Autumn is Harvest Time,
Thankful for the
Bounty
Juana
shakes the oak tree with her sisters until acorns drop from the branches. In
this way, the Tongva Women harvest acorns together. It is Autumn, and the
acorns are plentiful. Once collected, the acorns are laid out in the sun to
dry. Later Juana and her sisters will store them in a large grain basket,
taking care to place it on a platform raised above the earth and out of reach
of rodents.
When
Juana prepares acorns for eating, she cracks them out of their shells and peels
the kernels out of their paper-like skin. Using a stone mortar, she grinds them
to flour. The next and very important step is to leach out the bitter tasting tannins by pouring water over them in a leaching basin made of
layers of fine and coarse sand. She knows this could take most the morning, but
it is very important to be done completely, and so she is patient. When done,
the bitter taste will have been removed from the flour. The Tongva Women can
then prepare the acorns as a mush, soup or “bread.”
Acorns
have been a staple of Native Californians’ diet for 4,000 years or more.
They were the most important plant food for many tribes, as they are very nutritious.
In this case, Juana and her Tongva sisters would have been collecting
acorns from the Coast
Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia) in Topanga Canyon Santa Monica Mtns, where the Tongva people
lived. (Their territory abutted that of the Chumash
tribe of Malibu. Tongva were also known as Gabrieleños.) Besides the
Coast Live Oak, the acorns from many other oak tree species, such as Black
Oak and Valley Oak, can be harvested.
Besides making flour from
acorns, Native Californians would also make flour from the pit of the Hollyleaf
Cherry fruit. After removing the
pit’s poisonous outer layer, the kernels were crushed and then leached, like
the acorns, before being turned into flour meal. Though the flesh of the
fruit can also be eaten straight off the tree, or fermented into an
intoxicating drink, the Native Californians’ main use for the Hollyleaf Cherry
was making flour.
When
it came to foraging for wild edible plants, the Native Californian people knew
what to eat and what not to eat. They had extensive knowledge about the
resources that were available in the land in which they lived, and they passed
this knowledge down to their children. They were also aware of medicinal values
of the plants around them. Most of this information has been lost to us, which
makes it difficult to know what is safe to pick or eat of the wild bounty that
grows around us.
The
Prickly Pear Cactus (Opuntia littoralis) would have provided sustenance to
the Tongva people of the Santa Monica Mtns. Meaty and nutritious,
Juana and her sisters would have harvested the fleshy pads called “nopales” of Prickly
Pear Cactus. The fruit that forms at the very ends of the pads
is called “Tuna.” When ripe (deep red color), they make a delicious jelly or a
sweet raw dessert.
One
of the nice things about Prickly Pear is that you can harvest both the pads and
the fruit without destroying the plant. That way there is always more Prickly
Pear for tomorrow! You can gently pull the fruit (Tuna) off. Pads can be
removed by snapping a pad at the joint. It is wise to pick young tender pads,
but not the youngest, as they have more spines. But what about those spines?
Native Californians mastered a good system for removing them, and you could,
too. Some people recommend wearing heavy work gloves. But my trick works
better: use a paper bag. Seriously! Put a paper bag on your hand like a glove
when touching prickly pear and the spines cannot get to you! Next, to prepare
for cooking, you can remove the spines by scraping with a knife.
Pads
of Nopales are high in iron, beta carotene, vitamin C, and calcium. The deep
red color of the fruit (tuna) means it is high in antioxidants. Nopales and
Tuna would have been a very nutritious choice for the Tongva people, as it is
for us. Today, Prickly Pear Cactus has many uses: raw cut up in salads,
sautéed, breaded and then fried, boiled, tossed in soup, or pickled. I
myself have harvested Prickly Pear often from my chaparral garden, and especially
enjoy making Nopales Tacos, a completely meatless dish.
Lamb’s Quarters (Chenopodium californiacum or album) are one of the
best-known wild edible greens, with a taste like spinach. Archeological
evidence suggests it has been foraged for some 9000 years and cultivated for
4000 years. Before the Europeans came, this was another one of the many plants
that would have sustained the indigenous peoples of California. Lamb’s
Quarters are high in protein, iron and vitamins A & C. The wild plant makes
prolific seeds, which can also be ground into a dark flour for making bread,
“mush” or tortillas.
Long
before the arrival of Europeans, Native Americans lived well off California’s
edible flora, which was bountiful. They lived in a balanced way, maintaining
the land. Edible landscapes were everywhere!
Autumn
is harvest time, and at Thanksgiving we are thankful for the bounty of food on
our table. But, I also want to take a moment to be thankful for the bounty of
knowledge about edible native plants left to us by the Native Americans who
came before us. In California edible native plants still thrive in wild places.
Nature gave them to us, free for the taking. Each of us can add edible native
plants to our native plant gardens, and enjoy the Autumn harvest season,
sharing our bounty with our wildlife friends.
~Check
the local native
nurseries in your area and see what
they have for your edible native garden~
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