 The following is a production of New Mexico State University. Ruth Greenhouse, Director of Educational Services at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix describes how some common landscape plants were once used for food in the Sonoran Desert. Hi Ruth, I understand here at the Desert Botanic Garden people can learn about ethnobotany, but what is ethnobotany? Well, ethnobotany is simply the interrelationship between people and plants. Alright, so plants in the Sonoran Desert are the plants that you're looking at? Our Sonoran Desert has hundreds of useful plants that have provided food and fiber and construction material and medicine for people for centuries. And what are some of these plants? Well, there are many, as I said, but one of my favorites is the mesquite tree. Mesquite? Okay, now that's a tree, so it's wood. It's wood, and you may have had some food barbecued with mesquite wood. It's a great fuel. It's a hard wood, but it also has edible bean pods in the summer. Ah, okay, so we can eat the beans. How do we do that? You can eat the beans, but you don't want to just pick them off the tree and chew them up. So there are a few traditional ways of processing mesquite to make tasty foods. How do we do that? Well, one is you can pick the dry beans when they're ripe, and when they're ripe they're tanned. They change from green to tan, they're crispy, and you can grind them up into a flower. So you grind the whole pod? You grind the whole pod, and inside the pod are some very hard seeds, and those we sift out, and we don't use the seeds. We just use the pod. So you're eating pod? You're eating pod. And you grind it in what manner? Well, if you're very traditional, you can actually use a stone mortar and pestle and pound the mesquite beans into flower. Or you can throw them in the blender, and that's a real quick way to make the flower. Is this the flower here? Here's some of the flower, and we've sifted out the seeds and the coarse fibers from the pods. And this is very sweet, high in sugar, very good energy source. Traditionally, the flower could be mixed with water and drank as a nourishing beverage. We like to take some of the flower and add it to recipes for cakes, cookies and breads, and it gives a sweet and unique flavor. So there are traditional recipes, but you can also use it in a modern style. Yes. And there are books that tell us how to do that. There are books that tell you how to do it. And when you have a mesquite tree in your own yard, and they're great shade trees, you can pick the beans in the late summer, and you can save them and use them for food. So a mesquite's a good landscape tree. It's water-conservative, and now we can eat. That's right. It also attracts wildlife because it provides a shade and shelter that birds like. Good plant for the landscape. But there are other landscape plants that are common in the southwest that are also traditional foods. Many. That's right. The prickly pear, or opuntia, is a very common plant growing in the desert in the southwest, but it's also used in some landscapes. So this is the prickly pear, and we can eat it. Yes. There's actually two parts of the prickly pear you can eat. The juicy red fruits in the summer, and not all species have edible fruits, but many do, and the new young pads that come out in the springtime. But they look like they would hurt. They would hurt if you don't know how to remove the spines and the glockets first. Very painful. Show us how to remove the spines and glockets. Sure. Well, I have a new young stem or pad from the prickly pear here, and to remove the spines and glockets, I'm going to use a knife and scrape them off, and I usually do this under running water. And as you can see, I'm holding it with tongs. And once all the spines and glockets are removed, I like to trim the edges off of the cactus, and I'll do this all the way around. Well, I have one already prepared, and I'll show you what we do next. Well, after trimming the edge, I like to cut off the joint end, because that's tough, and now this is ready for slicing. This is an old technique. This is an old technique, and it can also be diced. And there are many different recipes to use the prickly pear stems in. So this is something that anyone can do with a prickly pear if they're careful. Yes, and we recommend that people collect plants from their own yard and are absolutely certain the name of the plant or the species that they're collecting so that it's safe. They've done this for thousands of years. Is it still something you can purchase in a store, though? Prickly pear is a great example of a plant that's an ancient, ancient food. It's been used for thousands of years. It's still used today. You can even buy it bottled in the grocery stores. That's some right there. Yes, would you like to taste one? I'm curious. I've never tasted it before. I didn't expect this. It's good. And what's this? Well, that is syrup made from a different part of the prickly pear from the fruit. Some species have a juicy red fruit. You have to carefully brush off the glocchets and spines or peel the skin from the fruit and remove the seeds. Then from the fruit you can express the juice, add a little sugar and make a delicious syrup. Or you can go to the store and buy it. Or you can buy it. Thank you. You're welcome. The preceding was a production of New Mexico State University. The views and opinions in this program are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the NMSU Board of Regents.