Edible Mexican Garden. Rosalind Creasy
sometimes they rot.) I wait until the chayotes start to sprout on my kitchen windowsill and then plant them in one-gallon containers. I mostly cover the fruits with potting soil, leaving the shoot sticking out just above ground, and keep the soil moist but not wet. Shoots need lots of light, so I put them in a south-facing window or under grow lights. In a few weeks, the plants are established and I fertilize at this time with fish emulsion.
Once the weather is fully warmed up I plant the two chayotes a foot apart, ifl have limited room, 6 feet or more otherwise. Chayotes grow best in full sun in fertile, well-drained soil. Snails, slugs, and cucumber beetles are occasional problems. The vines, which need strong support, start to flower in the fall and to fruit 6 or 8 weeks later. (The spiny varieties take a longer season to flower and fruit.) Fruits are ready for harvesting when they are 3 or 4 inches in length. A vine can produce more than 50 fruits.
Starting chayote plants by planting the fruits
the chayote fruit itself.
How to prepare: The small fruits can be eaten without peeling, but the skin must be removed on mature ones. Be aware, though: when you peel raw chayotes, they exude a sticky substance. It can be removed by washing and rubbing, but some cooks wear rubber gloves or parboil the fruit for a few minutes before peeling. The smooth, light green chayotes have a mild, less pronounced flavor than the spiny or dark green ones. According to Juvenal Chavez, owner of Mi Pueblo stores in San José, the spiny chayotes are considered more flavorful and preferred for simple dishes that showcase the fruit.
In Mexican cuisine, chayotes are most often steamed or boiled for about 15 minutes, seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper, and served with salsa, or combined with garlic, chiles, and, sometimes, tomatoes (see recipe, page 80), and sautéed. Recipes occasionally call for adding chayote slices to soups or steaming and cutting them in thick slices, making a sandwich of them with cheese in between, and dipping them in egg batter and cooking them like chiles rellenos. A salad of steamed and cooled chayote can be dressed with lime juice or vinegar and mixed with tomatoes and onions. The men I met at the Mi Tierra community gardens in San José enjoy them steamed and mashed with milk and honey or baked in aluminum foil in the oven like baked potatoes. Chayotes are sometimes made into a dessert by stuffing them with a mixture of eggs, sugar, spongecake crumbs, and seasonings and baking them.
CHIA
(CHÍA)
Salvia hispanica
MEXICAN CHIA IS MOST FAMILIAR to Americans as those cute little Chia Pets in the TV commercials. A number of plants are called chía; another one, S. columbariae, referred to as desert or golden chía, is native to California and the Baja peninsula. The seeds of both can be used to make a refreshing summer drink.
How to grow: Plant the seeds of chía in spring in very fast-draining soil in full sun. They grow 2 to 3 feet tall and produce small blue flowers. Good drainage is essential, as most sages die readily in heavy clay or soggy soil.
Harvest the dried seed stalks and, when completely dry, winnow off the seed pods and chaff from the seeds.
Varieties
The easiest way to obtain chía seeds is to purchase a package at a Mexican market, where it is usually offered on racks with other Mexican herbs. Seeds of chias are also carried by J. L.
Hudson, Plants of the Southwest, and Native Seeds/SEARCH.
How to prepare: Chia is primarily used to make a cooling drink called agua con chía. Place a tablespoon of chia seeds in a pitcher and add a quart of water. Let sit for an hour or so until the seeds have become gelatinous and swell. When ready to serve, add limes and sugar to taste, stir, and pour the seeds and juice over ice. Less traditionally, chia leaves can be used to flavor poultry and meats, and the sprouted seeds can be sprinkled on salads to give a peppery taste.
Chia
CILANTRO ET AL.
(cilantro, fresh coriander, Chinese parsley)
Coriandrum sativum
CULANTRO
(cilantro, cilantrillo, Mexican coriander)
Eryngium foetidum
PAPALOQUELITE
(papalo)
Porophyllum ruderale ssp. macrocephalum
CILANTRO ( BETTER KNOWN AS coriander throughout much of the world) is native to the Mediterranean and has been cultivated for over 3,000 years, beginning with the ancient Egyptians. Culantro and papaloquelite, on the other hand, are native to Mexico and South America. What all three of these herbs have in common is a similar flavor and aroma people either love or hate. I, for one, crave the earthy flavor.
Cilantro in flower
cilantro
Cilantro, which looks something like parsley, is widely used in Mexican cuisine—both the fresh leaves, called cilantro, and the ripe seeds, called coriander. Culantro is a tender perennial herb with long, incised leaves that takes hotter weather than cilantro and, unlike cilantro and papaloquelite, can also be successfully dried, retaining its characteristic flavor and color. According to herb maven Carole Saville, papaloquelite tastes similar to cilantro but has a more complex flavor, which she describes as “sort of like gazpacho in a leaf, sans tomatoes.”
How to grow: Contrary to what lots of gardeners think, the annual cilantro is easy to grow; you just need to know its idiosyncrasies. Cilantro needs cool weather and bolts to seed readily when days start to lengthen in the spring and when weather becomes warm. Therefore, it is best planted in the fall. In cold-winter areas, it can be planted as a quick fall crop before a heavy frost hits, or the seeds can be planted in late fall to sprout the next spring after the ground thaws. In mild-winter areas, fall-planted cilantro grows lush and tall over winter. (Cilantro tolerates light frosts.) In short-spring areas, early plantings are more successful than late. One guaranteed way to grow under these conditions is to treat it as a cut-and-come-again crop. Plant seeds 1 inch apart and snip 3-inch-tall seedlings above ground level; replant every 2 weeks until the weather gets too warm.
When possible, start cilantro from seeds in place, as it resents transplanting (another reason cilantro bolts readily). Plant seeds ¼ inch deep in rich, light soil and in full sun. Thin the seedlings to 6 inches and keep moist. The varieties most commonly available in nurseries, while adequate, are bred to quickly bolt and produce seeds (coriander) for the world seed trade. If you choose varieties bred for leaf production instead, available from mail-order seed companies, you’ll harvest leaves for a longer time. Fertilize if plants get pale. Except for slugs, cilantro has few pests and diseases. Harvest cilantro sprigs once plants are 6 inches tall.
Culantro is treated as a short-lived perennial in warm-climate zones. Below Zone 9, it is grown as an annual. Sow seeds indoors in early winter and set seedlings out when the soil has warmed. (Seeds are slow to germinate.) Grow culantro in moderately fertile, fast-draining, moist soil in full sun. In warm climates, grow it in filtered sun. It may also be grown in containers and wintered over inside. Culantro grows to 2 feet tall, with a rosette of sharply toothed, oblong basal leaves (ones growing from the crown at the base of the plant) about 4 inches long and 1 inch wide. Flowering stems grow to about 18 inches. Keep flowering stems cut back for a continual harvest of the basal leaves. Control slugs and snails.
One plant of papaloquelite is usually sufficient. It is a warm-weather annual that is easily grown if the seed is sown after the weather is reliably warmed. (It can also be started indoors 6 weeks before the last frost date.) It does best in full sun and