years!

A mosaic of 21 heirloom beans and seeds by artist MABurgess, depicting the angel plowing for San Ysidro Labrador. (photo PeterKresanPhotography.com) Notecards available at NativeSeeds/SEARCH and http://www.flordemayoarts.com

Inspired by San Ysidro, I spent several months composing this mosaic of heirloom seeds, depicting an exhausted San Ysidro asleep under a tree while the angel finishes his plowing. See if you can identify any varieties. You can purchase the heirloom beans–and notecards of this image now printed handsomely by Spectrum–at Native Seeds/SEARCH store or at the Flor de Mayo table at Sunday St Phiillips Farmers Market.

San Ysidro is helping us find our way back to connection with the land that can feed us again!

Follow up photos For Housekeeping and the Hive: Removing the dead.

May 8, 2014 / Savor Blog Partners / 4 Comments

Good morning all, as promised, here are a few follow up photos of the “housekeeping” task of removing the dead from two differnt hives, taken a tad after dawn this morning.

Hive #1, below:

In the photo above, you can see the dead honey bee outside the hive entrance, tongue in the air.

The bee above her seems poised to carry her further away.

Within a few minutes, (above) she is moved to the side of the entrance, and then is removed completely.

Hive # 2 – below:

Similarly, ( I love this hive and its gorgeous propolis entrance), the honey bee corpse is seen at the hive entrance.

awaiting further action from the hive.

The alive bee above appears to have her eye trained upon the corpse, and is, perhaps, gathering her strength

to carry the dead honey bee further from the hive. The photos I had of the “carrying” were blurry as the dawn light

was dimmer than appears in these photos, and any movement captured in a photo was not at all in focus.

Here you can see the hive entrance is cleared, and a forager bee is just returning to the hive with pollen packed

on her back legs. Removing the dead appears to be a practical matter for the honeybee, and the as we explored last post,

is in the service of the life and health of the hive.

Where do dead honeybees end up? Returned to the earth, as we all shall be. But, as they are not encased and

embalmed, they can actually nourish the ground upon which they lay.

Housekeeping and the Hive – – HoneyBee Ice Cream

May 2, 2014May 2, 2014 / Savor Blog Partners / 7 Comments

Housekeeping in the Hive: And Honeybee Ice Cream

Aunt Linda here:

Honeybees and Housekeeping. These may not be two words that we naturally put together. Yet, to enter the hive and meet a day-old worker bee, it is surprising to see first hand that her first tasks involve housekeeping.

Bees don’t wait for the springtime urge to purge; their system is employed year round. Genetic testing of honeybees preserved in amber reveal that bees have changed remarkably little over 60 million years. Nature selects “what works”, and hives with strong “housekeeping” and hygiene habits are more resistant to disease, and thus more able to put their energies into filling their pantries and nurseries, and do not waste precious energy battling diseases and infections.

In the brood nest of the hive, we see that immediately after a baby worker bee emerges from her cell, she grooms herself — and then feasts mightily on pollen and honey. Her very next task is to clean out the cell from which she has just emerged. In fact, between her first and third day of life, baby workers clean, and even polish, cells so that those cells are ready to receive either a new egg that the queen will lay or to store freshly gathered nectar and/or pollen. The photos below are from my hives, taken yesterday.

Note in the photo above that the newly emerged bee is a bit lighter and fuzzier than the slightly older bees. This flat capped part of the hive is the worker nursery and the fuzzy bee has just emerged. You can see that slightly older house bees are adding nectar to the cells; which they will transform into honey.

In the bottom portion of the photo below at least three young workers are “working” in the cells, their little bee butts protruding upward, their heads tucked into the cells. In the upper left of the photo two holes (one small, one large) in the capped cells show bees which are just emerging, The open cells nearby have nectar. The open cells in the upper right of the photo look to me as if they are being readied for more eggs/brood.

During the next few weeks of her life, (up until about her day 16 or so) she and other young workers remove dead bees. They carry the corpses as far away from the hive as is possible. Watching them efficiently struggle in this task always amazes me; I attempted to take a photo of a bee corpse being carried out of the hive, but the fates didn’t align with a wanted photo opportunity. If I come across one in the next few weeks, I will post it.

Bees use propolis ( a substance made from plant resins, which has remarkable antimicrobial/disinfectant qualities) to varnish the hives walls, reinforce and stiffen comb, to seal up holes and spaces they feel are too big. Fascinatingly, they also used it to seal up the corpses of invaders, such as mice or larger insects, that are stung to death, but are too big to remove. The propolis essentially mummifies the creature, thus reducing significantly the chances of illness or infection to the hive. A hive that is a bit hard for a beekeeper to open because it is sealed with propolis usually indicates a thriving hive. In the photo below, the bees have created a smaller entrance for protection from marauding bees. I added this photo so you can imagine how bees might “seal” a mouse.

(The bee you see at the entrance may be a guard bee; age of bee is between 18-21 days).

I like to take bees on their own terms, and not romanticize them, demonize them, nor to project values onto them. I will admit, however, to feeling inspired by them. Personally, I am not a very skilled housekeeper. I am, however, startled by how remarkably good it feels to remove “dead” energy, let’s call it Clutter, from the hive I call home. As I do this, I find my energy freed up. Often, after some deep culling, new ideas arise; fresh insights beckon, solutions present themselves.

Today, let’s be like that freshly emerged worker bee. After grooming ourselves, we’ll feast on honey and pollen (recipe below) to fortify ourselves for our own version of housekeeping.

Honeybee Ice Cream – (the basic) recipe:

Prep the ice cream maker of your choice; I love the old style hand crank kind, using ice and rock salt – but you may use the lighter, more user friendly ones – where you freeze the container ahead of time.

2 cups organic milk

2/3 cups honey – as local as you can get

½ teaspoon sea salt

2 large eggs

2 cups heavy cream

1 tablespoon vanilla

Over medium to low heat, and being careful not to scald it, heat the milk in a stainless steel pan, about five minutes, whisking in the honey and salt as the milk warms.

Beat the eggs in a small bowl, and add ½ of the milky mixture above, and whisk it – slowly – into the eggs. Stir this milk/egg mixture back into the milk in the pan and heat again over the med-low heat for another 5 minutes, stirring consistently so that you don’t scorch it.

Remove from heat – pour mixture into a glass/ceramic bowl and let it cool completely. Once cooled; whisk in the heavy cream, vanilla. And process in the manner you prefer (by simply freezing it, milling it in one of those cold -ice cream machines, or the old fashioned “arm crank” method)

Beyond the basic recipe: Considering the 60 million year old dance between flowers and honeybees, why not consider adding a few of the edible flowers that Carolyn wrote about this month. Below are some Elderberry flowers (with a few scented geranium, in purple) that I added to my ice cream.

You might also sprinkle pollen on top, or even put it into the mixture of ice cream itself. There is honey already in the this ice cream, but drizzling some on top in place of caramel or chocolate might be sweet.

Note: Conventional thinking is that raw honey may not be healthy for infants under one year, pregnant women, or breastfeeding mothers/babies. It is worth talking with your health care practitioner about. And though uncommon, some people find that they have a reaction to pollen, so start with small quantities.

Enjoy Beans with Epazote

April 28, 2014 / Savor Blog Partners / 10 Comments

Epazote (formerly Chenopodium ambrosoides, now renamed Dysphania ambrosioides) came to our area from Mayan lands. The name is the same in Nahuatl, Spanish, and English. Who says you are not multilingual?!

Epazote is a summer annual herb popular for culinary and medicinal uses. By the time of Contact, epazote had been cultivated for well over a thousand years in southern and southeast coastal Mexico. It was, and still is, a principle flavoring for a large number of Yucatan and Veracruz dishes, and is indispensable for cooking black beans.

Epazote, like the Old World herbs of cumin and ginger, has the unique ability to help break down hard-to-digest vegetable proteins. These difficult proteins are found most often in beans, peas, and members of the cabbage family. A few leaves of epazote cooked in the pot with the potential offender help break down these offending proteins while alo providing a delightfully piquant flavor to the dish.

This strongly scented herb is reported as a deer repellent. I can report that javalina, jackrabbits, cottontails and quail all avoid eating the plants. Medicinally, epazote has been used in an infusion as a vermifuge (against intestinal parasites), and in a decoction to help induce labor. These uses lead to one of it’s common names, wormseed.

Planting and Care. Plant epazote from seed in spring once night temperatures rise above the low 50’s. Seeds can take as long as four weeks to germinate. Plants will thrive through the warm season and freeze to the ground at 35 degrees, but often regrow from the roots.

Seed Sources. Check the Pima County Seed Library. No need to drive there, go online to check for seed availability then reserve some sent to your local branch. I have also found seed through Renee’s Garden Seed and Botanical Interests.

Soil. Epazote tolerates poor, even clay soil, but plants grow best in average, well-drained soil. Can be grown in containers that are at least eight inches deep.

Location. Full sun is ok in the Southwest, but afternoon shade is appreciated by this tropical herb.

Water. Moderate.

Fertilize. Not necessary, but once a month with general purpose fertilizer will help make bushy plants. To really keep the plants bushy, you will need to pinch often. This is a technical term, really! (see “Care”).

Habit & Care. Epazote can reach 5 feet, but will be scraggly. Pinch or clip off the growing tips often to keep it around 2 to 3 feet tall, compact, leafy, and looking attractive in the garden. Usually a single plant provides enough for the household. Epazote reseeds readily, remove the flowering stalks, or be ready to weed excess plants next year. Seed heads turn an attractive bronze in autumn, and finches enjoy the seeds.

Harvest and Use. Epazote is used fresh for culinary purposes, and loses “digestive” properties when dried. Chop or mince leaves and add early to dishes that require long cooking, like beans, roasts, soups, or stews. Use one tablespoon minced leaves per cup of beans or to a two pound roast. Not used as a garnish, due to bitter taste. If you want to save epazote for winter use, chop up fresh leaves and freeze them.

Go Green. Use epazote to avoid using manufactured bean-digestive compounds. Having the plants in your yard saves packaging, shipping, and all the associated waste of resources inherent in manufactured goods. Even greener, epazote plants provide food for birds, a way to capture carbon, plus a lovely low green plant for your yard.

This article is exerpeted from my book “Father Kino’s Herbs: Growing and Using Them Today” (2011, Tierra del Sol Press, $15). I hope you will consider purchasing a copy locally at Antigone Books, Arizona Experience Store, Magic Garden, Mostly Books, or Rillito Nursery. You can visit my booth at the Arizona Feeds Country Store Spring Expo, Sat. May 3 (10-3), 4743 N. Highway Dr.

Edible Flowers of Spring

April 22, 2014April 26, 2014 / Savor Blog Partners / 2 Comments

Ocotillo blossoms

It’s Carolyn today. Two months ago Tia Marta wrote about gathering and preparing delicious cholla buds, but that is only the barest beginning of the edible flowers that can add fun and interest to our meals. Spring is the best time to find the biggest bounty of beautiful munchibles. Gather a bowlful of ocotillo blossoms, add water, and let it stand overnight. You’ll have a delicate juice. The flowers must be open for the nectar to leach into the water. I wrote about the early Native American uses to ocotillo as a medicinal herb in American Indian Cooking: Recipes from the Southwest.

Blossoms on elderberry bush.

This is also the season for elderberry bushes to flower. Sometimes called elderblow, the flowers make delicious fritters. I have given full directions in my earlier blog Carolyn’s Southwest Kitchen and you can see it here.

Moving from the desert to your own garden, you’ll find many edible flowers. Many of them make delicious additions to salads. Among them are nasturtium flowers, which have bright, peppery flavor.

Two colors of nasturtium flowers on a fresh garden salad.

Two colors of nasturtium flowers on a garden salad.

Arugula tends to bolt early and especially did so on this very hot spring on the Sonoron Desert. But the flowers, though small, taste lovely, not quite as intense as the the leaves.

Arugula flowers

Other delicious salad additions are pansies and violas, their smaller cousins.

Pansies

When I began gathering material for this post, I recalled a dish I made years ago that involved sauteeing chicken with cinnamon and rose water and then finishing the dish with a sprinkle of small rose and marigold petals. My friend Suzann and I served that at a wedding we catered for two naturalists.

Marigold

Teacup rose

Dried edible flowers make wonderful and healthy teas. Tina Bartsch at Walking J Farm grows and dries calendula flowers for John Slattery at Desert Tortoise Botanicals who uses them as one ingredient in his Desert Flower Tea. He combines them with desert willow flowers, ocotillo flowers, hollyhock flowers, and prickly pear flowers. His website says that the tea is an anti-oxidant and good for tissue repair. The tea is available at Native Seeds Search, Tucson Community Acupuncture, the Food Conspiracy. Calendula petals taste tangy and peppery and add a golden hue to food. Calendula has been called “the poor man’s saffron.”

Calendula flowers drying

Desert Flower Tea

One of the most used flowers in cooking, particularly in Mexico, is the squash flower. The male flowers will never develop into squash, so you can harvest some of them. When I was in Oaxaca a few summers ago, I took a cooking class from Chef Oscar Crespo and just had the best time. One of the things we cooked was stuffed squash blossoms. Here is the recipe.

Squash blossoms

FLORES DE CALABAZA RELLENAS DE QUESO
Cheese-filled Squash Flower Blossoms

12 squash flower blossoms, washed

½ cup (2.5 oz/80 g) fresh cheese, sliced into sticks

12 epazote leaves (optional)

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup club soda

Oil for frying

Slice the cheese so that it fits in the blossoms. Remove the sepals and pistils (that’s the parts inside the petals), then cut the stem to 1¼ in . Fill the whole blossom with a slice of cheese and an epazote leaf. Push the cheese all the way in, and twist the petals to close.

Make a batter with the flour and club soda, starting with 1/2 cup of the club soda. Add more if necessary to make a thin batter like pancake batter.

Place the oil in a frying pan and bring to high heat, about 350 degrees. Dip the stuffed blossoms in the flour mixture. Fry them for 2 minutes or until golden brown, turning at least once. Remove from the oil and drain on absorbent paper.

These can be served accompanied with a red or green salsa or floated in a tomato broth.

For more ideas on cooking squash blossoms, check here. If you want more information on edible flowers, you can click here and here.

__________________________

Carolyn Niethammer writes books on the food and people of the Southwest.

In Praise of Seeds and Rebirth

April 14, 2014April 14, 2014 / Savor Blog Partners / 2 Comments

Scarlet runner beans grown by ace gardener T.S.Swain–good nutrition and beauty besides (MABurgess photo)

Tia Marta here this beautiful Easter week, singing the praises of seeds, with stories of rebirth to share! When I hold seeds in my hand, I am blown away by their significance. These little lightweight packages of starch and protein, exine skins and genetic chains, are weighty with potential for what they can do in the future, and truly weighty with messages from the past—genetic wisdom selected by the many forces of Nature through time, and in the case of agricultural seed, by caring humans—all encased in a holding pattern, a portal where time stretches. Seeds are life in abeyance. Each seed is a nexus, connecting the ways of the past with hopes for the future. To see life spring again from a seed is a miracle every time it happens—even for elders who have seen it happen a zillion times, and one worth sharing with children for their first.

native chia (Salvia columbariae) in bloom at Mission Garden (MABurgess)

wild native chia seedheads (Salvia columbariae) ready to winnow (MABurgess photo)

All of life celebrates spring re-energizing time with Nature’s renewal, Easter’s message of life out of death. In the Sonoran Desert we are celebrating not only new growth but also nourishment with the spring harvest, the results of winter rains. Here, our winter ephemerals (a totally different suite of plants than our hot-weather annuals) are completing their blooming and pollination cycles, their seedheads bulging and ready to be scattered, shattered, caught by wind, coyote legs, or human socks, to be spread to the next possible patch of desert soil in prep for this fall’s rainy season (or for feeding furry or feathered desert dwellers.) Chia seedheads will soon be ready to gather and winnow for their superfood nutrition. Don’t forget to thank the plant (and all the forces which brought those chia seeds to fruition) as you chow down on its high omega-3 fatty acids and its blood-sugar-balancing complex carbs in your smoothie or chia fruit salad!

Heirloom barley in flower at Mission Garden (MABurgess photo)

Heirloom White Sonoran Wheat seedheads filling out at Mission Garden (MABurgess photo)

It is written that Passover (the roots of which began in a desert akin to our own with winter rainfall and grains grown as winter crops) cannot be celebrated until the barley is harvested. When Father Kino and other Padres brought Old World grains like wheat and barley to our corner of the Southwest, the same winter growing was observed. Now, at the Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace Mission Garden (at the foot of A-Mountain) direct descendants of those original heirloom grains are topping out where you can see them “in action” any Saturday for a tour (see http://www.tucsonsbirthplace.org).

Heirloom White Sonoran Wheat berries, local, organic, traditional, from BKWFarms (MABurgess photo)

Scroll thru our savorthesouthwest posts to check out Tia Marta’s January blog for some enjoyable insights on the ancient White Sonoran Wheat and great recipe ideas, and a nutshell history –introduced by Kino, found again by Native Seeds/SEARCH, and now being grown with soil-enriching organic methods by the Wong Family in Marana.

Wheat is rich with symbolism as well as nutrition—full of life-giving energy, complex carbohydrates when the whole grain is eaten, and good protein. Irish farmers weave complex seedhead sculptures and hangings for good luck, representing protection, provender, and plenty. For traditional Italians especially, wheat symbolizes renewal and rebirth and has become an important Easter food.

Tucson Foodie-par-excellence Vanda Gerhardt located a most marvelous recipe for an Italian traditional Easter pie (judysculinaria.wordpress.com) made with wholesome wheat grain. She has served samples to delighted farmers market visitors at the Flor de Mayo booth at St Phillips Sunday market (www.heirloomfarmersmarkets.com). With her inspiration I have modified it for a totally local treat, made with our own Padre Kino White Sonoran Wheat berries from BKWFarms!

Luscious Easter Wheatberry pie, from judysculinaria.wordpress.com

Here’s my version of this yummy custard Pastiera di Grano dessert for you to enjoy with its Sonoran Desert name:

Heirloom Wheat Berry Pie—Postre de TrigoEntero–Pastel Pascual de la Pimeria Alta!

Ingredients for pre-cooking wheat berries:
1 cup whole grain heirloom White Sonoran Wheat Berries (available from NSS or Flor de Mayo)
5 cups drinking water
2-4 narrow strips lemon peel, orange or tangerine peel
Pinch salt optional
Instructions for cooking wheat:
Rinse white Sonoran Wheat berries to remove chaff. (Overnight soak optional.)
In saucepan, bring to boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer an hour, then check doneness. Berries are best when they are al dente but done through. Allow more simmer time if need be.
[After wheat berries are cooked you can use them for many different delicious recipes.]

Sweet Pie Crust (Pasta Frolla)
(You can make this and the filling while your wheat berries are simmering!)
Ingredients for pie crust:
1 2/3 cups White Sonoran Wheat pastry flour or 00 (available from NSS, HaydenFlourMills)
1/3 cup organic sugar, OR ¼ cup sugar and 1 T mesquite pod flour
1 tsp lemon or orange zest (optional)
½ cup butter chilled and diced
1 large egg lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt (if unsalted butter)
Instructions for pie crust:
Combine flour, sugar, zest, and salt. Mix thoroughly (in food processor if available). Cut in butter until breadcrumb texture. Whisk in wet ingredients—egg and vanilla. If needed (as in dry climates) add 1-3 T of ice water and mix. Form mixture into a ball, wrap in plastic and chill at least an hour.

Ingredients for Pastry Cream Filling:
2 T organic sugar
1 T White Sonoran Wheat flour
½ cup milk
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla
Pinch of salt
Instructions for Pastry Cream:
Sift sugar, flour, salt together into saucepan. Whisk in egg and milk. Mix well. Cook on low heat stirring constantly until it boils and thickens (approx. 3 minutes). Place in bowl and cover with plastic wrap directly on top of cream mixture eliminating all air bubbles, and set in frig to chill.

Ingredients for Ricotta Cheese Filling:
1 cup ricotta cheese
¼ cup organic sugar
2 large eggs
½ cup finely chopped orange or tangerine peel candied (optional)
1 tsp orange flower water or rose water
½ tsp cinnamon
Instructions for making Ricotta Filling:
Preheat oven to 350 degreesF
In mixing bowl beat ricotta until creamy. Mix in sugar and eggs. Fold in candied citrus peel, flower water, and cinnamon. Next fold in the refrigerated pastry cream and 1 cup of the cooked White Sonoran Wheat berries. Mixture should feel thick.

Final steps–Cooking Wheat berry Custard Pie:
Roll out 2/3 of the pastry dough and spread on floor of 9-inch pie dish. Pour in the cream/ricotta/wheatberry mixture. For creating lattice top on pie, roll out remaining 1/3 dough. Cut in strips about ½ inch wide and place atop pie filling.
For a glistening egg wash, whisk 1 egg and pinch of salt and brush the pastry lattice.
Bake 50-60 minutes or until top and crust edges are golden brown and the custard filling is firm in the middle. Test with cake tester or toothpick in pie center. Cook additional minutes until tester comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack. Best chilled for a few hours before serving.
Buon Appotito –y buen provecho!

Note: you can find organic White Sonoran Wheat Berries at Native Seeds/SEARCH store or online http://www.nativeseeds.org, also at Flor de Mayo’s booth at Sunday St Phillips Farmers’ Market, Tucson, http://www.flordemayoarts.com or 520-907-9471. Orange blossom water is available at Mid-Eastern groceries.

Staghorn cholla bud about to open, with ants enjoying extra-floral nectaries (MABurgess photo)

Wheatberry salad with cholla buds–an April delight (MABurgess photo)

With cholla bud season in full swing, it’s a great time to make a marinated wheatberry and cholla bud salad for a refreshingly cool hot-weather dish. Marinate cooked wheatberries in your favorite dressing, chop fresh veggies and add cooked cholla buds—and voila you have flavor, fun, and nutrition!

Giant Aztec white runner-beans, aka bordal and “mortgage lifter” (MABurgessphoto)

With the sap rising, and the gardening bug tugging at you, now is the perfect time to sew seeds of two very special long-season beans—the Tarahumara scarlet runner (see top of post) and the Aztec white runner (available at http://www.nativeseeds.org). (Note: white runners looking like small Easter eggs are also referred to as “bordal” and, similar to the tomato by the same name, “mortgage lifter.” If you can baby your young plants thru the heat and drought of May and June into monsoon growth, both of these beans will give you not only great food next fall but also glorious ornamental vines until then. Trellis them on the east side of your house or a wall for eastern light and protection from the blasting western sun. Hummingbirds will love you as they visit both the brilliant scarlet flowers and even the white flowers.

May your garden and your table be blessed with the fruits of the desert, bringing rebirth of good nutrition to the land and to our greater community of creatures and cultures!

On Java Chickens, the Egg Tooth, and Very Simple Poached Eggs

April 4, 2014 / Savor Blog Partners / 6 Comments

Aunt Linda here: Mother hens are keeping their hatchlings close this cool Tucson morning. As it warms up, they will give vigorous lessons in scratching and foraging. While most hens will teach their young the skills they need to survive, the heirloom Java breed is especially good at parenting. This breed is known not only for being excellent parents, but robust foragers – and are able to tolerate heat well. The second oldest variety of chicken in the U.S, they are a wonderful heirloom breed for the desert southwest.One Java rooster that I raised will wait to eat until all his hens and chicks are well into their meal. He watches attentively, and only once he is satisfied that all are well fed, will he begin his own feasting. So strong is their parental instinct, ( they are the one breed in my flock that can I count on to “go broody” each year), that I in a pinch, I have been able to use Java hens to hatch duck and turkey eggs, when no mother of those species had been available or willing. (Note: I am emphasizing the parental strengths of the Java here; there can be unexpected adventures (read complications), so query someone with experience before you undertake this. It is just one of those creative pieces of animal husbandry that are sometimes necessary, but not necessarily the ideal. It is much like using a goat to nurse a baby calf whose mother has died; just because one can do it does not mean that you should when a perfectly good mama cow is around; whenever possible go for the technology that nature selected).

(above – Java hatchlings on left with an turkey egg beginning to hatch in front; the timing needs to be right for this)

(above – the baby turkey from the egg in the photo above this photo, resting its wing on a Java egg yet to hatch)

I could wax on and on about Java Chickens all day, but really would like to focus on a hatching chick’s greatest tool: The Egg Tooth. It is a small, sturdy protuberance attached to the upper mandible of a hatching bird’s (or reptile’s) beak (or bill) that helps it break through the shell. I am captivated by this practical, ancient, tool.

(above – a newly hatched Java Chick, with the “hatched-from- egg-shell” in front. Note the white tip on it’s beak. That is it’s egg tooth)

So, the Egg Tooth. In addition to being a very practical tool of evolution, I would consider it also as a kind of “a state of mind”, as well. Or, perhaps as a practical metaphor. Or an evolutionary tool in our own lives. What fortifies us enough that we are able to “break through” to the ideas/behaviors we have been incubating, so that they come to fruition? The answer(s), vary from person to person. Querying ourselves alone may help us break through to “the larger world”, to a more expansive sense of self, or to seeing something in a whole new light.

After all that hatching and breaking through you might be hungry. And for something simple and nutritious. Here is today’s recipe: Very Simple Poached Eggs

Ingredients: 2 Organic Eggs. Then: pasture raised butter (or olive oil), salt, (optional: chiltepin) for flavor.

How: You really do not need a fancy poacher to make a great poached egg. The key is in using really fresh eggs.In fact, the addition of vinegar that we so often hear about is really for eggs that are not so fresh; like the kind from the grocery store. If you have access to a neighbors hens, or a local farmers market, you can proceed as follows. Crack an egg into a small bowl. In a small saucepan, bring water to a boil, reduce the heat, with a spoon swirl the water into a tiny whirlpool, and gently slip the egg into the center of the swirl. Keep water just below boiling – cook until the white is set and to your preference of yolk. Add the butter (I use pasture raised butter), salt, and (optional dried red chiltepin crushed on top) to taste. Savor the taste of that fresh egg without much fancy coverup or fanfare.

I love these atop beans, or on a fresh tortilla/bread.

Worthy of Note: There is so much to say about the joys and benefits of raising heirloom breeds; about their dispositions and superior nutritional value. I am a part of a Java Recovery Project, to increase their numbers. Many heirloom animals are endangered and if it appeals to you to steward an heirloom breed of some sort, I encourage you to visit: http://www.livestockconservancy.org. The website is a goldmine of information and you can educate yourself on the types of breeds, where they thrive, which are especially in need of breeders, as well about the nutritional needs of heritage breeds. Who knows!? You might use your metaphorical egg tooth in the service of something larger than your own life. Perhaps to be in service to the earth, (from whom both the egg tooth and we humans emerged), and consider learning about/raising heirloom breeds of some sort yourself.

Limoncillo

March 28, 2014February 10, 2015 / Savor Blog Partners / 1 Comment

Savor Sister Jacqueline Soule posting today.

Chinchweed or limoncillo is known to scientists as Pectis papposa, a member of the Compositae family, now called the Asteraceae, and arguably the largest plant family out there. If you aren’t “into” the Compositae, it is generally considered just another one of those DYC’s (Dratted Yellow Compositae). (Well, we scientists don’t say “dratted” but we don’t want the parental controls to censor this blog.)

Pectis papposa is just a “DYC” to some, but it can be so much more!

This sprightly summer blooming annual is found across the desert Southwest from New Mexico to California and northern Mexico (in the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts) at elevations below 6000 feet. With surprising promptness after the first summer rain, the desert floor is carpeted with the small yet bright yellow flowers – DYC’s.

A carpet of Pectis papposa. Too lovely to trod upon!

Hopi, Zuni, and Havasupai all use the chinchweed plant as a condiment, especially to flavor meat. There are also references to its use as a fresh green and potherb. In Mexican markets, bundles of fresh or dried plants are sold as limoncillo and used as a culinary spice, generally to flavor meat. There are also references to its use as a dye plant.

The leaves of limoncillo are dotted with a number of glands filled with flavorful oils.

Planting and Care.
Sow seeds of this charming summer annual anywhere in your yard you wish them. Plants look especially lovely in a cactus garden, and appear to prefer well drained soil. Since chinchweed is a summer annual, sow in the warmer months, from April onward. Ideally have the seeds in the soil prior to the first monsoon rain, generally around San Juan’s Day or summer solstice. This may be tough as seeds are generally not available in seed catalogs. You may have to wild collect some of the herb this year, and while you are at it, collect seeds for your own next year. Once you have some limoncillo your yard it seems to cheerfully find new places to tuck itself, including in areas of reflected light, which is often a tough site for plants to thrive in.

These tiny plants will find their way into unexplored corners of you yard. A weed only by common name, the seed is excellent food for native birds.

Harvesting and Use.
As a culinary spice, chinchweed may be used fresh or dried. Simply chop up the fresh material or crumble the dried and sprinkle on meat. If you like lemony chicken, then limoncillo is a great local herb to use! Fresh cinchweed greens add a nice zing to stir fry, but I have not tried them cooked alone as a potherb (yet). This will be part of my New Years resolution to grow and use all of the native plants in my Father Kino’s Herbs book (More on this at 30 minutes in on America’s Web Radio – http://www.americaswebradio.com/podcasts/VeggieHourJan18.2014.mp3). For dye, pluck the flower heads off and use them fresh or dried. I could not find if there was a specific mordant.

Harvest the flower heads for dye and the leaves together with the flowers for culinary use.

Now I have thought of a new way to think of this DYC – it’s a Delightfully Yummy Compositae! And I hope you will consider some for your yard.

DYC stands for Delightfully Yummy Composite with Darling Yellow Crowns!

[For another species of DYC flowering now, and some of its uses, please visit my blog on Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens – http://nativeplantwildlifegarden.com/brittle-bush-in-bloom/]

The information presented here is a sample of what appears in my book Father Kino’s Herbs, Growing and Using Them Today (Tierra del Sol Press, 2011). Available through amazon.com. Free public lectures on growing and using our wonderful native plants, at a number of branches of the Pima County Library.

Photos copyright free and courtesy of Wikimedia except where noted. Article © 2014, Jacqueline Soule. All rights reserved. I have received many requests to reprint my work. My policy is that you are free to use a very short excerpt which must give proper credit to the author, and must include a link back to the original post on our site. My photos may not be used. Please use the contact me if you have any questions.

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Savor the Southwest:

Forage, Raise, Cook

Author: Savor Blog Partners

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On Java Chickens, the Egg Tooth, and Very Simple Poached Eggs

Limoncillo

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