How many of us know ways to supplement our diets with wild foods? Not many, I am willing to bet! Even here, in the desert southwest, there is an abundance of nutritious and delicious wild forage to be found.
Prickly pear cactus is an old favorite! With thorns carefully removed, the bright red fruit is a tasty treat and makes for wonderful jellies and even wine. Did you know the pads can be eaten as well though? Young pads, like the ones pictured here, are quite good prepared in a variety of ways.
The first step is to remove the thorny nodules, trim away the fibrous base of the pad and the outer edge. This is best done wearing leather gloves and using a very sharp paring knife.
One of the easiest methods of cooking is to roast or grill these pads over an open fire. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes per side for them to be fully cooked and nicely toasted. You will want to lightly brush them with oil before and during grilling. Bacon grease works well, as does olive oil, plain or seasoned. My grandfather had a special tin of sliced garlic and bacon drippings that he used to brush his, adding salt and pepper as he turned and toasted them to perfection.
They are also good chopped into bite-sized pieces, sautéed until tender and mixed with a variety of things from scrambled eggs to salads. Just use a little butter and season to taste as you are cooking. Another method is to boil them. This is very similar to cooking okra in that they make a thick, slimy liquid, which should be drained and washed off before adding to salads or serving with other vegetables.
There are several other, less obvious, food sources readily available too.
Condalia, pictured here, is a shrub that looks like a mass of huge thorns peppered with small leaves. In the very early spring it has barely noticeable flowers and is shortly covered in small deep purple to black berries. These little berries are a bit mealy when fresh, but nicely sweet. The best way to use them is to squeeze out the seed and dry the berry for use in granola mixes or as an addition to other foods in much the same way you would use dried blueberries. The seeds are quite nutritious and are up to 25% linoleic acid, which is one of the fatty acids considered essential to the human diet. Dried and ground seed makes a rich, mealy flour that is absolutely delicious added to many bread recipes, oatmeal and other hot cereals.
Almost all the yucca and sotol blooms you see in spring are good to eat. They are fleshy and bland to slightly sweet for the most part and go well in salads of all kinds. Grandma used to candy them like you would rose petals. These made elegant and unusual sweet treats, desert garnish or cake decorations! All you do is pick and wash the petals, brush or dip each in lightly beaten egg white and coat with confectioner’s sugar. Place the coated petals on drying racks so they do not touch. Once fully dry, layer them on wax paper for storing in an airtight container in a cool, dry location. They will keep for a few days, but ideally should be used right away. Be sure to use only the petals as the rest of the bloom contains saponin and can be poisonous in large amounts.
Prickly Poppy has several medicinal uses, but the seeds are commonly used to dust breads and garnish dishes in the same way other poppy seeds are used. Unless you are gathering the plants for medicine, it isn’t worth the effort to just get the seeds because of the fierce spines, in my opinion.
Mesquite is good for far more than a hot and flavorful grilling fuel! The green seed pods are sweet and make a great nutritious chew for children in the late summer. You can also make a sweet molasses using about a quarter pound of the whole, fresh pods to a quart of water. Cook this on low in a crockpot for 12 to 14 hours and strain out the plant material. Reduce the liquid by boiling until it reaches the consistency of a thin syrup. It will thicken with cooling.
The dried mesquite beans and pods are good for grinding into meal or flour. This can be used in much the same way you would use corn meal. Grinding the dry bean into a fine flour can be used for making tortillas and other breads. You can actually buy this flour commercially now!
Though there are many more locally native plants that I will try to eventually touch on and even provide recipes for, Juniper will be the final one today. Juniper is common across the northern hemisphere and has a long history of use as a medicine and seasoning. The berries, ripened to a deep bluish/black, are an essential ingredient in the making of sauerkraut and have traditionally been used in marinade and as a seasoning for wild meat such as deer. When cooking deer or goat, 8 to 12 berries per pound of meat (depending on how strong you like the flavor) is a good rule of thumb.
Not actually a berry, these are seed bearing cones that can take up to three years to ripen. Those pictured here may take another year to be ready.The scaly, needlelike leaves are a good garnish for fish too. You want to put a few small sprigs in with the meat a few minutes before removing from the fire or oven.
How many of us know ways to supplement our diets with wild foods? Not many, I am willing to bet! Even here, in the desert southwest, there is an abundance of nutritious and delicious wild forage to be found.
