I can’t articulate why it is so important to me that you begin to develop a relationship with Mesquite, this desert bean tree. I used to live in Southern New Mexico doing contract botany work and have traveled all over the US Southwest.
In the bean letter I make an argument that we should eat more food from trees. On an industrial scale. There’s a lot of arguments for the sustainability, climate resiliency, future-proof, whatever neologism of food from trees.
But for me because of my experience with the trees in situ, it’s something different than just the on paper efficiencies of this sort of food, it’s a longer look back at an agriculture less reliant on herbaceous annuals. I don’t know what it looks like if we incorporated more commodity large scale tree based agriculture in our landscapes and diet, not just the occasional walnut or apple, but daily staple crops. But there’s something in it that I *feel* would be culturally transformative. In the bean letter for this box I talk about how people don’t appreciate the scale of modern food. A lot of discussion around tree crops limits itself to small landscapes around our homes. While that can be pleasant as long as the work is put into pruning, harvesting, and post harvest processing, it’s myopic to think it makes systemic scalable changes. We need to think bigger. But I still can’t articulate how it would feel different. Why it feels different to pass a large hazelnut orchard than it feels to pass wheat or a barren muddy field after wheat.
But as I say in the Bean Letter, I don’t have to be able to explain or put into words the difference, I simply need to present you the beans, in this instance Mesquite, and let you and your body experience the difference.
Anyway, they should be here this weekend from the new supplier, I’ll pack up the orders next week.
If we keep doing this work and exploration together maybe we can figure something out, or not and that’s OK too, “the idea of beans need no defense, it only needs defenders“
Brian
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