Harvest of the Desert

TO MANY THEY ARE A BIT OF A GIMMICK, THOSE LITTLE JARS OF

CACTUS JELLY, THOSE PINK DOTS

OF CACTUS CANDY. TASTY PERHAPS, A STRAWBERRYLIKE FLAVOR, but a gimmick none the less. Of course, those folks have never seen the excitement in Natalie McGee's blue eyes as she puts a bottle of her prickly pear syrup on the table and says, "This is the real stuff." Few have moved into the desert with Cheryl Romanoski as she checks the ripening fruit of the prickly pear cactus, tests the sugar content. As would a vintner among the vines of Elgin, Arizona, she mulls over what 12 months of Nature have meant to this year's crop.

Later in a small building in Tucson, she works over and around a six-burner stove, baby Alexander on her back, customers on her mind.

"We just got an order yesterday from Japan," she reports. "South Africa is interested," comes the next update.

Meanwhile, up in Phoenix, David Simpson is processing 100,000 pounds of prickly pear fruit to meet the demands of his own customers. "I grew

THE CACTUS COOKERS

up eating this stuff," he says of a product line that began in 1949 and now stretches from jelly to barbecue sauce.

They are the cactus cookers of Arizona, the people who make the fruit of the desert palatable. They are responsible for those thousands of jars and boxes that have been carried home by visitors or sent to family and friends by residents. It is their product lines, found in gift shops, catalogs, health food stores, that give validity to the rumor that folks eat cactus down in Arizona.

Yes, we do. Always did.

From prehistory to the present, the Sonoran Desert has been a smorgasbord for those who choose to partake. There may not be a pool of lifesaving water waiting in the innards of a barrel cactus, but there has always been a punch to be made from the flowers of the ocotillo, wine to be made from the fruit of the saguaro. Buds, seeds, stems of various cacti can be and have been boiled, fried, sliced, dried, and ground — and that's just for the appetizers.

"There are hundreds of edible desert plants, some scientists estimate over 350," states Ruth Greenhouse, exhibits coordinator of the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. She says most visitors to the garden have the preconception that this is a barren land, a desert of sand.

"And they are surprised to learn that these plants have been able to support human life for thousands and thousands of years."

The ancient people of the desert knew that the plants that seemed to work so hard at surviving were, in fact, the key to survival. They could provide not only food but materials for shelter and medicine.

Descendants of the first people on this land still turn to the desert. Every summer the Tohono O'odham go into the great stands of saguaros near Tucson for the ritual harvest of the ruby-lipped fruit. Newer residents of this land go out as well, on trips organized by the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

On museum land they learn how to use the long poles made from saguaro ribs to knock loose the fruit 30 to 40 feet above them on the arms and the crowns of saguaros. Raw, the fruit is sweet and tastes like warm watermelon. It was a natural choice for people who had no access to sugar.

The seeds could also be used, ground into meal and "used in gravies or porridges or bread or other recipes," explains Greenhouse. Syrup made from the fruit could be turned into jam or wine. However, at the museum they estimate that it takes three five-gallon buckets of fruit to make one quart of syrup. That may be after hours of cooking.

"For the amount you get, it's tremendouslyly labor-intensive," says museum docent Lois Jean Baker in classic understatement.

The modern-day harvest of the pads of prickly pear, a plant much closer to the ground than the saguaro, offers its own challenges. There often are long lethal spines to avoid, and tiny hairlike spines, more difficult to see, but providing endless hours of itching once embedded in the skin. Gloves, tongs, and tweezers are standard field gear when around these plants. When McGee picks, she adds knee-high plastic protectors to fend off the strikes of disturbed or disgruntled snakes.

Spines and serpents aside, the prickly pear is a highly accessible cactus. It seems to grow most everywhere. Like many Arizonans, McGee has a yard full of it, backyard, front yard, every yard of her family's massive cattle ranch north of Green Valley. It was a supply waiting for a demand. That came in 1991 when McGee took a batch of jam made with prickly pear down to the local fair. It sold out.

"I think we've got something here," she said and went about the business of making more.

Romanoski's start in the commercial production of cactus foods began in the mid '80s when a neighbor asked why she didn't try to sell the jelly she made from neighborhood plants. Now 10 tons of the fruit are picked for her by a team working 10 to 15 hours a day during the summer weeks when the crop is ready to harvest.

David Simpson is the veteran of the three cookers. In 1973 he took over the business started by Mabel and James J. Cahill, his aunt and uncle. Cahill was a retired Wall Street stockbroker. His wife earned her apron in the laboratories of General Foods.

Coming to Phoenix after World War II to start a business, they visited the same Desert Botanical Garden, which four decades later still introduces new arrivals to the bounty of the land. It was there Mabel Cahill chose their future.

"She decided that maybe they should get into the jelly business," says nephew Simpson.

The kitchen part of the business would seem familiar to anyone who has ever tried a hand at making jellies. At Romanoski's, it is still so down-home, so hands-on, she is often covered from fingertips to elbows with the vivid magenta stain of the cactus fruit.

The fruits are steamed, chopped, and strained, and the resulting juice is frozen until further processed into jellies, syrups, candies. Sugar is an important ingredient in that final step as it has traditionally been with many jellies and jams.

"Three parts sugar, one part prickly pear and lemon juice," is how McGee recalls her

THE CACTUS COOKERS

own family's home creation. She chose a different direction, making her cactus products without sugar, using natural fruit sweeteners instead.

It is not surprising that this type of product would appeal to those on sugar-restricted diets. But McGee was shocked at the reaction of some of those customers.

"Letters kept coming from people noting a decrease in their cholesterol levels," she says. Then there were calls from diabetics claiming a decrease in their dependence on insulin.

"It doesn't happen once in a while," says McGee. "It happens all the time." And Romanoski says she has been getting calls as well.

None of this comes as a surprise to David Eppele, director of Arizona Cactus and Succulent Research, Inc., an educational and desert garden facility south of Bisbee.

"I've known people all of my life who have said that," he proclaims of a possible impact of prickly pear on diabetes.

He points out in his writings and discussions what students and survivors of the Sonoran Desert have known for centuries. The prickly pear, like many other desert plants, has both the potential of a future supermarket and a drugstore.

The Spanish conquerors of Mexico recognized the benefits of prickly pear as a partial cure for the scurvy that plagued their sailors. "Vitamin C was the active ingredient," explains Tom Sheridan, curator of ethno-history at the University of Arizona's Arizona State Museum. According to Sheridan, Spanish ships would stop off t the coast of Baja to pick up a supply of the padshaped plants.

recognized the benefits of prickly pear as a partial cure for the scurvy that plagued their sailors. "Vitamin C was the active ingredient," explains Tom Sheridan, curator of ethno-history at the University of Arizona's Arizona State Museum. According to Sheridan, Spanish ships would stop off t the coast of Baja to pick up a supply of the padshaped plants.

Of course, the native people of Mexico were already familiar with the benefits of the prickly pear. The Aztec leader Montezuma may have been sipping chocolate and eating quail when the Spanish arrived, but there was probably a plate of nopals, the pads of the prickly pear, somewhere in his kitchens.

States Dr. Maria Luz Fernandez, nutrition scientist at the University of Arizona, "Even since the time of the Aztecs, before the Spanish people came to conquer Mexico, they said prickly pear was good for any kind of disease."

The scientific investigation of that broad statement has been going on in Mexico for years. Fernandez is involved in her own study of the effects of diet on cholesterol metabolism, research which includes the use of prickly pear pectin. Pectin is a glutinous substance found in some fruits. Fernandez uses it in powdered form.

"We're seeing a decrease in plasma cholesterol, which is mainly a decrease in low density lipoprotein," states Fernandez. In lay terms: a decrease in the "bad" cholesterol. She also says studies in Mexico have shown some "improvement" with insulindependent diabetics. "What's happening is those people are decreasing their shots."

But why, or how, or even if the prickly pear can make a real medical difference are questions still in the research stage. So are questions concerning the medical and dietary benefits of other desert plants. There may be hope, but there are no clear answers, yet. And the cactus cookers do not presume to theorize at length. "None of us knows what the benefits are," says Romanoski. "It's a food," says McGee moving away from a medical discussion. "I'm selling food."

Down in Bisbee, Eppele is doing some selling as well, selling farmers on the potential of the prickly pear as a crop. Consider the benefits he's pushing for those people who work the land: a crop that may require no water other than what falls from the sky, one that thrives on dust and sun.

Based on his research, he says he can tell farmers, "Hey, you know what, you can row crop prickly pear cactus in Arizona for free." In addition, one animal-friendly variety he's working with comes with the promise of providing 10 tons of feed per acre per year, with no supplemental water necessary. And, he says, that is a conservative figure.

It is all out there, ripe for the pickin'. The jams, the jellies, the candies, the medicines of the future. It is a desert offering us proof that Arizonans two-legged and fourlegged - do have a tendency and the good sense to picnic on their landscape.

WHEN YOU GO

To learn more about the Arizona desert and its native plants, contact or pay a visit to: Arizona Cactus & Succulent Research, Inc. 8 S. Cactus Lane, Bisbee, AZ 85603; (520) 432-7040.

Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum 2021 N. Kinney Road, Tucson, AZ 85743; (520) 883-2702.

Desert Botanical Garden 1201 N. Galvin Parkway, Phoenix, AZ 85008; (602) 941-1225.

Producers of Arizona cactus food products include: Arizona Cactus Ranch P.O. Box 8, Green Valley, AZ 85622; (520) 625-4419, (800) 582-9903.

Cheri's Desert Harvest 1840 E. Winsett St., Tucson, AZ 85719; (520) 623-4141, (800) 743-1141.

Sunrise Desert Foods 490 E. Pima St., Phoenix, AZ 85004; (602) 254-4624.