Edible Plants in New Mexico (Belen: house, live, to eat)

[AlisonL]

Can you eat any prickly pear, or must it be a certain variety? They all look pretty much the same to me.

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by AlisonL

Can you eat any prickly pear, or must it be a certain variety? They all look pretty much the same to me.

I suppose you COULD eat any variety of prickly pear pad...it just depends on how much work you want to do in cleaning them! There are certain varieties that grow in Mexico with few spines, and are a lot easier to prepare for eating.

One of these days, I'm going to raid my parents' back pasture in West Texas for both pads and tunas (the red pears) just to see!

[ajzjmsmom]

Is there actully poison ivy in NM? I know it grows in abundance on my parents place in Texas but don't know if I have ever seen it here.

[Goodpasture]

Try cat tails.......just pull the center stalks out of the plant and start eating....very tender and tasty.

1. Cattails contain ten times the starch of an equal weight of potatoes.
2. Early spring new shoots pick peel, cook, or eat raw.
3. Harvest young flowerheads, boil and eat like corn on the cob; or pickle.
4. Collect early summer pollen in a bag, add to other flours (protein/vitamins).
5. Winter rootstocks: pick mash rinse, dry, and grind into flour.
6. Use fresh, pounded root directly as a poultice on infections, blisters, & stings. Tie in place over night. Replace for next day.
7. Sticky substance at the base of the green leaf is antiseptic, coagulant, & even a bit numbing.
8. Boil leaves for external skin wash.
9. Starchy, mashed root use as a toothpaste.
10. Use pollen as a hair conditioner.
11. Drink root flour in a cup of hot water or eat the young flowerheads to bind diarrhea and dysentrery.
12. Use the fuzz from mature female flowerheads for scalds, burns, diaper rash & place in diaper to soak up urine.
13. Down makes excellent tinder.
14. Dry stalks use for hand drill, arrow shafts with added hardwood nock and foreshaft.
15. Leaves excellent for thatching, basket weaving, cordage (one of the most important aspect of outdoor survival), and doll, toy, figurine making.
16. Dip brown head of a dry stalk in animal fat for a torch.
17. Pollen is hemostatic & astringent. Place directly on cut to control bleeding. Take internally for internal bleeding, menstrual pain, chest pains, & other forms of blood stagnation.
18. Mix pollen with honey; apply to bruises, sores, or swellings.
19. Pollen is also mildly diuretic and emenagogue.

NativeTech: Cattails: Supermarket of the Swamps

[desert sun]

You can eat the flowers on the red tip yuccas I think they are called, they are all over ABQ.

[tecpatl]

Originally Posted by Cathy4017

Uh huh....LOL!!! Every time a piece of my neighbor's cholla breaks off and ends up in my yard, I just want to scream! I like cacti, but whatever variety she has--I just HATE.

Might consider getting some variety of prickly pear started for next year!

Why wait? Find some different cacti on roadsides or the neighbor's yard, cut off a few paddles near where they join the plant, put them in the shade and let the wound dry for a week or two, then dig a little hole and stick em in the (well drained)ground. Pack the dirt back around them and do a light watering once a week or two if there is no rain. The soil needs to dry up completely between watering. Pretty soon they'll be putting roots down and Presto! next Spring you'll have new cactus plants. In a couple years, you'll also have nopalitos for lunch.
I pulled my Cow Tongues off a heap that had been piled alongside a ditch, planted them 4 years ago and now I'm trying to hold them off...growing like weeds. Eating is the best revenge, I say

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by tecpatl

Why wait? Find some different cacti on roadsides or the neighbor's yard, cut off a few paddles near where they join the plant, put them in the shade and let the wound dry for a week or two, then dig a little hole and stick em in the (well drained)ground. Pack the dirt back around them and do a light watering once a week or two if there is no rain. The soil needs to dry up completely between watering. Pretty soon they'll be putting roots down and Presto! next Spring you'll have new cactus plants. In a couple years, you'll also have nopalitos for lunch.
I pulled my Cow Tongues off a heap that had been piled alongside a ditch, planted them 4 years ago and now I'm trying to hold them off...growing like weeds. Eating is the best revenge, I say

Thanks for the tips, Tecpatl!! I just might do that! The only prickly pear in the neighbor's yard is purple--I even thought of cutting some off that were growing out the back fence on the alley side, but I don't think those are the kind you eat!

Probably be easier just to go out to the pasture behind my parents' place and get it there the next time I'm home.

[uggabugga]

Originally Posted by Goodpasture

Try cat tails.......just pull the center stalks out of the plant and start eating....very tender and tasty.

NativeTech: Cattails: Supermarket of the Swamps

i always intended to try these but somehow never did. have you eaten the tubers, too?

prickly pear fruit is not bad, but you have to be careful of all the tiny little spines. they're very seedy, too.

[all feng no shui]

Check out the herb books by Michael Moore. He is the expert on plants of the southwestern United States. His focus is primarily medicinal but if the plant has food value he will mention it. I think there are three to four books, with titles such as "Medicinal Plants of The Desert Southwest", "Medicinal Plants of The Canyon West", etc. (No this is not the left wing Rush Limbaugh, Michael Moore of documentary fame.) These books fill the gap left by most other publications on American plants, whereas volumes have been written on eastern United States plants little has been written about the western states. You will be amazed by the bounty of useful plants in our area.

[Santa Fe]

I have read that four-wing saltbush is edible and as I remember related to spinach. I have never seen a recipe though. Presumably, you don't need to add salt.

And I have eaten the nopales that you can buy in jars. It does seem to lower my blood sugar.