Quishtán

May 31

Solanum wendlandii | Solanum tlacotalpense | Solanum mazatenangense

This Solanaceous green is super spiny, but when the young leaves and stems are cooked down they make for a delicious, melt-in-your-mouth green with a spinach-artichoke flavor. Larger spines are removed while younger ones soften up easily. Quishtán is indigenous to Guatemala and is commonly cooked en caldos y sopas, in broths and soups.

The photos below were taken Kevin Cruz and I at Gathering Together Farm in Philomath, Oregon. Increasingly in the past couple decades, the demographics of Oregon’s farmworkers have shifted to include more Indiginous Mexican and Guatemalan people. Carlos and Margarita are both from Huehuetenango, Guatemala and have worked at Gathering Together Farm for around ten years. A few years back, Margarita’s family sent her seeds and she and Carlos grew a small patch of plants from home behind the propagation greenhouse, including quishtán. Post harvest, we went back to their apartment where she made us quishtán en caldo, and it was so friggin good.