Limon, papaya y sabila

If you could plant only three plants in your yard, what would they be?

OK, it's a trick question, in a way, because really, it depends where you live. But I came across this wonderful story:

Limon, papaya y sabila

Which is basically about the three "must have" plants in a Mexican garden, back when. 

Now, I know Mexico has changed a lot since then. More and more of the "real" Mexico has disappeared, along with many other cultures over the world, displaced by a Northern European version of how the world should be. This displacement isn't new. It started in Mexico with the Conquistadors, who brought their pigs and their diseases to a world genetically unprepared. The Spanish methodically purged every trace of the old culture they could find, in the name of religion and probably political control. Ever since then it's been centuries of replacing the old cultures with the new, and the new is winning. But everywhere I read, there are traces of the old cultures, and what stands out is that the old cultures had an unsurpassed knowledge of plant lore. Some of it has been transmitted from mother to child, and it should be preserved. 

As an aside, I have a real problem calling these old cultures "Latin America", or the people "Hispanics". The Spaniards are the people who decimated the peoples of these two continents, mostly accidentally but certainly in hubris. The Spaniards themselves speak a "Latin" language because they had been conquered by people of even more hubris, the Romans. One tiny city-state, conquered Europe, and brought their ways and foods to the rest of the continent.

Among their foods were wheat and barley, which are foods that basically change society. It's not just about "food storage" ... they are foods that change brain functioning, esp. for some portion of the population. And they bring about poorer health, in pretty much every society that has adopted them. So the Romans got the Spaniards hooked on wheat. Then the Spaniards conquered Mexico, and did pretty much the same thing. I am not native American at all, but if I was, I would really hate being called a "Latina"!

I got into this thinking because of someone I know, who is Mexican, of native American rather than Spaniard descent. She has the diseases that are unfortunately common in native Americans eating European food. European food has never been very good to Europe, but it's horrible for folks native to the Americas. Wheat never grew here before, so there is absolutely no genetic protection. Someone living on a reservation told me that in her tribe, half the members have diabetes. She was proposing a "wheat stomping ceremony". 

Anyway, we were talking about diabetes, cancer, etc., and we got to talking about aloe, which her Mexican relatives were saying she should be taking. Aloe is for sale in Mexican groceries, so I wondered what its role was, traditionally. And I came across the link above.

What is interesting about this is the choices. "Limon" is basically "Limes". I do love limes, though I don't know much about cooking with them. But I've been working with d-limonene, from Green Turpenes, for various things. The stuff is amazing. It does clean, for sure. It also got rid of plant fleas on my plants, and mites. It gets rid of GERD. Well, for the sailors it got rid of scurvy too. The orange juice I took got rid of my a-fib, it seems.

Now in the story, they talk about red ribbons making the limes go into flower. That sounds like mythology, until you recall that the color red seems to make tomatoes go into bloom. With tomatoes the theory is that it looks like another tomato, and it is competing, but who knows? Maybe red causes other plants to bloom too.

As for papaya ... again, I don't know much about them. But they do have one of those amazing enzymes built in, great for tenderizing meat. And digesting foods. What other great stuff is in papaya?

And aloe. Aloe is one of the plants that just doesn't make sense. I had a very bad burn on one arm, that wouldn't heal. I put aloe on it ... it healed, no scar. 

I can't grow these three plants. I can, and do, grow aloe, mainly inside, and I try to treat it with the respect it deserves. Papaya I haven't worked with much, but after reading this, I will! Limes ... yumm. I have some salted and preserved, now to work on recipes!