The Agave Heritage Festival’s Sweet Return

agaves at library

Agave has been cultivated in the Tucson area for hundreds of years.

agave at Mission Garden in Tucson

While tequila might be the most widely known product made from agave (a.k.a. the century plant or maguey), it’s certainly not the only one! Different species of the plant are distilled into different spirits, collectively called mezcal.

mezcal noche buena

Native peoples would also use agave to make food, medicine, and even rope. They developed farming techniques to maximize the plant’s adaptability and drought-resistant qualities, so they could grow it where other crops wouldn’t thrive.

 

Mural of Mayahuel, the agave goddess, by Rock ‘‘CYFI’’ Martinez
Mural of Mayahuel, the agave goddess, by Rock ‘‘CYFI’’ Martinez.

Agave Heritage Festival

The annual Agave Heritage Festival in Tucson celebrates the plant’s natural and cultural significance. It includes special agave-centered menus at local restaurants, gardening demonstrations, concerts, lectures, mezcal tasting events, hikes to ancient agave roasting pit sites, and a re-creation of the traditional way agave hearts were cooked underground.

steps of roasting agave at Mission Garden

After the spring 2020 festival was canceled and last year’s was replaced by a monthly series of virtual talks and DIY tastings, the Agave Heritage Festival made a joyful return this past May!

hiking around Tumamoc Hill

It has come back as a more compact, focused four days of events – in contrast to the week (or more) it stretched out pre-pandemic.

Following right on its heels was the first annual Pueblos del Maíz Fiesta. The kickoff event for both festivals was a concert by multiple Grammy Award winning Mexican-American singer and activist Lila Downs.

 

pathway through Mission Garden in Tucson

Agave Expo

One of this year’s events was the Agave Expo, which included panels, vendors, tables for organizations doing conservation work in Southern Arizona, and a plant sale. It was held on a beautiful morning in Mission Garden, a collection of demonstration gardens where a 17th-century Spanish mission once stood.

 

flowering agave stalk

Feed the Bats

I arrived right before the first talk of the day, parking next to a woman who was already loading assorted agave purchases into her car. 

Agave and bats talk at mission garden

“Pollination Nations” was a discussion about agave, bats, and ecology on both sides of the border.

Nectar-eating bats cross-pollinate agaves’ nighttime blooms, creating the genetic diversity essential for the plants’ long-term survival. However, agave planted for human consumption is prevented from blooming. Recent large-scale agricultural methods have lead to hungry bats and a monoculture crop that’s susceptible to disease.

Agave

The Bat Friendly project promotes more sustainable practices, encouraging growers to let 5% of the agaves they plant to live out their natural bloom cycle and allow bat pollination. Following their guidelines earns mezcal producers a special Bat Friendly™ label, as well as helping to ensure the continuation of their industry.

Agave plant at Boyce Thompson Arboretum

The panel discussing these topics was made up of experts from Bat Conservation International, Borderlands Restoration Network, and Sonora Silvestre, as well as mezcal-makers from Bacanora Batuq and Mezcal Zincantan. It was moderated by Jesús García, Research Associate at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and Co-Chair of the non-profit Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace (FOTB).

(Incidentally, Moderator Jesús had returned from a trip to Mexico just in time for the Lila Downs kickoff concert and gave it rave reviews!)

 

Agave parts

On the Table

Afterwards, I wandered over to the ramada where raspados (snow cones) were being served in hollowed out half lemon peels, in exchange for donations to the garden.

agave raspados at Mission Garden

They had three different flavors made from garden produce, and I was not prepared for that kind of decision making. I was especially torn between the refreshing sounding lime-mint flavor and the artisanal agave syrup, which seemed like the most fitting choice for the occasion. Then the volunteer scooping the crushed ice suggested I have both. Sold.

Agave raspado

Sprinkled throughout the garden were informational tables and artist booths, including Found Design Sculptures by Leonard Ramirez and Cold Goose Pottery by Judy Ganz.

found art
Found Design Sculptures by Leonard Ramirez

Tucson Audubon Society was there with resources. They were especially highlighting their Habitat at Home program, which shares ways to support birds and other pollinators from your house. One thing they suggest here in Southern Arizona is to leave your hummingbird feeder out on summer nights, because bats might stop by for a drink!

ritual chocolate
Chocolate Ritual

Before I left, I made a final stop at the Chocolate Ritual booth to pick up some of their mezcal-infused chocolate truffles. They create their chocolates to have a taste that pairs well with either mezcal or coffee. The “ritual” is as simple as sipping your preferred beverage in between bites of chocolate and savoring the combination. It’s a practice I can definitely get behind.

mural by Rock ‘‘CYFI’’ Martinez
Another agave goddess mural by Rock ‘‘CYFI’’ Martinez!

The Ultimate Date Night

Cucumber salad in Yuma

palms in imperial

Phillip and I arrive at the date garden just as the sun has dipped low enough to begin turning green farm fields gold.

Date night dinner yuma

The weather is perfect, a string quartet is playing, and long tables set with fresh flowers have been placed underneath the palm trees.

Date night dinner yuma

Date Night

This is Yuma’s Date Night. Held a few times a year, the evening includes a gourmet dinner by Chef Alex Trujillo with dates in every course, a drink ticket, live music, and a walking tour of Imperial Date Gardens, which hosts the event in conjunction with the Yuma Visitors Bureau (YVB).

Imperial Date Gardens

Imperial Date Gardens is technically located in California. But it’s just 25 minutes from Downtown Yuma and part of the same agricultural region. As I’ve mentioned before, Yuma is so close to the California border, you can cross it by accident.

Brother Deweys date beer

Mark Briones from the YVB welcomes everyone as they arrive, letting us know how the evening will go – and that there are date beer (!) samples at the bar.

bruschetta - Yuma Date Night

Of course, we have to try that. Then we find seats, while servers make the rounds with appetizers.

Date palms at sunset

Between bites of bruschetta, bacon-wrapped dates, and corn fritters, Phillip chats with the people sitting next to us. I watch the sky through the dark silhouettes of palm fronds, as it turns more intensely pink by the moment.

Imperial date boxes

Tour

Before dinner is the tour, and it, fittingly, begins next to a date palm.

Imperial date gardens

Imperial Date Gardens expert Raul Peraza shares the history of their acres and acres of trees, which are all descended from 9 that came from Morocco and were planted here in 1935.

Date picking equipment

He explains how they are hand pollinated and de-thorned by skilled workers on specialized cranes with a platform that wraps around the tree trunks, allowing them to access every side. The fruit is thinned and covered with bags to protect it without pesticides.

Dates

We move inside the warehouse where the dates are sorted, packed, and frozen. Since freezing doesn’t negatively affect the flavor or texture, any date you purchase has probably been previously frozen.

Yuma date night

When we walk back outside, the sunset has given way to blue twilight. Our path is lit by string lights and our table by candlelight. The Silver Strings Quartet resumes playing a mix of classics and show tunes and pop songs.

Silver strings quartet Yuma

Drinks

Phillip goes to get us drinks. He brings me something pink he says is a margarita, but actually tastes like lemonade. (Did he pick up the wrong glass?)

We both prefer the date beer we had sampled earlier, Brother Dewey’s by College Street Brewhouse in Lake Havasu City, which is kinda crazy since I’m not usually even a beer drinker.

Dinner

Each night has a fixed menu that typically remains the same all season. While they can accommodate for food allergies with advanced notice, the nature of eating a catered meal in the middle of a date grove means no one’s going to ask you how done you like your meat, for example.

The deal is basically that they just keep bringing you awesome food from a highly regarded chef. Besides the key ingredient of the dates, we had no idea what we’d be eating until after the tour when Chef Lucy Sedano came out to announce the menu.

Chef Lucy

First was an elegantly presented cucumber-spinach salad with dates, tomatoes, feta, and housemade vinaigrette.

Date night salad

For the entree, we’re served a full plate with both a pancetta-wrapped filet mignon in wine sauce and a marinated chicken breast, along with asparagus atop bleu cheese mashed potatoes.

Date night entree and dessert

It was followed by a delightful date bread pudding. The meal finished with a Kahlua date shake, served in a champagne flute.

Every bite was delicious. It got a little sweet (even for my sweet tooth), but definitely melt-in-your mouth good.

As people filter out, we were each given a small box of dates, so we could savor the tastes of the region a bit longer.

It was a gorgeous evening with amazing food and definitely worth the trip.

Date palms near Yuma

– More Date Info –

Imperial Date Gardens

  • Store sells bulk dates and other local products, as well as date shakes.
  • Open Monday to Friday, 8am – 5pm.
  • Free tours may be offered seasonally (not during summer).
  • Address sometimes listed as Winterhaven, sometimes Bard or Imperial Valley.

 

Date Night Tickets

  • Yuma Date Nights will resume this fall.
  • Tickets for Date Night and other Visit Yuma tours are scheduled to go on sale November 1.
  • Date Night tickets tend to go fast, so plan to purchase them in advance.
  • Watch for updates on visityuma.com or sign up for their newsletter.

Edited to remove Bard Valley Date Growers Association, who is no longer part of the event.


We were guests of Yuma Visitors Bureau. Thank you to Linda Morgan, Steven Hennig, and the Visit Yuma team!

Century Plant Blooms, Tequila Making and Pulque Therapy

I used to believe that a century plant bloomed once every hundred years.

Agave

Turns out it’s a rare event but not that rare.

A century plant/agave will bloom once in its (10-30 year) lifetime, using all the energy it has saved up in the form of sugars to shoot up a single, brilliant flowering stalk.

And then it dies.

Agave stalk

Which is the depressing part. (It should probably be called the decade plant.)

So let’s focus on a happier part of that story: sugar.

If you happen to harvest an agave plant after it has had years to store up sugar but before it spends it all to go out in a blaze of glory, then all that sweetness can be yours.

agave

The edible part of the agave plant is well guarded by layers of pointed, spiny leaves in every direction.

Cut those off (carefully!) and you get to the head of the plant. (In Spanish, it’s called la piña, because it looks like a pineapple.) And that is where the sugar is hidden.

Agave

A few hours (or maybe days) in an oven or roasting pit, and it will be ready to eat or mash up for syrup or liquor.

roasted agave

I may be oversimplifying a bit, but this gives you the basic idea.

Now let’s talk tequila. It’s only tequila if it is made from the blue agave plant and comes from certain regions in Mexico (the same way sparkling wine can only be called “champagne” if it’s from a specific part of France).

Tequila

The roasted, mashed up agave liquid gets fermented and distilled to become silver (in Spanish, blanco, “white”) tequila. You can drink it that way or change the flavor by allowing it to age in barrels. If it has been aged (“rested”) two months to a year, it’s known as reposado. If it’s been aged longer than a year, it’s añejo. I’m not a tequila expert, but silver tequila is said to have a brighter flavor, while reposados and añejos are said to be more mellow.

Tequila is just one type of mezcal, an umbrella term for any distilled alcoholic beverage made from any species of agave. There are regional variations throughout Mexico, including bacanora, sotol, and others only available locally.

Agave plant at Boyce Thompson arboretum

Pulque is a drink made from agave that’s not distilled, so it’s not a mezcal. It is fermented, however, and alcoholic enough to cause early Spanish missionaries to accuse local populations of being constantly drunk on it. But, really, people probably would’ve been drinking a lot less if they didn’t have Spanish colonizers all up in their business.

Anyway, Mezcal PhD has a really useful article and chart of agave beverages.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, along with the fact that it doesn’t take agave a century to bloom and that tequila is made from agave that hasn’t bloomed, I have another thing for you to think about.

Desert

Agave typically grows in higher elevation deserts that get more rainfall than Tucson. However, as I mentioned yesterday, agave was one of the crops grown there centuries ago. (You’ll notice agaves showing up around 0:36 on my Mount Lemmon video, after we’ve gained some elevation and left the saguaros behind.)

The riddle: How could this have been this possible?

Feel free to share your theories, and I’ll fill you in on what I learned in a post later this week!


 

The Agave Heritage Festival goes through May 7 in Downtown Tucson!

Next events:

  • May 3, 12pm: Lecture on Mezcal Origins + Future by Ana Valenzuela in Haury Auditorium at University of Arizona. Free.
  • May 3, 3pm: Agave Heritage Festival Week Proclamation from Tucson Mayor Rothschild in Hotel Congress lobby. Free.

Patio outside Maynards

– More Agave Info –

If you want to go down a historical rabbit hole about pulque and cochineal in colonial Mexico, this should get you started…




We were guests of Hotel Congress, one of the presenters of the festival.

Agave Heritage Week

Agave

Can you name all the U.S. cities that have the UNESCO “City of Gastronomy” designation?

image
There’s actually only one: Tucson, Arizona.

It received the designation, in part, because of its agricultural tradition that goes back thousands of years.

Mission Garden, Tucson

One of the early plants cultivated in the region for food, medicine, and fiber was agave, the spiked succulent best known today for tequila.

agave

The annual Agave Heritage Festival in Tucson celebrates both ancient and contemporary uses of the plant and its importance to the region.

We got to participate in the first weekend of this year’s festival, which runs through May 7th.

image

We took a tour of ancient agave farming and roasting sites on Tumamoc Hill, learned about cooking with agave (both in traditional fire pits and with modern appliances), tasted different agave-based beverages, including tequila and bacanora, and saw how agave fiber can be twisted into rope and crafted into all kinds of things.

Agave products

We’ll be celebrating here all this week with daily posts about Tucson and agave, so come back and visit!


PS We were guests of Hotel Congress, one of the presenters of the festival.




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Citrus Season in the Southwest

Citrus at tucson market

It’s citrus season here in Phoenix! Farmers’ markets and roadside stands are overflowing with oranges, grapefruit, and lemons (so is my Instagram feed).

When we were in Tucson just before Christmas, there were baskets of beautifully bright oranges, tangerines, and kumquats at the Thursday Farmers’ Market at Mercado San Agustin.

Citrus park in Riverside, CA

California Citrus Historic State Park in Riverside, which we’ve enjoyed visiting when we’re in Southern California, currently has extended hours for the season and special events like a harvest tasting on February 26.

The Pasadena Farmers’ Market lists lemons, navel oranges, grapefruit, tangerines, and tangelos as being in season right now. (When I was there this summer, it was piles of peaches and pecks of peppers.)

Pasadena farmers market

On the theme of citrus…

What’s in season where you are?




Microblog Mondays: Write in your own space