By Pat Murkland
It’s now been about 28 years since the Malki Museum on Morongo Reservation revived the traditional Cahuilla harvest and roast of the heart of amul (desert agave), a superplant of food and fiber that grows in Cahuilla mountain homelands. The annual agave roast draws a huge crowd, and in April 2023, we were all there again for it.
Serving a crowd at Malki Museum (Pat Murkland photo).
A long line formed to taste an array of delicious Native foods, the original California cuisine. Chefs who complain about their prep work may want to consider amul. A single agave plant can weigh 150 lbs., cause so much sweating and digging to uproot, and then hours and hours more to process and prepare and roast the agave heart. Consider also how tough it is to retrieve the tender buds from the thorny kupash (barrel cactus), for steaming. Or the time and commitment and patience needed to pick, process, shell, leach, sift, grind, and cook weewish (acorn dish).
But the Malki cooks were on it.
The Menu
A huge thank you to the Malki volunteers teaching about and sharing Native plant foods:
Amul (agave) was harvested by Aaron Saubel and roasted by him and Roy Mathews Jr.
The heart of the agave, after roasting, getting carved for consumption. (Pat Murkland photo)
Weewish (acorn), acorns were gathered by Aaron Saubel and processed and cooked by Victoria Chubb and Candeleria Chubb).
Blossom Maciel displayed these acorns in a native plant exhibit, along with a basket woven by her mother, Lorene Sisquoc. (Pat Murkland Photo)
Kupash (barrel cactus) buds also were gathered by Aaron Saubel and prepared by Victoria Chubb and Leah Waters.
Candeleria Chubb prepared nopales (manal in Cahuilla, or beavertail cactus).
Victoria and Katherine Chubb offered a nutritious squash medley with nuts, kale, and prickly pear dressing. Cindy St. John and the “tortilla crew” made flour tortillas. Leah Waters cooked beef stew and baked apple and mesquite muffins. (Honey mesquite is ily in Cahuilla). The prickly pear (navet in Cahuilla) lemonade by Rebecca Waters disappeared quickly. Beef, beans, and even venison (sukat) also were part of the delicious menu, and Jessica Walters’ salsa was perfect.
A feast of Native California foods! (Pat Murkland photo)
A sweet dessert came with the chia candy by Leah Walters. Ingredients were pine nuts, chia, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds, mixed with honey. (Raisins optional.) It’s a yummy balance of fiber, nutrition, and vitamins.
Looking closer at two superstar ingredients:
Pinyon pine nuts have been an important Native American food for hundreds of years and still are today. Although the pine nuts in supermarkets are from a different species, medical experts say pine nuts can help fight diabetes by helping to keep blood sugars at healthy levels.
Chia (in Cahuilla, pasal) seeds pack energy power. Although from a different species than our local chia (Salvia columbariae), the chia seeds in local health-food stores and supermarkets also can be roasted, added to energy drinks, and used as seasonings.
Native Southern Californians also traditionally used chia seeds for medicine, according to Donna Largo, Daniel McCarthy, and Marcia Roper in the book, Medicinal Plants Used by Native American Tribes in Southern California (© 2009, Malki-Ballena Press).
The Cahuilla applied a poultice seed mush to infections. The Cahuilla and Chumash dropped a seed into the eye to remove foreign matter. The Cahuilla also used the seeds “to render water palatable by changing the pH,” according to Medicinal Plants.
Thanks!
Thanks to the Malki Museum for a wonderful event! And thanks to you readers for supporting our nonprofit Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, led by Elder Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano), now in our 20th year of saving and sharing Southern California’s cultures, languages, history, and traditional arts.
As always, thanks from Center leaders Ernest and June Siva and Editor Pat Murkland for reading, liking, subscribing, and sharing News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, your FREE online weekly newsletter. April 12, 2023.