Two women who have devoted themselves to learning and living with the land spoke about it recently during a webinar sponsored by Crow Canyon Archaeological Center. Their secret? Cultivate a relationship with the plants you pick and listen to them.
Every Thursday at 4 p.m., the archaeological center outside Cortez hosts a free, one-hour webinar to broaden and diversify the community’s knowledge of the past, present and future of their home.
The series covers different topics each week, and on June 27, the conversation centered on wild food and foraging.
Reyna Banteah and Katrina Blair took turns presenting and answering questions about locating edible food sources outdoors, how to properly harvest what you find, and the multifaceted nutritional and medicinal values of wild food.
“When we eat like a wild animal, and we’re eating so direct, like earth to mouth, the vitality and nutrition is at its peak,” said Blair, who wrote a book on wild food and now teaches sustainable living in Durango and around the world.
“Every time we cook or process it, we lose things. And then we pack it, ship it, store it. It (nutritional value) just keeps going down.”
Picked from the ground, dandelion greens have more calcium than milk and are packed with iron. Thistle roots regenerate liver cells. Rose hips, the fruit of wild roses, have vitamin C, Blair said.
“There’s such a wealth of these trace minerals in all the wild weeds and native plants,” Blair said.
Turtle Lake Refuge, a nonprofit wild food cafe in Durango, cooks and prepares wild food sourced locally.
The cafe has lunch on Tuesdays and Fridays, and frequents the farmers market, where it offers rose hip granola bars and thistle chai teas, among other things.
The more you’re outside, around the environment you want to harvest in, the more you can learn how to identify the edible plants and notice the abundance around you, said Banteah, who’s from the Pueblo of Zuni in New Mexico and started Ts’uyya Farm in Albuquerque.
“We have to feel like we’re part of the environment we live in,” Banteah said.
That way, we’re able to appreciate all the land does for us.
In Zuni culture, for example, people share a deep kinship with corn. They regard it as a protector.
“There’s even a specific clan for corn. It provides the sustenance that we needed to get to this point,” said Banteah. “Corn has always been a special part of our food ways.”
Banteah said it’s important to protect these teachings, but it’s also important to make sure younger generations know about plant knowledge and Native culture.
On Aug. 28, there will be a wild food and cuisine workshop with a field trip to the San Juan Mountains. Banteah and Blair will teach attendees, joined by Rebecca Renteria, the American Indian Initiatives outreach coordinator at Crow Canyon, which is hosting the event.
The intention is to help folks see the abundance in the alpine around them and to teach how to prepare these wild foods.
The more we can eat from our home and build understanding of how we can keep the earth healthy and how it keeps us healthy, the better, Blair said.
Wild Food and Cuisine Workshop
What: Delve into the world of food pathways and cultural landscapes in this unique, day long, pop-up workshop.
When: Wednesday, Aug. 28, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Where: San Juan Mountains. Meet at 8 a.m. at the Holiday Inn Express parking lot in Cortez, 2121 E. Main St.
Cost: $200 per person.
Registration: Required at bit.ly/wild81321
Both speakers underscored the need to listen to plants and be mindful of the other animals and insects that depend on these sources for sustenance.
“Humans tend to overharvest, overtake,” Banteah said.
And so, we must get permission from the plants before taking.
“I’m communicating with the plant when I’m there,” said Blair. “The asking comes in like an expansion feeling or a constriction – the ‘yes’ and the ‘no’ from the plant – of whether it wants to be harvested and shared or no.”
“When it says no, I’ve learned that actually protects me. … It’s not necessarily that the plant doesn’t want to share, it’s just that it’s not wise for me.”
And thus, developing a relationship with the land that’s rooted in reciprocity and respect is paramount.
“In the beginning, be humble and cautious and go slow,” said Blair. “That’ll protect you and the land.”
