Harvesting and Using Mesquite Pods

The mesquite tree is found commonly found in the southwest and here in Arizona the tree is known as “sacred”. If you have mesquite wood to use, the conventional wisdom is to only burn it for cooking food.

The ancient people that lived in the Sonoran desert known as the Hohokam people used this tree for cooking fuel, building, shade and food in 1500 BC and it is still used today. If you have mesquite trees, in late August you will start to find the trees are producing seed pods that dangle from the edges of branches. I use a 5 gallon bucket to collect my pods. You can harvest the pods to grind into flour. This flour is wonderful for any kind of baked goods.

In Tucson, every November there is an annual grinding event held by the Desert Harvesters group. From their pages:

Because mesquite pods have the shape and size of a green bean they are often called mesquite “beans,” which has caused some misunderstanding of how the fruit is used.

Not all of the mesquite pod is edible – a great deal of it is indigestible fiber. The most accessible edible portion of the pod is the pulp or pith between the brittle outside and the hard seeds. Ordinary bean pods do not have this pith. This portion has a very sweet, brown-sugary flavor and can be ground into a meal for use in baking . The pith surrounds a number of stone-hard seeds, inside of which are found the protein-rich embryos or true seeds.

It is almost impossible to crack the hard seed coats with home methods; however, in the past, Indians who lived in the desolate Pinacate Mountains on the Mexican-American border devised a stone implement, given the name “gyratory crusher” by its discoverer, archaeologist Julian Haydn. It looks like a grinding stone with a hole through it and for years investigators thought the artifacts they found were just worn-out grinding stones, or metates. But Hayden surmised the hole had a purpose. As it turns out, when a heavy wooden pestle is manipulated in these stones, the mesquite seeds can be cracked, an ingenious bit of technology invented by protein-hungry people.

A modern-day equivalent of the gyratory crusher is a fairly common piece of farm and milling equipment called a hammermill. A hammermill can crush and grind both the pith and the seeds of mesquite pods and sift out most of the debris automatically. People who can beg or talk their way into the use of one of these machines can provide themselves with great quantities of high-protein mesquite meal with little effort.
source: www.desertharvesters.org/hammermill

In the photos you can see what they look like. It takes many to fill a 5 gallon bucket but if you start in August or September, by the November grinding you should have plenty. Enjoy your mesquite flour with the following recipe.

Mesquite waffles

1 cup cake flour

3/4 cup mesquite flour
1 TBL baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 beaten egg yolks
1 1/4 cup oil
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 stiff beaten egg whites

Sift together dry ingredients. Combine egg yolk, milk and oil. Stir into dry ingredients. Fold in egg whites leaving some fluffs. Don’t over mix. Makes about 8 waffles.


People also view

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *