While it may be enticing to head out into open desert to pick prickly pear, you actually shouldn't do that. Johnson says O'odham tradition is to only pick what a family needs - not until the supply is exhausted. but if everyone harvests 10 percent, then there's none left," she says. "There is an herbalist idea that you should only harvest 10 percent of what's out there. Rose says her practice is to wait until the animals have had their fill. Respecting the desert also means respecting the animals that also need to eat. Don't go out into the desert and take stuff without recognizing that there has to be a reciprocity." As an urbanizing area, we have destroyed so much of the wildlife quarters and habitats, not to mention traditional cultures that kept those systems healthy for thousands of years. "And so I think the first thing is it's really important to say to people who want to go out into the desert and harvest, don't do that. "We're part of a culture of people that has stolen this land from thousands of people who lived here just fine without a Safeway or Fry's or Costco," she says.
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For years, Rose has cared for the land and taught others about native foods and how to "re-wild" their urban and suburban neighborhoods. He points out that if you're purchasing something made with desert foods, ask where they came from and whether proceeds benefit Indigenous communities.īarbara Rose is the permacultural designer of the 20-acre Bean Tree Farm in the Tucson Mountains and a member of the Tucson nonprofit Desert Harvesters. "From the very beginning, we teach our students and community members to respect the environment and the land that these foods grown on." "We have gone out where people have gone illegally and harvested and used four wheelers, and it just rips up the desert." he says. Respecting the desertĪs interest in wild desert foods grows, Johnson says there are those who exploit and commodify that abundance. With prickly pear season right around the corner - the popular fruit, called tunas, ripen around August and are used for syrups, jellies and more - we wanted to learn more about the edible bounty of the Sonoran Desert. "What a treasure it is to have these groups promote these traditional foods, because that's how Tucson got this title." "It's a treasure, the knowledge of Indigenous tribes around and in Tucson," Johnson says. The region's agricultural history and heritage foods led to Tucson's designation as a UNESCO City of Gastronomy in 2015. The Pascua Yaqui Tribe, in fact, just finished a week-long virtual Indigenous Food Festival including daily cooking demonstrations and storytelling. After all, Tucson sits on historic Indigenous land. For others interested in learning about edible desert plants, respect is key, he says. Johnson's focus is on teaching native food traditions to O'odham tribal members.
He adds that traditional foods can also help with high rates of diabetes and other food-related illnesses among tribal members.
"With traditional foods, we use our own language to identify and refer to them." Johnson says. "We call that our new year."ĭesert foods also keep alive associated legends, songs and even language. "Instead of going by the calendar year in January, we look at the environment and the rains that bring down the water for the plants and make everything green again," he says. The saguaro harvest, for example, is also accompanied by a rain ceremony that signifies the O'odham New Year. Johnson considers food a gateway to other O'odham traditions. But then you also get those who are really determined to learn." "And then we're cooking (the saguaro fruit) over a fire, and a lot of them, you get those people who lose interest. "With the saguaro harvest, we're picking in triple-degree weather, and when people understand that we're going to be out there at 110 degrees, they're like, 'What!'" he says. And for those newly interested, he knows not all will stick it out.įood is ongoing in the desert - if not always easy to harvest.
Johnson grew up with grandparents who regularly took him to pick saguaro fruit in the summers and wild spinach each winter, but he knows not all tribal members share those experiences or his interest. The desert's menu is vast - fruit from saguaro, prickly pear and barrel cacti pods from mesquite and palo verde trees cholla buds greens that sprout after rains and more.
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