Sweet tradition for Tucson saguaro-fruit harvester

Tag : fruit jam
Sweet tradition for Tucson saguaro-fruit harvester 10:58 AM MST on Thursday, July 10, 2008 By SUE DOERFLER / The Arizona Republic
PHOENIX (AP) -- Stella Tucker rubs the dry, pulpy mixture in herhands, then sifts it through a metal strainer. Thousands of tiny,black, poppylike seeds from the saguaro fruit fall into the bowl.
She'll turn the pulp into jam. The seeds? She'll throw them to thebirds.
Tucker carries on a tradition that few do anymore. She spends weekscamping in the desert and harvesting saguaro fruit for syrup andjam. During most of June and part of July, the Tohono O'odham womanrises early each day to pick the sticky red fruit, then spends theremaining daylight hours preparing, cleaning and cooking it. Hercamp west of Tucson is outfitted with a refrigerator that runs onpropane, a microwave that is used for storage - "We have noelectricity out here" - a pantry of sorts and two wood-burningstoves.
Metal bed frames and thin mattresses make sleeping more comfortablethan on the ground. Ramadas, covered in saguaro ribs, provide shadeover two tables, which double as eating and work areas.
There are a few other camps nearby, remnants of when summer-longharvesting was more common.
"When I was growing up, every family used to go out,"said Tucker, who was raised in Topawa, near Sells in southwesternArizona. She learned harvesting skills from her grandmother JuanitaAhil. "They'd have their camps and stay for weeks at atime."
Nowadays, numerous visitors stop by, coming more out ofinquisitiveness than to continue the ways of the past. For thosewho do harvest, it's considered more of a fun weekend outing,Tucker said.
It's too much hard work for most. But for Tucker, a cook at SanXavier Mission School near Tucson and the mother of grown children,it's a retreat.
"I don't have a clock. I don't have a watch," she said."I'm doing the same thing every day."
She demonstrated the techniques in June to participants in aworkshop held by the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix.
The fruit can be harvested once its green peel begins to turn red.Usually, that begins in early June, occasionally in late May. Thisyear, mild weather caused the season to start a couple of weekslate.
Rarely is the fruit easy to reach. Instead, Tucker uses a pole madeof saguaro ribs that are lashed together with wire so they extend10 to 20 feet.
Tucker usually separates the intense red, sweet, gooey pulp fromthe peel on site because the peels can make the collection buckettoo heavy. Other times, they are closed, and Tucker snaps off thedried flower on top and uses the edge of it like a knife to cut thepod open. She throws the peels back into the desert, red side up,as a plea for rain and as food for animals. Back at camp, the pulpis combined with water, mashed to loosen its tiny seeds and thenboiled in a pot.
The foam that forms on top is skimmed off and thrown away.
Next, she strains the mixture, first through a screen, then throughcheesecloth. The abundance of pulp makes the second process slow,and she continually has to move the red-stained cheesecloth so thatthe juice will flow through.
She places the mixture of strained pulp and seeds on a table to dryovernight. The strained liquid surprisingly doesn't stain. It'sboiled for six hours to make syrup that tastes like molasses and isdelicious over ice cream or pancakes or spread on a tortilla.
Historically, it was used as a sweetener and as a component of therain ceremony, held in honor of the coming monsoon. To make jam,the dried pulp is sifted to remove the seeds, then added into theliquid and boiled. The seeds are used for other purposes, such asbird feed.
"Nothing is wasted," Tucker said.
The process is labor-intensive, "but it pays off," saidTucker's daughter Tanisha. Like her mom, she spent her childhood atthe camp, learning the process. Now that she is working, she comesout when she can to help and to bring Tucker the mail.
The amount of the harvest varies from year to year. If it hasrained a lot in the spring, the harvest will be better. Once themonsoon storms arrive, harvesting is over.
"Last year, it was a pretty good season," Tucker said.She made 4 gallons of syrup and 2 gallons of jam for personal useand to fill orders from tribal members. "I think this yearwill be even better," she said.
It may be better in other ways, too. She is hopeful she can teachmore tribal members about the harvesting tradition.
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Information from: The Arizona Republic, http://www.azcentral.com
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