Existing comment:
Wild Riches:
Even with new food crops, Sinagua farmers continued eating the wild grasses found around the well and using them for medicinal purposes. Lamb's-quarter, a plant with arrow-shaped leaves, was boiled with saltbush leaves and roasted cholla buds to make a sort of vegetable strew. The four-winged saltbush, pounded or chewed to a pulp, could ease any or bee stings and pinyon pitch salved sore muscles.
Agaves, or century plants, were harvested in the spring with new stalks eaten immediately and the trimmed plant then baked in a pit lined with hot stones. Seeds from amaranth were dried and stored for winter use.
Chewing gum was made from milkweed and white brittlebush, and a hard candy from ocotillo blossom nectar.
Some plants had more than one use, such as the Spanish dagger; its fat, bananalike fruits were good to eat and a lather formed from the roots was used for soap and treating heartburn. |