Folkways
by Maya Brown Zniewski
DESERT OFFERINGS
B
y now if you’ve been read-
ing this here column for the
last few years you have a
really good grasp of many of the
available food and healing plants
around you in West Texas. If you
live elsewhere you still will have a
really good idea of the food and
healing plants in West Texas, and
hopefully you will have an urge to
find the food and healing plants
in your area. I thought it was time
for a recap of the easily-identifi-
able and common plants of the
Chihuahuan Desert and their
uses, and how to make basic
herbal preparations on the go
without a great number of tools.
Something you could do while
traveling or camping, easy to
bring with you or to find along
the way.
Mesquite beans, dried and
ground, make a tasty flour from
which you can easily make quick
biscuits or bread. The roots, bark
and leaves were used as anti-fun-
gal, anti-microbial and antiseptic
by indigenous peoples. This
means indigenous peoples used a
powder or a tea for athletes foot
and other fungal problems, and a
tea made from the leaves and
bark was used for pink eye.
Diarrhea and other stomach
complaints had people drinking
the same tea. You can also make
a sweet mesquite syrup when you
boil down the pods in water,
changing the pods several times.
Think of thin molasses.
The pads and tunas of most
cacti are wonderful sources of
water, nutrition, sugars and fiber.
You can *carefully* remove the
spines from nopales (the cactus
pads) and tunas and eat them as
they are, cutting them up and eat-
ing them raw for water or cooking
them over your well-contained
and attended camp fire.
The flower from the barrel-
shaped claret cactus is also edible.
Not all that long ago Claret
Punch was a famous drink. I
G . Mutrel, Public Domain
would add the recipe here, but I
doubt you fancy-camp with
Triple Sec and Sherry wine so it
seems silly. However, the reina de
la noche (peniocereus greggii) cactus
taproot can be sliced, cooked and
eaten. It tastes like a turnip and
was used to treat congestive
coughing and lung problems.
Please don’t go out and test the
turnip-like taste claim. Today
these cacti are endangered. Take
someone else’s word for it.
Chaparral infused oil is not an
FDA approved sun block.
However, the indigenous peoples
of the southwest U.S. and north-
west Mexico used the infused oil
as such. It is entirely simple to
make an infused oil with the
leaves of the Chaparral shrub,
which is also among my favorite
scents. Just fill a jar with the
leaves, cover with a favorite oil
and steep for several days.
There are of course plentiful
and amazing food sources that
our ancestors planted and tended
with great loving care: the fig tree
near the Blas Payne House in
Marathon, the oak trees on the
way out of Alpine on US 90, the
chestnut trees next to Alicia’s and
the pecans in Fort Davis. These
wonderful gifts are available for a
small amount of work and pro-
vide us with food and nutrition,
exercise and meditation.
Now for a recap of the differ-
ent forms of using herbs I have
discussed in the past. An oil infu-
sion of plants means infusing the
plant, leaves, flowers, roots
and/or bark in oil for several
weeks, straining and reserving the
oil and composting the plant left-
overs. You can then use the oil as
it is, or you can make a salve by
adding beeswax or candelilla
wax. Candelilla wax is harvested
from the candelilla plant and is
widely available in West Texas.
A tea is just that. Either infused
over a few hours in the sun or
with boiling water, a tea is per-
haps the first medicine humans
used. Generally people infuse
leaves or flowers in a tea. A
decoction is a tea made stronger,
with more time and boiling water,
generally created with the bark or
roots, nuts or berries of a plant.
A tincture is an excellent way
to preserve the medicinal value of
plants. The folk method is to fill a
jar with flowers, then fill again
with alcohol. The ratio method
using weights and volume is gen-
Cenizo
erally one ounce of flowers to two
ounces of alcohol. For roots, nuts,
and other, harder plant parts use
one part roots and five parts alco-
hol. Let the filled jars set with the
lid on for a minimum of six weeks
and then strain, reserving the liq-
uid. In our modern world tinc-
tures are generally labeled to last
a couple of years, but when was
the last time you knew alcohol to
spoil?
Glycerin tinctures use the same
ratios as alcohol tinctures.
Glycerin is a sweet liquid derived
from palm, soy or coconut, but it
may also be derived from animal
fat. I don’t know where you
would even get animal fat-derived
glycerin.
I hope you all go out and have
some adventures with plants.
Those of us who live in or visit the
Big Bend area are most fortunate.
But everywhere fortune smiles
upon us with nature and her gifts.
Find the plant-dense spots in your
area and have a grand adventure
learning about those plants. With
great love, Maya.
Adopt a pet
from your
local animal
shelter.
Fourth Quarter 2017
19