UNESCO’s first City of Gastronomy in the U.S. relies on its built-in biodiversity and a wide network of food justice…
Tucson is one of the top cities in the United States conserving and disseminating edible biodiversity and local heritage foods,…
Now, being an ethnobotanist Is not all that different From being a musician, Ballerina or chef: You’ve got to…
After enduring a bouncy drive up a rough road heading into the Tumacacori Mountains last Tuesday morning, the group of…
Esperanza Arevalo wakes up at 3 a.m. every day to make tortillas. She sometimes receives help from her husband and sister-in-law, but for the most part, she’s a one-woman show.
Tortilleria Arevalo started with Esperanza’s father, Javier Arevalo, shortly after 9/11. At the time, Esperanza had just been laid off from her job, so she began helping her father. Years later, when Javier was diagnosed with cancer, Esperanza stepped up and took over the business.
In front of the Joel D. Valdez Main Library in Tucson, patrons can claim round concrete landscaping beds for free and create their own gardens with seeds from the library’s seed collection. Some of the three-foot-wide planters are festooned with exuberant jungles of squash, flowers and trellised bean plants, while others look more Zen garden than vegetable garden.
When UNESCO named Tucson, Arizona a World City of Gastronomy in Dec. 2015, the first U.S. city so named, it…
Tacos, tostadas, burritos, sopes, menudos, cazuelas, enchiladas, licuados—the typical foods of modern Mexico that are familiar in the borderlands—are but one set of spinoffs of an ancient Mesoamerican diet.
Since the mid-20th century, two kinds of Mexican diet have been diverging from one another. One is deeply traditional—think tamales, atoles, pinoles, moles, tepaches, caldos, and nopalitos—while the other is industrially processed and globalized, high in saturated fats, fiber-free flours, and sugars, and low in protein.
Let us now praise famous mezcaleros! It was 75 years ago that my mentor, the great plant explorer Howard Scott…
Did you know that extensive prehistoric landscapes of mescal fields underlie much of the Tucson Basin? Archaeologists Suzanne and Paul Fish…