All of the summaries of the books we have read include (many) links. Links evaporate. I check them when I post the summary and randomly go back in over time to check. If you find a broken link, please let me know via a comment or a direct email. Let me know which link was broken and I will fix it, replace it, or remove it.
In March, we read Gary Paul Nabhan’s Mesquite, an Arboreal Love Affair.
How to describe this book? Petey Mesquitey (a nom de plume) wrote in the Foreword: “So you are about to go on a marvelous mesquite journey filled with stories that will sometimes have you belly laughing, sometimes have you thinking maybe you’re working on your thesis, or maybe even striking a chord that makes you quietly weep …” And that really summarizes this book.
We’ve read books by Gary Paul Nabhan before (June 2020: Gathering the Desert and Jully 2021: Growing Food in a Hotter, Drier Land) and we’ll be reading one of his books this fall (October 2022: Cumin, Camels, and Caravans). This seems like as good place as any to put in the link to his website (again) so you can keep up with his many and varied interests and activities: www.garynabhan.com.
Movement in plants is a perennially fascinating topic for stability-challenged humans. Nabhan referred to the Darwins’ (Charles, assisted by his son Francis) 1880 book, The Power of Movement of Plants. The 592-page book can be downloaded here: https://archive.org/details/powermovementin06darwgoog
While on that page, if you click on his name, you will be directed to another page on the archive.org website with 649 entries for Darwin’s publications. I should probably add that many are copies of the same work made available from different sources. Still, the website in general is quite a treasure trove of old publications.
An audio book version of Darwin’s Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec8zdx_XCAc
This is a 6-hour recording of an approximately 120 page essay.
Finally, while poking around finding these resources, I also found that many of the Darwin books are still available as, you know, real books that you can buy.
I had an idea to show images or video of as many of the 40 some mesquite species in the US as I could find but I couldn’t find so many in time for the discussion. And, honestly, what I did find was pretty boring after a bit… After all, how many trees waving in the wind can you look at… Still. Here’s some information for you. I did try to pick out the more interesting and informative ones and stayed focused on the three native to the southwest, mostly in Arizona.
First, here’s the wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesquite
Then:
Honey Mesquite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk8OIlPJVzo
Velvet Mesquite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi47emImvFw
Screwbean Mesquite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-F7jD44NLg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPbuq5KIsGQ
As the Velevet Mesquite video and the book discuss, mesquites are one of three common nitrogen fixers in the desert landscape. The other two are the
palo verde: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94k11LoYLvo
and ironwood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_wfgoLyN2s
A fair amount of the book dealt with eating mesquite. Or at least, the part we focused on in the discussion was about eating mesquite! This is a video on:
How to harvest mesquite beans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij8xFHgbeBc
There’s the Eat Mesquite and More cookbook, which is now apparently out of print although it seems that it is being reprinted: https://www.desertharvesters.org/Sys/Store/Products/177244
If you look at other parts of their website, you’ll see more of their work with desert foods. I had occasion in Silver City NM to see a hammer mill that is used to grind the pods into flour and it’s really a rather intense process.
There are also a number of Native American focused southwest cookbooks that often include mesquite recipes. Relatively (?) recently, the mesquite has been promoted as a food that helps contol Type II diabetes so mesquite flour does seem to be available, although pricey. A good resource would be: https://www.nativeseeds.org/collections/all-mesquite-products.
One person did track down some mesquite honey here in town at Whole Foods (https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/product/new-mexico-desert-honey-mesquite-raw-12-oz-b07fyc5y9m) and brought a jar to the in-person part of our meeting. Mostly, it tasted like honey. We had all been thinking it might have a stronger flavor. Still, it would be fun to have your own jar.
A more recent use of mesquite has been in the development of mesquite whiskey. No one brought a bottle to the discussion but, in fact, Del Bac Dorado Mesquite Smoked American Whiskey is available from Total Wine, although possibly not in NM. This is a video of the distiller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZmv8m8U24I. Stephen Paul, the distiller, was mentioned in the book for his work with mesquite furniture.
Naban wrote about the Tucson Mesquite festival but all I could find online was this: https://tucsonfoodie.com/2015/06/23/gather-your-mesquite-pods-for-desert-harvesters-milling-wild-foods-fiesta/
One person, who used to live in Tucson said it was generally advertised locally and was a rather loose collection of people involved with mesquite one way or another so she wasn’t surprised there wasn’t a big online presence for it.
Naban wrote of the Phainopepla, which is described here: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Phainopepla/id. This video is of one “in action”: https://vimeo.com/9884982
Naban mentioned the “Great mesquite forest.” I found this article : https://tucson.com/news/local/could-vanished-great-mesquite-forest-return-to-the-santa-cruz-river/article_8be53abe-b36f-515f-8690-dd8e3b8d44ef.html. It has “then” and “now” photographs but, alas, when I went to check the link before putting it in here, it now won’t let me see the article. Perhaps you’ll have better luck.
Two people among the many he mentioned are:
Paul S Martin. Pleistocene ecologist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3atnfKzObaM
and Richard Felger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhnqINMB87U
As the wikipedia article indicated, mesquite is sometimes viewed as an invasive and huge efforts have been made to eradicate it. Nabhan wrote about the Rancho La Immaculada, where bufflegrass had been planted to replace it, to the detriment of the ecology of the ranch. Here is a link to the ranch (in Spanish): https://www.rancholainmaculada.org/
And here’s one link describing bufflegrass and what the problem is: https://www.nps.gov/sagu/learn/nature/buffelgrass.htm
The wood is used in many ways – chips are used for smoking and the wood itself makes truly beautiful furniture.
During the discussion, we watched this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihFQwbhlsEQ
There are many people working with mesquite now as a quick search will show you. One of the people mentioned in the book was Joseph Perino and San Pedro Mesquite Company. I found this article about him: https://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/you-cant-keep-a-good-tree-down/Content?oid=1071263
While the company appears to be in business, I had no luck getting to the website.
In general, Nabhan is a serious, almost academic writer. This book was far more whimsical and did sometimes have me laughing and other times scribbling botanical notes, just as promised in the foreword.