Quelite served in a clay casserole at the XXXVIII Gastronomical fair of Santiago de Anaya, Hidalgo; copyright free image courtesy of "MCGau" made available through Wikimedia Commons.
Especially where indigenous Mexicans dominate, almost anything might turn up picked and sold in mercados as potherbs -- herbs boiled in water to make "greens," like turnip greens or spinach. Often two or more herb species are combined when preparing cooked greens. Here's more on the matter:
- Quelite is a general term for plants whose leaves, soft stems and sometimes the immature flowering clusters, or inflorescences are cooked and eaten as greens. The word quelite is derived from the nahuatl quilitl, nahuatl being spoken by descendants of the ancient Aztecs in highland central Mexico. In the 2011 work by Delia Castro Lara and others entitled Los quelites, tradición milenaria en México, it's said that in Mexico over 200 plant species can be called quelites. Below are some commonly found quelites in Mexico's traditional markets.
- Verdolaga, or purslane, seen freshly picked at the right; it's Portulaca oleracea, native to Mexico, and prefers warm to hot, moist climates, and disturbed soil. It grows as a weed in much of the world, including most of North America. Nutritionally, it's a super-star, with the online US-government NIH website reporting that "Purslane has recently been identified as the richest vegetable source of alpha-linolenic acid, an essential omega-3 fatty acid". Despite being so good for you, it tastes great cooked and seasoned with a little butter and lemon juice, makes a colorful addition to dishes like scrambled eggs, and even can be included raw in salads.
- Epazote, says the crumbling marker at the right, located in the botanical garden of UNAM, Mexico's main university, in Mexico City, is used both as a condiment and for intestinal parasites. Note the herb's toothed leaf margins, which help with identification. It's native to Mexico, and widely cultivated. The marker uses an old scientific name for Epazote. Currently it's Dyspania ambrosioides, though in many older publications it's Chenopodium ambrosioides. The herb contains numerous fragrant essential oils which lend it a pungent, somewhat medicinal taste, but somehow with cooked black beans that's just that flavor needed. As a pot herb it can be mixed with less pungent greens to add taste to more low-key ingredients.
- Chaya, or Tree Spinach, as seen at the right beside a traditional Mayan house in the Yucatán, is a soft-wooded bush or small tree. It's Cnidoscolus aconitifolius, a member of the Euphorbia Family, and the most favored of all pot-cooked plants in the Yucatan Peninsula's Maya culture. Leaves are picked from the bush and treated as if they were herbs plucked from the soil; leaves shouldn't be eaten raw, however, for they are mildly toxic until cooked. It's reported that levels of Chaya leaf nutrients are two-to-three times greater than any other land-based leafy green vegetable.
- Squash flowers and young, tender shoots of squash vines are fine cooked. You wash them, remove the flowers' stiff male and female parts, and the green calyx below the yellow corolla, chop all the parts, stir fry with oil or butter, add onion, epazote, chili pepper and salt. Normally the mixture is put inside a folded tortilla and a quesadilla or taco is made. Add it to scrambled eggs, and with a little salsa it tastes pretty good.
Epazote honored with an old stone marker; copyright free image courtesy of Adrián Cerón made available through Wikimedia Commons.
Squash flowers for sale in the Santa María la Ribera market, Mexico City; copyright free image courtesy of Louise Ranck made available through Wikimedia Commons.