It’s the time of year when Desert Harvesters has their annual mesquite millings. Desert Harvesters is dedicated to promoting the use of mesquite and other native wild foods in the Sonoran Desert. I helped staff the first milling event this weekend at Colossal Cave, but there are several more in the coming weeks. Bring your mesquite pods to one of the events and have them ground into flour!
Mesquite pods are an abundant, nutritious and delicious food source which sadly is barely utilized. We must make mesquite flour one of our staple foods, as it once was for the native peoples of the region, if we are to have any hope of developing a sustainable local food economy in the Tucson area.
There is a full list of milling events, and instructions for how to prepare your pods, at the Desert Harvesters website. I also added the events to our own Events page.
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October 18, 2007 at 5:18 am
waltzingaustralia
What does mesquite flour taste like? What is its nutrition profile? What native groups ate it? What do the pods look like? Can they be used some way other than grinding into flour? What other local, traditional foods are beginning to be utilized in the area?
Sorry if that’s too many questions, but I’m a food historian, and this stuff fascinates me. There are so many things on this continent that have been adopted all over the world, and yet there are still so many things that never left home. It always fascinates me.
October 19, 2007 at 3:05 am
marci
We’re glad that mesquite fascinates you! Obviously we’re very excited about it too, and it’s nice to share our enthusiasm with you. Mesquite is very sweet in an astringent, nutty sort of way. The flavor is unlike anything I’ve tasted before. I don’t know if mesquite pods can be eaten fresh, but the dried pods can be eaten right off the tree. Their seeds are very hard, and the pods are extremely fibrous (a nutritional benefit), so it’s more of a gumming and spitting experience than a gobbling one, but it’s worth it. I’m not aware of other ways to prepare mesquite in addition to eating the beans whole or grinding them into flour. I think Native Seeds/SEARCH (listed under our “local sites” heading) sells mesquite flour if you’re interested in trying it, although their flour is from Peru (go figure?).
Mesquite is chock full of minerals and vitamins, and contains important macronutrients too. You will find lots of nutritional information about mesquite on the Desert Harvesters link on our blog (also under “local sites”). I believe the Desert Harvesters web site has photos of the pods, too. The Native Seeds/SEARCH web site discusses the drive to reinvigorate the local, traditional food culture of the Tohono O’Odham and other indigenous peoples of the southwestern U.S., and hopefully you will find the information you are seeking about the continued use of other traditional foods there.
Thanks for your questions- we are always happy to try to answer them! Let us know if you discover any more exciting ways to use mesquite.
Marci and Chris
October 19, 2007 at 5:23 pm
waltzingaustralia
Thanks so much. I’m bookmarking your blog for future reference. Lots of good info for a part of the country food historians often overlook. (And I’ll be in New Mexico in a few weeks — maybe I’ll find mesquite flour there — but if not, glad to have somewhere I can order it.)
January 17, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Anonymous
Does the mesquite flour that you buy from Native Seeds taste the same as when you mill the beans yourself? I tried the flour from there and am wondering how different the taste would be?