Mesquite beans again
Robert O. Dahl
Mesquite trees can provide flavorful surprise
© By Raina Wagner
The Arizona Daily Star
We Tucsonans sure got a bum deal when it comes to raking.
We've got a whole crop of trees that drop leaves all
over the yard come fall. Of course we rake them up, and
the darn yellowish-brown leaves don't even look pretty
before they float to the ground.
And to make things worse, our raking duties don't hold
off till autumn. They start with the first monsoon
storm, when wind, rain and hail knock approximately 13,562
yellow
beans from the mesquite trees in your front yard.
It's a harvest that keeps on giving.
``This year is a little weird because a lot of the native
(mesquite) trees are just getting started,'' said Carolyn
Smith, a senior staffer at Mesquite Valley Growers, 8005
E. Speedway. She said people should expect the
pink-streaked pods to continue ripening and falling through
September.
No one knows of a way to get the trees to stop producing
the beans - though the crop can be lessened (more on that
later). But actually using that pile of seed pods in
post-raking can be delicious, healthy, good for the
environment and a lesson in native living.
``They have been used for a long time as a sweet treat,''
said Mary Sarvak, volunteer coordinator and retail
employee at Native Seeds/SEARCH, a non-profit
organization that promotes the use of native foods.
``Long time'' in this case means long time. ``Mesquite was
probably a food staple for 40,000 years or so,'' said Carlos
Nagel, who has been promoting mesquite beans as a food
source through his non-profit organization, Friends of
PRONATURA, for 20 years.
``So it's well tested.''
The easiest way to sample the flavor of a mesquite pod is
to taste it - straight from the tree if you want. You may
feel a bit hay-seedy with a long bean hanging from your lips,
but, trust us, mesquite-seedy is way cooler.
Sarvak has some advice, though. ``You want to eat them
when they're just starting to get ripe, and aren't too hard
yet,'' Sarvak said of the pods. ``Otherwise, you're looking to
knock a tooth out.''
Raw mesquite seeds are as hard as ball bearings, so when
you eat a pod, you're actually sampling everything but the
row of white seeds inside. The pod is very fibrous, so there's
likely to be some spitting involved as well.
It's worth the unrefined behavior. The sweet insides of the
pod are laced with a juicy pulp that can be refreshing on a
hot day and is bound to surprise the uninitiated taster.
According to Nagel, mesquite is good for you, too. Nagel, a
local consultant, also works with PROMEZ, the for-profit
company that benefits PRONATURA by selling
mesquite-bean products. The PROMEZ recipe book explains
that mesquite is high in calcium, magnesium, potassium,
iron and zinc. Also, the hard seed - which can be ground - is
40 percent protein.
Ground into meal, mesquite is a healthy, natural
sweetener. It can be used as a condiment - a topping for
cereal or ice cream - or as flour in a dozen recipes.
Making the flour can be a bit of a chore, though.
``I know quite a few people - including myself - who have
burned out a blender trying to grind up mesquite pods,''
Nagel said.
If you don't have an industrial-strength grinder, find
yourself a metate - Mexican grindstone - and pulverize your
beans the old-fashioned way.
Sarvak said your blender might survive if you do just a few
beans at a time, but for recipes that call for as much as
half a cup of mesquite meal, the blending could take a while.
Nagel, naturally, recommended his company's product.
PROMEZ's mesquite meal sells in 6-ounce packages for
about $8 around town at desert- and nature-themed
places such as Tucson Botanical Gardens, Native
Seeds/SEARCH, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum,
Native & Nature and the Food Conspiracy Co-op.
A little mesquite meal goes a long way. Since it doesn't
have a lot of gluten, as does the flour of wheat, mesquite
flour doesn't rise as well, so it can't really be used as the
sole flour in bread recipes. The book ``Fruits of the Desert''
by Sandal English recommends 1/4 cup of mesquite flour
for every 3/4 cup of regular flour.
Even Nagel admitted that local folks would be silly to buy
another PROMEZ product, whole mesquite beans. You can
use the whole pods in a flavorful - and easy - manner by
simply throwing them on your barbecue grill.
``They are good flavoring for charcoal grills,'' said Nagel,
adding that the beans should be soaked in water for a few
minutes so they smoke when they're thrown on the fire.
``The pods are a far more replaceable resource than
mesquite wood,'' he said.
And the smoky, mesquite-grilled flavor that you love on
chicken and steaks comes through just as tastily when
using a handful of beans, as this reporter's home trial
proved.
Some folks would have to grill enough for the neighborhood
every night for the rest of the summer to use up nature's
mesquite bounty. If you like the idea of having beans, but
just not so many, then Smith, from Mesquite Valley
Growers, has a tip for you:
When your mesquite trees are flowering during the spring,
take your hose and blast off the flowers. ``You'll get less
beans, not none,'' Smith said.
And to answer your next question: ``No, there are no
mesquites that are beanless.''
Four or five varieties of mesquites grow throughout Tucson,
with the native velvet mesquite the most common. Smith
thinks the thornless South American hybrid mesquite -
similar to a Chilean - produces the fewest beans.
The most unusual-looking beans come from the screw bean
mesquite, with beans in the image of a corkscrew. Smith
said when the beans are dried, they look nice in flower
arrangements.
Yet another use. Now you're down to just 13,420 beans to
rake away.
--
Robert O. Dahl
Interpretive Planning and Design
http://www.azstarnet.com/~ottar
phx...@pop.phnx.uswest.net
the desert....
Misty Fide
says...
>
>
> Mesquite trees can provide flavorful surprise
Article forgot to mention the most important aspect
of eating mesquite beans -- no flatulence...
Actually, I heard somewhere they've developed a
flatulent-free variety of Pinto bean. Now THERE is
good news... Misty Fide.
ML
Misty Fide wrote:
> In article <ottar-15089...@dialup20ip062.tus.azstarnet.com>, ot...@azstarnet.com
> says...
> >
> >
> > Mesquite trees can provide flavorful surprise
>
> Article forgot to mention the most important aspect
> of eating mesquite beans -- no flatulence...
>
> Actually, I heard somewhere they've developed a
> flatulent-free variety of Pinto bean. Now THERE is
> good news... Misty Fide.
Yes but mesquite beans can really stop a person up. Same thing with cows. They must have a
goodly bunch of grass to eat so they don't get stopped up by the beans. It's been so dry and
hot here this summer we don't have a crop of mesquite beans. Mike
>
>
>