# Survival > Foraging & Wild Edibles >  Some stuff I found in an urban area

## grrlscout

I work in downtown Phoenix, and have started doing my Summertime foraging recon. I found lots of good things around, none of which is ready to eat yet. Including:

Pomegranates
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Figs
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Olives
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Mesquite beans
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Pecans
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Grapes
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Barrel cactus fruit
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Jojoba nuts
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Looks like it's going to be a good year!  :Smile:

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## Justin Case

Just dont get caught in those peoples gardens in down town Phoenix  :Innocent:

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## grrlscout

Haha! These are all legally and publicly accessible plants. 

There would be a lot more, if I could wander into a yard or two.

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## pete lynch

I did not know you could eat mesquite beans. 
Do you eat them like a veggie or a nut?

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## grrlscout

> I did not know you could eat mesquite beans. 
> Do you eat them like a veggie or a nut?


You harvest them when they start to dry out. Then store them until completely dry. Then they are ready to be milled, pod and all, into a high-protein, gluten-free flour.

The seeds are incredibly hard, and require a hammermill. Luckily a hammermill comes to town a few times during the Summer and Fall, and will mill mesquite pods for a small fee. Though I do have an internet friend who said he used a coffee grinder to successfully mill his beans. 

Then you can use the flour for porridge or baking. Of course my favorite formats are cookies and pancakes (with prickly pear syrup)

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Because it's gluten-free, it has to be combined with wheat flour for most baking. 

I have also seen recipes for mesquite bean wine and jelly. But have no personal experience with either.

I missed out on the harvest last year. But got some flour in a trade. This year, I hope to gather my own for the first time.

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## grrlscout

I just searched that database that Rick posted:

http://www.wilderness-survival.net/f...d.php?p=226997

And found that the immature pods can be eaten raw, or cooked like green beans.

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## crashdive123

Pretty nice finds.  Have you looked at the foraging data base yet.  http://www.wildcrafting.net/  I'll bet some of those plants aren't listed.  If you want to, you can add the plants and pictures to the database.  You can even plot their locations for future reference.

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## grrlscout

A while back, I added olives, pomegranates, and jojoba nuts. 

The figs are actually on somewhat questionable land. So I've been reluctant to add them. At least two of the four nearby trees are certainly OK to pick from, the other two, I'm not entirely sure.

I will definitely add the mesquite, as soon as I figure out which trees have the best beans. The things are on every block around here. But most are Chilean or Argentine / non-native, which have less tasty beans and are super tall (= inaccessible).

LOL - I'm picky. 

I just realized I punned.

Picky! Get it?!

Oh and I need to add pecans. Definitely.

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## oldtrap59

the better half was looking over my shoulder as I was reading this thread and wanted me to ask if the cookies were a standard recipe with bean flour subtituted for regular flour? ( she's a baker and thinks of these kind of things) My question would be .How do they taste? I have used mesquite for smoking meat and you always get that interesting taste. Guess what I'm asking is do you get the mesquite taste from the beans? If you do it would make for a mighty tasty cookie or pancake.As you can probably tell the wife does the baking and I do the eating.:>)

oldtrap

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## grrlscout

Oh yeah I forgot to tell you about that part!

Mesquite beans have a naturally sweet and somewhat spicy flavor - a bit like cinnamon. So it's usually used in sweet dishes. 

This is the recipe I used for the cookies:
http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archive...olate_chi.html

Since there is no gluten in mesquite flour, it can only be subbed in for wheat flour up to 50%. The result will be a little more delicate and crumbly, and as in the case of pancakes, they can burn a lot more easily if you aren't careful.

The exception to the rule being something like a meringue or the like, where you would have used almond or another nut flour. 

More mesquite recipes, and other info on harvesting and processing it, here:
http://www.desertharvesters.org/mesq...tchen/recipes/

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## Rick

Great post and great info. You have some interesting wild edibles for sure!!!

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## pete lynch

Thanks for that great bunch of info, grrlscout!
When I last visited my brother who lives in Texas, he never mentioned the uses of the mesquite tree other than fuel for the grill and smoker.
I learn something new on this site every time I visit.  :Smile:

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## your_comforting_company

Excellent job of getting out there and finding resources in your area. Should something atrocious happen, you are already that far ahead of the game. I have been doing "recon" for months now, exploring new land and finding increasingly more and valuable resources.
Gave you some rep for your diligence and excellent pics. 

I find that a lot of people are TOO picky. I don't have to have the best of anything, just good enough to get me through the day. Some folks won't eat a bruised apple, but to me they taste just the same. Go figure.
In a true Life/Death situation, I feel that you will lower the bar on being "picky".

Excellent job nonetheless. Welcome to the world around you!!
(I wonder how many people have driven or walked by the same resources you have taken pictures of here, and never given them a passing glance, or second thought)

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## grrlscout

> Thanks for that great bunch of info, grrlscout!
> When I last visited my brother who lives in Texas, he never mentioned the uses of the mesquite tree other than fuel for the grill and smoker.
> I learn something new on this site every time I visit.


Funny thing about mesquite and other desert edibles. I'm currently reading "Coming Home to Eat" by Gary Paul Nabhan. It's about food politics, and also the author's quest to eat within a 200 mile radius of his Tucson home for one year.

He suggests that local foods, such as mesquite beans and amaranth fell out of favor when Easterners started moving out West. Ranchers and other more "civilized" folk didn't want to eat what the cattle and natives ate because it made you look poor or low-class. Eating wheat flour, and other cultivated food was a status symbol.

Just my $.02, but I think that sort of thinking has always been the case. More refined and cultivated foods = more money. Only poor people ate gritty, whole grain pasta and bread, foraged vegetables, wild game, and the like.

Today, it's almost like it's reversing. Whole grains, game meats, and other more rustic foods are becoming trendy and pricey, and super-refined and processed stuff (white bread, processed cheese product, hot dogs, etc.) is the food of the poor.

Forgive me, I digress.  :Blushing:

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## grrlscout

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> I find that a lot of people are TOO picky. I don't have to have the best of anything, just good enough to get me through the day. Some folks won't eat a bruised apple, but to me they taste just the same. Go figure.
> In a true Life/Death situation, I feel that you will lower the bar on being "picky".


True, I can afford to be picky now, and I do like to eat *well* not just to survive. Things are good right now, and I'm thankful. This is just hobby stuff.

When it comes to foraging to survive, my standards can get pretty darn low. 

I haven't quite gotten to the point of trying bugs yet.  :Tongue Smilie:  But if I had to, I guess I could. 




> (I wonder how many people have driven or walked by the same resources you have taken pictures of here, and never given them a passing glance, or second thought)


Totally. It kills me to see all the homeless who hang around in the park where most of those things are located. Most are begging for a dollar for a McDonald's hamburger, when there is a wealth of good food for free, all around.

That's why I never take very much, in case there are some on the streets who do know what's around.

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## grrlscout

Looks like the mesquite beans are just about ready! I found these guys at the library:

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Gonna look for some more near work in about an hour.

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## your_comforting_company

be sure to take pics of them on your plate!! I think I found a honey mesquite tree in a man's yard on the way to the creek the other day. No beans on it yet and everyone in the county knows each other, so it shouldn't be a problem to ask the fella if he's gonna use them. He also has a date-palm tree that I aim to harvest some fruit from in the fall.

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## grrlscout

I stopped by the park about 3x last week, and filled a cat litter bucket of mesquite beans each time. I'm gonna try and fill a few more before the monsoons hit (the winds knock them all off the trees).

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Then, I'll give them a quick rinse, pick off all the stems, and let them dry out until October 31st -- when the hammermill comes to town.

Also, the figs are ready!

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I've got about 3-4 lbs now. I foresee lots of fig jam in my future! I might try my hand at some fancy variety, like fig-balsamic-black pepper or something.

My workplace is utterly surrounded with date palms -- really good varieties too. Sadly, they are all 30+ feet high! No way to get to them without a cherry picker. So all Fall, it rains dried out, rotten old dates.  :Frown:

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## grrlscout

Olives are ready!

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And soon, Washingtonia Palm berries:

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The problem is getting to them.

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## Rick

I thought olive trees were ... well ... little trees but with a gnarly trunk. That thing looks like a coconut tree. I've never see one that looked like that. Then again, we don't have too many in Indiana to compare it with.

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## LowKey

The palm tree is something not related to the olive picture. Whatever a Washington Palm Berry is.  :Smile: 

grrlscout, what do you do with the green olives? All the processing I've seen for them require nastiness like lye to keep them.

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## grrlscout

> I thought olive trees were ... well ... little trees but with a gnarly trunk. That thing looks like a coconut tree. I've never see one that looked like that. Then again, we don't have too many in Indiana to compare it with.


Hehe yeah, two separate items. Here are the olive trees I harvested from:

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## grrlscout

> The palm tree is something not related to the olive picture. Whatever a Washington Palm Berry is. 
> 
> grrlscout, what do you do with the green olives? All the processing I've seen for them require nastiness like lye to keep them.


I brine them. Just salt and patience needed.

I slit them all, and put them in a jar of brine -- I'd have to look up the exact ratio. Let them sit, and periodically change the brine. It leaches out all the bitterness. They'll be ready in about 6 months.

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## Rick

Okay. Now I'm with you. 

If you folks will follow me the rest of the tour will be about high desert cactus. Not many folks know that Indiana is ripe with cactus. Trust me, not many folks know that. Right this way. Watch your step.

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## grrlscout

Pecans are ready!

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I grabbed some grape leaves for my pickles as well.

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## your_comforting_company

This may or may not be of interest to you grrl, but those green husks can be boiled, and the water used to tan skins. I'm collecting enough now to try on a piece of cow I got a few months ago, but the drought and plague of squirrels is making it hard to find suitable husks.
There's a food with multiple uses!

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## grrlscout

I did not know that! Very cool.

Do they stain, like walnut husks do? I know folks who use walnut husks to make yarn and hair dyes.

If I thought I could get away with pulling the husks off the trees before security came after me, I would totally send them to you.

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## grrlscout

Springtime brings new targets:

Cholla buds

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Creosote bush (sorry for the fuzzy photo!) Not edible, but medicinal
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Chamomile - not really an edible, but it makes a fine tea
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And yucca blossoms
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## your_comforting_company

I pick the flower petals off the yucca blooms and eat them straight away. They are supposed to be really good battered and fried, but I haven't tried them cooked, yet. The fruits taste a little like the soap grandma washed my mouth out with. Aquired taste I guess, but the petals are good if a wee bit bitter. Useful as a cordage plant, and the root makes a fair soap. Save that flower stalk once it dies and has weathered so that it will snap off easily. One of my favorite friction fire materials.

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## grrlscout

I like the yucca petals in an omelet or sauteed with some greens and shrooms:

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I think the flavor depends on the variety of yucca you harvest from, and there are so many kinds! I bet it's the soap tree yucca that's icky tasting. 

The ones I pic from have a flavor like the tender inner leaves of an artichoke. I think it's probably yucca filamentosa (Spoonleaf yucca, Filament yucca, or Adam's Needle) or Yucca schidigera (Mojave).

As for the fruits, I've been on the hunt for Yucca Baccata, because supposedly, when roasted, it's fruits are sweet like bananas. I have yet to find one, however.

As for the cholla buds, I dug up some more info. Here's how the indians used to harvest and process them:

http://azmemory.lib.az.us/cdm4/docum...OPTR=156&REC=7

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## grrlscout

Put the olives in their final brine last night:

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## your_comforting_company

mmmmmm. Loving this thread. How many brine changes does it take in all? I understand that olives are toxic when fresh and they must be boiled, is that true? (maybe I missed it earlier in the post, sorry).

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## grrlscout

I think I only did 3 this time. I went with the fermentation method. Instructions on that are in the Fermentation thread, in the cooking folder.

I don't think they are toxic, untreated, they just taste awful -- extremely bitter.  :Stick Out Tongue:

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## your_comforting_company

I did a little research.
It seems that to make them taste good, we have to take out the stuff that makes them good for you! LOL!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleuropein

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## Rick

As a side question. Have the lemon skins turned green? I canned some oranges, lemons and limes two years ago and the skins on the lemons turned almost an olive drab color. They were still quite good they just changed color.

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## grrlscout

New find! Natal plums:

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carissa

Not sure which variety it is. I think Macrocarpa. They are not native to the area. But they are very heat tolerant, so they are often used as a landscaping plant.

Haven't worked up the nerve to taste it yet though.  :Frown: 

Rick - last I checked, they were still yellow.  :Smile:

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## your_comforting_company

The flower looks very different from the "normal" plums we have around here. Interested to know how it tastes.

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## grrlscout

I don't think botanically it is a plum. They just call it that because the fruit kind of looks like one. According to Wiki, the carissas are part of the dogbane (Apocynaceae) family.

I have yet to taste it. Maybe tonight.

Supposedly, they taste a bit like cranberry or rhubarb.

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## Canadian-guerilla

i think your " mesquite beans " picture may be one of my unknowns
i'll have to check it out

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## your_comforting_company

rain is on it's way into our area, Thank Goodness!, so I'll be firing up the torch on the tunas in a little while.

I have a question regarding the jars for your olives. The Ball book says not to use the hinged jars with rubber gaskets, and not to reuse jars from other goods as the sealing compound is "only good once". Have you had any "reused" jars to fail? Not that I'm going to jump in headfirst recycling old pickle jars, but I am curious if I could use a few of them for something rather than just throw them away.

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## Rick

YCC - It's not the jars but the sealant on the lid. I don't even recycle ball lids. I keep the rings of course but I use new lids every time. If you know a jar doesn't seal it's not a big deal because you can put it in the fridge and use it. The problem comes when the seal appears to seal but leaks over time. Then you wind up with bad food and the risk is just not worth it to me. 

If you want to cold can something and keep it in the fridge for use liked salted oranges or limes you'd probably be okay with that.

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## crashdive123

+1 on what Rick said.  For canning - new lids every time.  For dry storage I re-use the lids, but I'm not concerned (like with canning) on getting that perfect seal.

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## your_comforting_company

rice, grits, and the like would probably be okay in them then. Would heat sealing them improve storage time on dry goods?
Thanks guys. Good info.

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## grrlscout

Since the olives are fermented, I did not can them. I just closed the lids.

The old method is to keep the good bacteria in place, and under control - using salt, acid, oil, sugar. The new method (canning) is to kill all of the bacteria, and then seal the environment so that it cannot grow again.

If you are canning, I am with everyone else. Don't re-use lids.

I do reuse them when I store dry goods, or make things like refrigerator pickles, where a permanent, long-term seal is not needed.

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## grrlscout

> i think your " mesquite beans " picture may be one of my unknowns
> i'll have to check it out



Good luck! Here it is high season. They are turning brown and starting to drop off the trees.

I was excited to find that our new house has mesquite trees.  :Smile: 

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Then I was bummed when I found that they are non-native South American mesquites. Edible, but not near as tasty as they honeys or velvets.

Too bad, because they are making a helluva mess.  :Cursing:

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## your_comforting_company

Would it be possible to get a close up of the trees details? I was given a tree that looks very similar to those, but the lady swears it isn't a mesquite. I brought it home for the thorns on it. I have a whole new appreciation for thorny things with all my "primitive tools" stuff.

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## crashdive123

Ohhhhhhhh.  You said thorny.

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## grrlscout

Sorry I missed your post earlier, YCC. Here are some pics I found on the web.

This is a velvet mesquite, with unripe pods:

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When they're in bloom, they look like this:

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There are also screwbean mesquites, honey mesquites, and the south american varieties.

Some have thorns, some don't. If it's really thorny, an has shorter, more rounded leaves, you might have a cat's claw acacia. Their catkins look more like puffballs.

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## Adventure Wolf

This is actually a really good thread. I learned a couple things. I should make one for North Carolina when the proper season comes.

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## grrlscout

I've been meaning to update this, as I finally managed to grab some of those palm berries.

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They are from a fan palm - Washingtonia Robusta or Filifera, not sure which. The berries are about 90% seed -- one big pit -- with a sticky, sweet coating. So not much good for eating. Instead, I simmered them in just enough water to cover, and strained out the seeds. From this bunch, plus another of equal size, I got 6 cups of juice.

I simmered that down to about 5, with lime juice, peppercorns, cardamom, rosewater, and cinnamon (I was going for a Middle Eastern type flavor, since the flavor was a bit like a date), added a packet of liquid pectin, and made this freaky black jelly.

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## grrlscout

As luck would have it, the date tree trimmers were just here, and the rats and pigeons have not arrived yet.

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I should have brought a venti.

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