One of the first field projects of the Sabores collaborative has been a collaboration among the Southwest Center of the University of Arizona, the Kino Fruit Tree Project of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, and the REDISOS network of the Universidad Autonoma de Baja California Sur. We are specifically investigating the fate of the heirloom fruit tree varieties introduced by Jesuit missionaries to the borderlands between 1713 and 1767, and the status of these trees in desert oases on both sides of the border.
Background
When Jesuits such as Kino, Salvatierra, Ugarte and del Barco arrived in Sonora and Baja California, they brought with them seeds and cuttings from the Old World, filtered through the Canary Islands “nurseries.” There are many ethnohistoric documents in Spanish that give the precise times, places and conditions under which fruit and nut trees were introduced to the Sonoran Desert. Some of these—such as Mission olives, Mission figs, Mission grapes and Sonoran pomegranates—became mainstays in Mission era cuisine on both sides of the border. Along with dates and citrus, they have played important roles in the food economy of the borderlands for three centuries. But what has happened top these original introductions and the agricultural oases which harbored them?
Into the Field: January 2009
Just after New Year, seven of us visited a total of a dozen of these Mission era oases on the Baja California peninsula, from San Borja in the north to Todos Santos in the south, recording the extant agro-biodiversity, recipes and food lore at each site. What we discovered is that nearly two dozen heirloom varieties of fruit crops introduced by the Jesuits persist in these agricultural oases of Baja California’s Ranchero culture. In a few locations, the very same trees first planted by the Jesuits remain in place-gigantic living remnants of the Mission era. Many of these same varieties once occurred north of the border, but have been subsequently lost. Over thirty other perennial crops have been introduced to these oases over the centuries as well. We are now working with environmental historian Micheline Cariño-Olvera of UABS to determine the factors favoring their persistence or precipitating their loss at particular oases, during particular eras. We hope to present this work at the international Cultura del Oasis congress on gastronomy and agriculture in October, 2009.
