Mexico’s cherished biznaga cactus is on verge of extinction : NPR

MEXICO CITY — Although it is unlawful, bars of acitrón are stacked in practically each stall on the Merced market in Mexico Metropolis.

They seem like lemon bars. However they’re items of barrel cactus which were chopped up after which seeped in vats of sugar till they’re crystalized.

Edith Hernández Torres, who runs a store right here, wraps hers in cellophane. She says acitrón is particular, that it tastes nothing just like the candied lemon or candy potato or the pineapple she additionally sells.

“It has a chewy texture,” she says, “like one thing roasted.”

The Mexican authorities started banning the sale of acitrón within the early 2000s. That is once they discovered that the biznaga cactus — a species of barrel cactus — was in peril of extinction as a consequence of overexploitation.

Hernández is aware of acitrón is prohibited, however her prospects demand it. When NPR asks if she does not really feel dangerous about promoting one thing that is going extinct, she shrugs.

“Our complete planet goes extinct,” she mentioned.

As she speaks, María Julia Gutiette picks up a bar of acitrón. She does it gently, like she’s selecting up a bar of gold.

Her husband and this nation had been born on the identical day: Sept. 16. So, yearly, Gutiette buys the pears, the peaches, the pink pine nuts and the acitrón to make the make chiles en nogada, a conventional dish that’s eaten from August to early October.

“Traditions are the salt and pepper of life,” she mentioned. “They’re that additional one thing that makes life extraordinary.”

When she says this, her eyes tear up. She by no means had chiles en nogada rising up as a result of the components had been too costly. However then, she studied, she turned a nurse and moved to Mexico Metropolis.

“While you develop up and make your individual cash, you save for good issues,” she mentioned. And so for Independence Day, she desires to deal with her household to one thing particular. And the chiles en nogada, she says, have to be made with acitrón.

“Cacti do not develop like grass”

On the Nationwide Autonomous College of Mexico’s botanical backyard, there’s a complete part devoted to barrel cactuses. It is the type of cactus that performed an vital function in Mexico even earlier than the Spanish launched the sugar that made it so candy. The cactus seems within the Aztec codices and the title comes from a Nahuatl phrase meaning a pot coated in spines.

“In Mexico, we’ve got greater than 150 species of biznaga,” mentioned Salvador Arias, a biologist who runs the botanical gardens. Most of them are going extinct within the wild.

He factors towards the golden barrel cactus whose spines make it seem like a rising solar. Mexico constructed a hydroelectric dam, the place these golden barrel cactuses dwell and right away their atmosphere was destroyed and this species was nearly worn out.

A number of the cacti are 40 years previous they usually attain to your thigh. Others are 8 years previous and they’re tiny, simply the scale of your fist.

“These cacti do not develop like grass, as a result of their metabolism is particularly sluggish,” Arias mentioned. “It is so sluggish they could develop millimeters a yr.”

This implies farming the biznaga is neither sensible nor worthwhile, in order that they’re harvested from the wild. That has left dozens of species on the verge of extinction.

“However I am an optimist,” he mentioned. “I imagine that cacti have advanced previously to thrive in contrasting environments. I believe they’ll do it once more.”

He walks towards his assortment of nopales, the cactus that adorns the Mexican flag, the cactus that’s an on a regular basis staple in Mexican kitchens. However this species is prospering due to an evolutionary adaptation.

“The nopal is modular,” he mentioned. It grows in a type of chain, so in contrast to the biznaga, people can lower off and eat the most recent shoots with out killing the entire plant.

“The Soul of Mexico”

The chef of the restaurant Azul doesn’t use acitrón. However his chiles en nogada are legendary.

They’re so vital that once they start serving them in August, the desk cloths go black and the silverware goes gold.

“It is a yearly ritual,” chef Ricardo Muñoz Zurita mentioned.

First, the waiters carry out a tray of poblano peppers topped with a inexperienced, white and crimson bow. And after they place one on the plate, they douse it with a creamy walnut sauce, as silky as melted white chocolate.

“This plate is the soul of Mexico,” mentioned Muñoz. “It tastes just like the motherland, like independence. It tastes like Mexico itself.”

Muñoz makes a recipe from 1821, which is what was served to the independence hero Agustín de Iturbide in Puebla proper after signing a treaty that consummated Mexico’s independence.

However a number of years in the past, the chef stepped away from that recipe and stopped utilizing biznaga. As an alternative, he began utilizing candied chilacayote, which is a sort of squash.

“In fact, it does not have an effect on the ultimate style,” he mentioned. Certainly, he carried out blind style checks and nobody might inform the distinction.

“However Mexicans maintain tight to traditions,” he mentioned. “For those who realized to make it out of your grandma or mother they usually used acitrón, I perceive why they might need to maintain utilizing it.”

However he feels a duty to not use it, as a result of he desires barrel cactuses to outlive within the wild.

“We people have the good energy of adaptation,” he mentioned.

To avoid wasting the barrel cactus, he mentioned, we might be smart to make use of it.