The Agave Heritage Festival’s Sweet Return

Agave has been cultivated in the Tucson area for hundreds of years.

While tequila might be the most widely known product made from agave (a.k.a. the century plant or maguey), it’s certainly not the only one! Different species of the plant are distilled into different spirits, collectively called mezcal.

Native peoples would also use agave to make food, medicine, and even rope. They developed farming techniques to maximize the plant’s adaptability and drought-resistant qualities, so they could grow it where other crops wouldn’t thrive.

Mural of Mayahuel, the agave goddess, by Rock ‘‘CYFI’’ Martinez.

Agave Heritage Festival

The annual Agave Heritage Festival in Tucson celebrates the plant’s natural and cultural significance. It includes special agave-centered menus at local restaurants, gardening demonstrations, concerts, lectures, mezcal tasting events, hikes to ancient agave roasting pit sites, and a re-creation of the traditional way agave hearts were cooked underground.

After the spring 2020 festival was canceled and last year’s was replaced by a monthly series of virtual talks and DIY tastings, the Agave Heritage Festival made a joyful return this past May!

It has come back as a more compact, focused four days of events – in contrast to the week (or more) it stretched out pre-pandemic.

Following right on its heels was the first annual Pueblos del Maíz Fiesta. The kickoff event for both festivals was a concert by multiple Grammy Award winning Mexican-American singer and activist Lila Downs.

Agave Expo

One of this year’s events was the Agave Expo, which included panels, vendors, tables for organizations doing conservation work in Southern Arizona, and a plant sale. It was held on a beautiful morning in Mission Garden, a collection of demonstration gardens where a 17th-century Spanish mission once stood.

Feed the Bats

I arrived right before the first talk of the day, parking next to a woman who was already loading assorted agave purchases into her car.

“Pollination Nations” was a discussion about agave, bats, and ecology on both sides of the border.

Nectar-eating bats cross-pollinate agaves’ nighttime blooms, creating the genetic diversity essential for the plants’ long-term survival. However, agave planted for human consumption is prevented from blooming. Recent large-scale agricultural methods have lead to hungry bats and a monoculture crop that’s susceptible to disease.

The Bat Friendly project promotes more sustainable practices, encouraging growers to let 5% of the agaves they plant to live out their natural bloom cycle and allow bat pollination. Following their guidelines earns mezcal producers a special Bat Friendly™ label, as well as helping to ensure the continuation of their industry.

The panel discussing these topics was made up of experts from Bat Conservation International, Borderlands Restoration Network, and Sonora Silvestre, as well as mezcal-makers from Bacanora Batuq and Mezcal Zincantan. It was moderated by Jesús García, Research Associate at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and Co-Chair of the non-profit Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace (FOTB).

(Incidentally, Moderator Jesús had returned from a trip to Mexico just in time for the Lila Downs kickoff concert and gave it rave reviews!)

On the Table

Afterwards, I wandered over to the ramada where raspados (snow cones) were being served in hollowed out half lemon peels, in exchange for donations to the garden.

They had three different flavors made from garden produce, and I was not prepared for that kind of decision making. I was especially torn between the refreshing sounding lime-mint flavor and the artisanal agave syrup, which seemed like the most fitting choice for the occasion. Then the volunteer scooping the crushed ice suggested I have both. Sold.

Sprinkled throughout the garden were informational tables and artist booths, including Found Design Sculptures by Leonard Ramirez and Cold Goose Pottery by Judy Ganz.

found art — Found Design Sculptures by Leonard Ramirez

Tucson Audubon Society was there with resources. They were especially highlighting their Habitat at Home program, which shares ways to support birds and other pollinators from your house. One thing they suggest here in Southern Arizona is to leave your hummingbird feeder out on summer nights, because bats might stop by for a drink!

Before I left, I made a final stop at the Chocolate Ritual booth to pick up some of their mezcal-infused chocolate truffles. They create their chocolates to have a taste that pairs well with either mezcal or coffee. The “ritual” is as simple as sipping your preferred beverage in between bites of chocolate and savoring the combination. It’s a practice I can definitely get behind.

Another agave goddess mural by Rock ‘‘CYFI’’ Martinez!

October 9, 2017October 9, 2017

The Southwest’s Indigenous Food and Films

I don’t think I’ve shared this video of a cooking demonstration from Agave Heritage Festival in Tucson here yet.

It seemed fitting to post this on Indigenous People’s Day (which I’m glad is gaining traction over Columbus Day!), since the recipe includes several local ingredients originally used by the Native American tribes in this area.

Also, unrelated to the video, we went to an IPD screening of two documentaries by Diné (Navajo) filmmakers at the Heard Museum yesterday. Both films were really great!

Heard Museum

You may get a chance to see them too, since they’re traveling around on a Navajo Films Documentary Tour starting in November, and one of the films, The Mayors of Shiprock, will air on the World Channel November 6.

Heard Museum

If I can track down tour dates, I’ll put them on the next Happenings List.

May 5, 2017May 21, 2021

The Opening Of The Fire Pit

After our morning hike at Tumamoc Hill, we returned to the Mission Garden that evening for demonstrations on agave rope making and roasting, tequila tastings, a display of products made from agave fibers, plant sale, and The Opening of the Fire Pit.

The day before – probably about the time Phillip and I were driving from Phoenix to Tucson – a group had gathered at the Mission Garden.

Jesús García, an Education Specialist at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, was demonstrating how to build a fire in a traditional roasting pit and fill it with agave hearts. They would be covered with metal from the side of an old washing machine and then layers of dirt to keep the heat inside the earth oven.

Other than the repurposed washing machine, the pit would be similar to the ones we had seen evidence of on our hike that morning, the charcoal gray rocks contrasting with the reddish desert clay only hinting at what was under our feet.

We don’t know exactly how the ancient roasting pits worked. Current tribes in the area have not continued this tradition. However, Jesús García pointed out that just a few miles south of the border, “the tradition is still alive.” He talked to his family in Mexico about the process, taking notes and drawing extensive diagrams about every step.

Adapting those techniques to the Tucson area has taken some trial and error. Apparently, last year’s cooking time wasn’t quite enough.

So this year, they would give the agave a full 24 hours to cook underground before literally digging in and opening up the fire pit.

That must be the magic number. It was soft and slightly sweet. Each variety had a different flavor. One tasted like sweet potatoes.

So what if you don’t happen to have access to a 5-foot by 6-foot roasting pit?

Carolyn Niethammer shared how she roasts quartered agave heads in her home oven – just roast at 350 for 17 hours (!)

Once they’ve been roasted, you can add them into other dishes.

With an electric skillet, she demonstrated how to saute up some agave along with nopales (prickly pear pads), peppers, and tepary beans, a drought-tolerant heritage bean that has recently come back into use. It was delicious!

[Update: I posted my video of her cooking demo on our YouTube!]

She followed up by passing around some “Aztec delights,” bite-sized treats she made from amaranth, chia, agave syrup, and chocolate.

It was a sweet finish to our Mission Garden visit.

Next Agave Heritage Festival events in Downtown Tucson:

May 6 + 7, 10am + 1pm: Fibers, Tequila and Fun at Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Included with admission.
May 6 + 7, 10am: Agave Garden Tours at Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Included with admission.
May 6 + 7, 10am: Rare + Collectible Agave Sale at Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Included with admission.
May 6, 6pm: Agave Fest tequila party at Hotel Congress. $35
May 7, 11am: Agave Heritage Brunch at Carriage House. Proceeds from this brunch help benefit Mission Garden. $55

We were guests of Hotel Congress and Maynards Market + Kitchen.

May 4, 2017May 6, 2022

Ancient Agave Tour

Tumamoc hike during Agave Heritage Festival

To kick off the Agave Heritage Festival, Stephanie and I got to play archeologists for the morning.

After getting to the Hotel Congress late the night before, I used my front-desk-issued earplugs to get some sleep, so we could get ourselves to the Mission Garden by 8:15 am.

We met our gracious guides there: Paul and Suzie Fish, emeriti professors of archaeology from the University of Arizona and the Arizona State Museum. The plan for the day was to carpool over to some pristine desert land several miles away at the base of Tumamoc Hill, where U of A Desert Laboratory is located, hike in about a half mile, and then be guided by the archaeologists on a tour of an ancient agave horticultural/gardening site and roasting pit used by the Hohokam people of the American Southwest.

While on this tour, I was surprised to find out that the Tucson area has evidence of farming estimated to go as far back as 5,000 years! The fields we were to tour are estimated to date to the 1200-1300s.

The first stop was the roasting pit. It’s a good thing we had trained professionals to take us here. Most anyone would have walked right by the spot, which looked like any other unremarkable clearing in the desert. A closer look yielded the clues: a few potsherds here and there, a slightly more charcoal-colored soil, and pieces of “rind.” Rind is the bubbly mix of stone and organic material that forms around such pits due to the high temperature in the roasting process.

The roasting was probably done every few years as it takes years for agave to grow to the harvesting stage. During its lifetime, little “pups” or rhizomes, which are essentially agave clones, grow out from the plants. Farmers would have taken these and used them to plant new agaves, which would have helped stagger the harvesting seasons.

Our guides explained that the agave was cultivated for three reasons: food, alcoholic beverages, and fibers – Stephanie filmed a jaw-dropping demonstration on how agave fiber can be made into a rope within minutes!

Since it would take at least 24 hours to roast the agaves, apparently, the Hohokam would multitask, using the time to work on other projects like making spindles for forming the fibers into thread or ropes.

As Suzie was explaining this to us, she reached down and grabbed a few bits of pottery sherds to show us. So I stooped down to glance at the dirt around my feet.

All of the sudden, the desert seemed to bloom with evidence of past humans. I found some pieces of the rind that our guides had described and some pottery pieces. Most interestingly, I found a rounded piece of pottery that Suzie told us was likely the beginnings of a spindle for making thread. Therein lies one of the most amazing aspect of archaeology – to touch an object that had been made with such intentional effort by another human centuries removed from me.

From the pit, we moved on to the remains of the gardens.

While there are no original agave plants left, our guides pointed out rocks arranged along the sloping hillsides to guide water to various miniature terraces where the agave would have been. Farther along, we started seeing evidence of experiments being done by the University of Arizona to replicate agricultural techniques used by the Hohokam. Since the early 1980s, scientists have been using this spot to try to replicate Hohokam techniques with agave horticulture.

My favorite example was seeing how the terraces set up to encourage agave growth would not only foster significantly better growth for agaves, but they would also have a variety of plant neighbors which would grow up alongside next to them. They also benefited from the more advantageous microclimate of the terrace.

I was in awe of how observant and creative the Hohokam were to create a space where they could cultivate agave on a larger scale. Indeed, our guides say that agaves are seldom naturally found below the 3,000 foot elevation mark. With a few ingenious adaptations, the Hohokam were able to make it work!

– More Archaelogy Info –

The Southwestern United States and Arizona are hotspots for archaeology.

If you’re interested in getting involved in local AZ archaeological preservation efforts, one place to look is the Southwest Archaeology Team. It’s a great opportunity to get involved with archaeology on an amateur basis. They’re based in Mesa, Arizona and affiliated with the Arizona Museum of Natural History. I joined the organization for a time during high school and used the opportunity to take a class they offered in archaeological field surveying. In addition to educational opportunities, they provide volunteering opportunities in archaeology.

You can also check with local community colleges. As a high school student, I was able to take a class at Mesa Community College on archaeological field methods to learn the tools, techniques and terms of the profession.

Next Agave Heritage Festival events in Downtown Tucson:

May 5, 6 + 7, 10am + 1pm: Fibers, Tequila and Fun at Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Included with admission.
May 5, 6 + 7, 10am: Agave Garden Tours at Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Included with admission.
May 5, 6 + 7, 10am: Rare + Collectible Agave Sale at Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Included with admission.
May 5, 1:30pm: Talk on Cryptic Gardens and Pre-Columbian Agave Clones at Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Included with admission.
May 5, 5pm: Cinco De Mayo Party at Club Congress. Free until 9pm, then $3
May 5, 6:30pm: Agave Heritage Dinner at Maynards Plaza Patio. Proceeds from this dinner help benefit Native Seed Search. $110
May 6, 6pm: Agave Fest tequila party at Hotel Congress. $35
May 7, 11am: Agave Heritage Brunch at Carriage House. Proceeds from this brunch help benefit Mission Garden. $55

We were guests of Hotel Congress.

May 3, 2017June 22, 2021

Maynards Market + Kitchen Garden

Cities + Railroads

The history of many western U.S. cities is tied to the railroads. Their stories run parallel, like two lengths of track. Sometimes railroad stops were built for cities and sometimes cities were built for railroad stops.

Tucson is an example of the former. By the time its depot was built in 1909, Tucson was the Southwest’s big city.

The Arizona Good Roads book described it this way in 1913:

“Tucson is the metropolis of Arizona and New Mexico, and has a population according to the United States Census of 1910 of over 2000 more than any other city in either state. […] The modern Tucson is a growing city of some 22,000 inhabitants. Her rapid growth in the last few years may be attributed to her advantageous position as a distributing point for Southern Arizona and northern Mexico, and to the rich mining, agricultural and grazing country surrounding the city…”

Trains kept bringing passengers, and Tucson kept growing, buildings sprouting up throughout the downtown.

By 1919, what you’d see as you exited the depot was Hotel Congress, one of the earliest Arizona hotels that’s still in operation. You can still stay there (we did!) and hear the train from your room.

As time passed, people continued arriving in Tucson but more came by car. The trains carried fewer passengers and more freight. Since freight doesn’t need a train station, part of the building was converted into restaurant space.

Market + Kitchen

In 2008, the owners of Hotel Congress opened Maynards Market + Kitchen inside the station building.

The Market part of that equation is open all day with lots of patio seating and a take-out counter for items like coffee, sandwiches, and baked goods. They also sell wine and local gourmet food products. (If you’re from the Phoenix area, think Liberty Market or La Grande Orange, and you’re on the right track.)

Next to it is the Kitchen, a sit-down restaurant open only for dinner, happy hour, and Sunday brunch. It is unfussy and elegant with salvaged train and rail parts repurposed seamlessly into the decor as subtle nods to the building’s history.

Brunch goes until 2pm, which is nice, especially since Hotel Congress is popping until the wee hours of the morning. Non-morning-person-ness aside, it gave us time to check out of the hotel and catch a film screening. (The Arizona International Film Festival happened to be going on that weeekend, as well.)

From our table, we could see the window-level garden planted just outside and watch little white butterflies dance around the flowers.

I ordered the braised greens/lump crab/crème fraîche omelet – and enjoyed every bite. To really taste the flavors of the garden, I also had the (very, very lightly) dressed greens. Oh, and a delicious coffee from neighboring Caffe Luce Coffee Roasting Co.

Phillip ordered a macchiato (which he liked), baked eggs (which were good but not what he expected) and bacon (which was crazy crispy).

The signature baked egg dish from sister restaurant Cup Cafe comes in a small cast iron skillet. Perhaps because the menu said “broiled,” Phillip thought they’d be more like fried eggs, but they are cooked solid all the way through. The eggs, spinach, mushrooms, and leeks are buried under a layer of cream, wine, and gruyère. He was surprised by it but liked it and said the flavors blended well.

As for the bacon, I don’t know if they always cook it to that level of crispness, but Phillip regretted not specifying how he liked it and ended up just crumbling it on top of his eggs.

Both of our dishes came with downright addictive breakfast potatoes, fruit, housemade English muffins, and this incredible orange-rhubarb jam.

Garden + Grove

The garden out the window is where Maynards Kitchen sources herbs, seasonal vegetables, edible flowers, and citrus. It’s hard to get more locally grown than that!

Chef Brian Smith was kind enough to take us out to the garden and point out the citrus trees, cornstalks, three varieties of heirloom tomatoes, and colorful, diamond-shaped plantings of lettuces, kale, violas, nasturtiums, pansies, parsley, chives, basil, peppers, and probably other herbs and greens I’m forgetting.

The garden is new, planted in an unused plot of ground earlier this year. And they are still experimenting, finding what works best where they are, incorporating what’s in season into their dishes in new ways. (Orange blossom dressing, anyone?)

Like Tucson, the garden is flourishing, and whether you get there by road or by rail, Maynards Market + Kitchen is worth a stop.

Next Agave Heritage Festival events in Downtown Tucson:

May 4, 6pm: Tucson City of Gastronomy Seminar at Maynards Market & Kitchen Drawing Room. $15
May 4, 7pm: Mezcal and Chocolate Pairing Seminar at Maynards Market & Kitchen Drawing Room. $15
May 4, 7pm: Mezcrawl at participating bars in Downtown Tucson. $25-40

We were guests of Hotel Congress and Maynards Market + Kitchen.