I have had so many requests for more information about mesquite beans
I thought I would put together a little bit of data about them,
collecting and milling.
Desert Harvesters down in Tucson a few years back received a grant
for a hammer mill to grind the beans and bean husks into a flour
consistency for use in cooking. This is where we are renting the
mill from. For more information regarding them see
http://www.desertharvesters.org/
We have agreed to rent the mill and have it brought to Phoenix on
November 5th for our first annual mesquite milling party, breakfast,
cook off, or whatever we decide. Don, Pauline, Chris and I have
begun the process of planning this and once we have our first meeting
we will be asking for volunteer assistance and funds donation to pay
for the rental fee.
The first part of this process is to collect the beans. This is done
starting now through the time they are done falling off the trees
(Septemberish). It is best to harvest the beans when they are dry,
then they need to be processed through the solar oven to further dry
them and kill any bugs that inhabit them. Once done they need to be
stored in a dry place till November 5th. I will be using 5 gallon
buckets with lids to keep the moisture and bugs out. The first
question I asked Brad in Tucson was why wait lets do it in September
and he told me that there is too much humidity in the air and the
flour clogs the mill. So November 5th it is.
So we need to get out and collect beans. We will be coordinating
people to go out in teams to collect the beans. If you are
interested in leading one of the teams email me and we will get you
in the queue and then have a short training session in late July to
go over the process.
As we get closer to November 5th we will need to do planning for the
event. Which could include breakfast, classes, etc. Again we will
look to our community to see what it is we wand to do. Look for more
information in the next few weeks regarding this. Also below I have
included a short list of information regarding mesquite beans.