Seeds And Their People - EP. 37: Cempaxochitl, Papalo, and more tastes of Mexico with Maria Hernandez of Cruz Family Little Farm

Episode Date: November 15, 2025

This episode features an interview with our friend Maria Hernandez of Cruz Family Little Farm about an hour northwest of Philadelphia in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania. Maria grows vegetables, herbs, and flowers for her community, including many Mexican specialties, some of which she shares through our seed catalog as well. We discussed Maria's life from growing up with eating mangos with chili in a hammock in her grandmother's orchard by the river in Mexico as a child, to moving to NYC, and then starting a farm in Pennsylvania. We walked the field visiting her favorite plants, including Cempaxochitl, which filled her grandmother's house with their aroma and beauty. Cempaxochitl are orange marigolds planted in May or June and harvested for Day of the Dead celebrations in October.  SEED STORIES:  Cempaxochitl Papalo Epazote Cilantro Macho Jicama Flor de Jamaica (Roselle) Tomatillo LINKS: Cruz Family Little Farm web page Cruz Family Little Farm at Truelove Seeds Cruz Family Little Farm: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok THIS EPISODE SUPPORTED BY: YOU! Please become a Patron for $1 or more a month at Patreon.com/trueloveseeds Scribe Video Center and WPEB, West Philly Community Radio ABOUT: Seeds And Their People is a radio show where we feature seed stories told by the people who truly love them. Hosted by Owen Taylor of Truelove Seeds and Chris Bolden-Newsome of Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden. trueloveseeds.com/blogs/satpradio   FIND OWEN HERE: Truelove Seeds Facebook  |  Instagram  |  Twitter   FIND CHRIS HERE: Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden  

I was just whacking at normal. Welcome to Seeds and their people. I'm Chris Bolden-Nusum, farmer and co-director of Sankofa Community Farm at Barcham's Garden in sunny southwest Philadelphia. And I'm Owen Taylor, seed keeper and farmer at True Love Seeds. We're a seed company offering ancestral seeds grown. by farmers who preserve their beloved tastes of home for their diasporas and beyond through keeping seeds and their stories and community. This podcast is supported by True Love Seeds and by our listeners. Thank you so much to our Patreon members who support this podcast for

as little as $1 a month. You too could sign up at patreon.com slash true love seeds. This episode features an interview with our friend Maria Hernandez of Cruz Family Little Farm, which is about an hour northwest of Philadelphia, where we are now. We've known Maria and her family for several years, and we see her several times a year, especially at the Winter Pasa Conference with her husband and kids, the PASA Sustainable Agriculture Conference here in Pennsylvania. And she is a grower for our seed catalog. What are some of your thoughts about the stories in this episode?

Well, this was a really a beautiful story in the interview. It taught me a lot of things about Maria that I didn't know. I know that she has a really interesting and exciting and sometimes funny life story. We spent many hours, as you said, especially at the Pasa Conference, talking about our lives and growing up and what led us to where we are now and how we met our partners. and that sort of thing. And so this interview was very exciting to even hear, even deeper into my dear story. I was really intrigued, of course, my anthropological mind with the ways in which, you know, sort of our ancestral culture came through in her story, the ojong or the pot of water

that they put on the floor. It keeps the water cool in the summertime. That stood out to me immediately. That's a very old, maybe ancient Native American practice. They even throughout North America here, United States, Native American nations continue to get cool water that way in the heat of the summer. So that was one of the first things that sort of, you know, perk my ears up. You know how I'm talking about, of course, the Flora de Calabasa, the pumpkin flower. You know, again, these are traditional, you know, the dishes made with pepitas.

These are traditional Aztec and Mayan food traditions that she grew up with and that she continues and that she also has raised her children with. That is remarkably powerful in these days of disconnection and fake connections and fake news and all of that. She moved from rural Mexico to one of the biggest cities in the world, and yet, That didn't change her, that didn't change her, at least in the respect of how she continues to keep her culture alive. You know, I was impressed by, of course, as a Mexican Catholic, of course, too, that her faith also is a way that her and her family can continue to keep alive this culture. And I relate it, you know, as a Catholic, of course, to some of her traditions around the day of the dead. You know, All Souls Day that we would say in English during this month of November, which in our faith we dedicate to ancestors, helping them to light their way. Her talking about the Sanpasochi, the marigold, you know, as a sacred flower, was something that's used, you know, in the tradition of honoring the ancestors and giving them light.

I just found it very beautiful. I mean moving on to their modern life And some of the struggles Her having to close the Snackshot Really spoke volumes to me You know of the time that we're in So there's this contrast between her holding on To this deep and ancient and nourishing

Culture that she lives in And that she and her family are still rooted in And then the realities of this Current political climate that we're living in It's a lot to hold closing the snack bar because people are afraid to come out and gather in spots with other Latino immigrants. I mean, that just sounds crazy. It reminds me of the stories I grew up hearing about in slavery, you know, in this country, you couldn't have more than four or five black people

together at one time in one place without permission. There was a flash of an ancestral pain hearing her talk about what it means, you know, for her people to be surveilled, for her people to be afraid. People gathered around that snack shop to eat their traditional snacks and to meet with each other. It was another way of keeping culture alive, keeping culture going with a little bit of the sweetness from home. And so the fact that that is closed down means that's one less avenue for people here to keep in contact with their ancestral culture in that way, literally taking the sweetness of home away from folks. That was very powerful to me. It was a powerful statement. I think the other thing that hurt to hear was, you know, her losing her abuela.

I remember that feeling as well, too, you know, of not being able to see your grandma before she dies. I remember a very similar situation. We got the news that my grandma was sick while we were traveling. And by stopping at a pay phone, you know, in New Mexico to call home. And so, you know, her talking about sort of this hole that's left in her spirit, you can really hear it that's still left in her spirit because of the lack of closure with her grandmother and then sort of being pulled out of Mexico. I know that field. So much of this I related to, honestly. When we left Mississippi, for instance, in my

own story, I felt that I was being pulled out of Mississippi. I did not want to leave Mississippi. I certainly did not want to go to Oklahoma, which sounded like Okra to me, and I did not like Okra as a child. And that's all I knew. I did not want to go to this new place. Why do we have to do this?

Where are we going? And it seems like she had a similar situation, you know. But then she was going to New York City. I cannot imagine. Why? But You know, but just that, getting back to just that, the losing of her grandmother, the cutting off of that source of knowledge and wisdom. And what she said about it towards the end, it was, for me, most powerful was when she said, when you asked her, what would you ask your grandmother if she was still here?

And what would you say to her? And I think that she said something along the lines of, I want to know more. you know that I want to know more that there was there was more wisdom and knowledge and traditions there were so many questions that she still has um you know for her grandmother that she'll have to save for heaven and that was really powerful for me and then the last thing that and i did mention a little bit about the sampa sochi but uh i was really grateful to hear her talking about the care for the dead um that's so important just the whole idea that our care for our loved ones does not end at the grave and that through faith that we still are able to have a connection with them, though they don't need the things that we offer, of course, that we believe that they accept them and receive them as a prayer and, you know, as love sort of for their liberation and how the St. Vasocci, which, you know, was also always a sacred flower in the Aztec tradition sort of is.

involved with that welcoming of the dead back home. I think it was powerful. It shows how cultures blend, how cultures adapt, and how we continue to grow. You know, the blending of those two cultures that sort of the Catholic all souls and the Mayan and Aztec traditions around the dead. Very powerful, very affirming for me. And reminded me of, you know, our own African Catholic spirituality that we practice here at home. During the interview, a monarch came by, and to me the symbolism was very strong. Many people think about monarchs with our current kind of migration stories,

especially with what's going on with people coming up from further south and Mexico and beyond, and how to something like a butterfly or a seed, the borders are imaginary. And so to be able to see during our interview, you, you know, towards, I think this was towards the end of, maybe it was in the beginning of October. I don't remember a monarch kind of on its way back to Mexico. It felt very powerful to me. Historically, the movement of peoples in the Americas was really different than it is now.

And it makes me think of these generations of monarchs that overwinter down in Mexico and come up north here and into Canada and go back again within. a couple generations, a few generations, and trying to tap into that symbolism here around the knowledge and the seeds that come up from Mexico, and my hope is that they can go back and forth, you know, that it becomes easier for people to visit their abuelas, to visit their homelands, to visit their ancestral places and ancestral knowledge, and that it's not such a constricted violent thing. And, you know, the seeds move the same way, and both through space and time. And so kind of this is my hope and prayer for the free movement of peoples in this

continent, Turtle Island and Abiajala, where historically people were able to move knowledge, seeds, people, and so on, in a different way. Okay, as we sit here next to our ancestral altar with Marigolds, transporting you to the farm with Maria Hernandez about a month ago, sitting at a table next to her truck holding a box of chickens. My name is Maria Hernandez from Kro-Marndez. cruise family little farm and right now you in gilbersville where we have a one acre land and we're here today first of all because you're giving us some chickens for our house so thank you for that

no problem um they're beautiful chickens and we just get them this year and um they're part of our flag but you're welcome to get how many chickens you want right because you have 200 200 plus we we have chicken math we don't know how much we have. Well, I hear them flapping around in there. I'm excited to introduce him to our ladies back home. Yeah, we still have Paco. Paco's still alive and he's still in our house. Nice. We can't have roosters in Philadelphia, so we passed him along. I'm so happy to hear Paco's doing well. Well, I'm excited because I've wanted to interview for years now, interview you for years now, and this is my first time seeing your new farm space, and I'm excited to walk out there and look at

particular crops, but if you could start with just describing life back in Mexico and then we'll kind of go along your journey till you get here. I grew up in Morelos, Mexico. I was nine years when my parents decided to move to New York. I remember when I was little, it was like living with my grandma. It was like a paradise with a lot of fruit trees and a hammock and a nice river. were passing. So I used to love my life in Mexico. And then when we moved to New York, it was just buildings and garbage cans and it was very depressing. So when I got married with my husband Adolfo, we decided to move to PA so we can have our dream back of having a little land and some plants and our kids in there. So that's how everything starts.

you can go back in time, can you think of the most beautiful moments with your grandmother in the kitchen that you remember most fondly and most vividly and describe one or two of them? I remember every time I come from school, I go swimming in the river, come out from the river, and my grandma always making fresh homemade tortillas and a soup that is like a pasta, like an ABC soup with tomato. and then she will fry some dry peppers and she will tell me stories and talk about when she was little that's the best impact that I have from my grandma nice can you describe the making of the master and the tortillas we didn't have a meal in the house so she will prep the in the night and then in the morning she will walk like probably two

miles and there have a Molino and then they make the Massa you pay some money to make the Massa and then come back early in the morning and have the Massa ready in there for breakfast lunch and then in lunch you'll make your tortillas for dinner for people who aren't not familiar can you describe nixemal molina masa the nistamal is corn um you put it to boil with um some cal i don't know what is cal um like calcium like uh like uh lime with lime and then um you put it to boil and then you wash that and you wash that and and then have it ready for the next day to take it to the meal. And then in the meal, they'll grind it and make it to a kind of dough.

And that dough, you take it home, and then you make the fresh tortillas with that. So you had like a press? Like a press. And in that time, they used to not use press. They used to use their hands. So they make the tortilla with their own hands. And it's like clapping, like. and that's how they used to make their tortillas.

Okay, so did you watch your grandmother do that, or were you also clapping? I watched her do it. I would never able to clap and do the tortillas by hand. I used to grab two plates and press them and do the tortilla like that. Did you all have a garden? Did she have a garden at the house? She didn't get a garden, but she has a lot of fruit trees, almost like an orchard. And you can find from lemon tree, wava tree.

orange tree, grapefruit tree, mango, avocate or avocado, papaya, and other like wahes. It's like a vene with a lot of seeds on it that you can make salsa with it or some kind of cooking with pork and salsa in it. So we have all different trees in there, and I remember that we have so much grapefruits that at the beginning, when they start riping, you're like just waiting for them. But then at the end, you don't want to eat them anymore, and we use it as a soccer bowl. Nice. What other memories do you have of your grandmother in the kitchen that are very particular to your childhood that you don't see anymore now?

She used to put the water in a little clay pot and put it in the floor and when we used to drink water, the water was nice and cold, nice and fresh. You didn't need a refrigerator. The water was nice and it gave a different flavor. I remember that at that time we didn't have a refrigerator and we always have fresh products from everywhere. We leave where everybody was growing everything and we just exchanged things and if the neighbor has something, she will give us and then if we have a lot of avocados, we give them avocados. So we always exchanging and that's something that I remember when I was little. out of all the fruit trees in the orchard which one was your favorite and why i used to like the mangoes because the mangoes where my hammock was and i used to cut the mangoes always bring my soul and um tahin in that time it was not tahin it was another uh blend but i used to blame my my um powder

and my soul and sit down in the hammock and eat uh green mangoes and I used to love that. So it wasn't tahin, but it was some sort of chili-based powder? Yes. And then of all the things you would trade with the neighbors, like, do you remember what your favorite thing to receive from a neighbor was in terms of food that you didn't grow at your house? I remember that we have a neighbor that they grow strawberries.

And in that time, strawberries were like, some kind of luxury fruit. So the neighbor has a few plants of strawberries, and she gives us like two strawberries. And I remember cut it in little pieces and put it in my mouth little by little to enjoy every single buy of the strawberry. For people who don't know where your hometown is,

can you describe that area and what makes that part of Mexico special? I'm from Morelos and Morelos is Kuwokla and in Kuwkla is Casa Sano. Casasano they make

sugar so they bring a lot of people there because they always need help and they always produce jobs in there and then they grow a lot of products in there. They grow the tomatoes, the mushrooms,

peppers so it's a in the temperature they call it as um the eternity spring city the weather is always beautiful in there it's never cold it's never had and you find a lot of rivers so water everywhere that you go so that's what i think is make my town and my city the most beautiful sugar cane at a small scale as well or was it all like really large plantation style or like large farms of sugar cane I saw plant plants from probably a quarter of acre to I don't know many many acres so I think they do in a small scales too for their own pleasure and to put it in the ponche It is a Mexican drink that we drink in the posadas in December.

So it's very popular. And the main ingredient in our ponche, it's canna or sugar can. What else goes into ponche? Tejokotes is almost like a little apple fruit, guayava, wava. And some people put tamarindo, other people put. Jamaica and also they put fruit. You can put apples or you can put pears, orange. So it depends on where you grow and how you like it. I like mine with tejoquotes, cana, guayava, tamarindo, and manzanas. Now that they're bringing a lot of different products from Mexico and

from California, we can make our own puncher here. What do you remember about leaving and coming to the U.S. about that time? You're going to make me cry. I remember leaving my grandma, and she was very upset because we were leaving. and it was me my brother and my mom and she was already here and she went to pick us and we stayed with my grandma for two years but I lived my whole life with my grandma and living my grandma was I think one of the big impacts in my life because she was like my mother and not be able to see or be with her when she died so that was the

more impacting in my life so when you left that was the last time you saw her yes how did you stay in touch with her yeah how did you stay in touch with her I used to call her, I talked to her, send her gifts, and even before she died, I talked to her, and she remembers me, and it was nice to be able to at least talk to her in the phone. When you tell your children about her, like what is most important for you to tell them? I told them that she was my mother and she took care of me and she was very patience because I was not a very I was very difficult kid and she always have the patience with me and always teaching me things she showed me how to embroider. I remember that she always sat down and have the patience. And when I make a napkin that she used to sell them, and if she sells the napkins that I make,

she will buy me something good for eat. And she always told the people that I embroidered that. So people right away buy it because I was like seven or eight years old. What kind of treat would she get you when she'd sell your napkin? Oh, I loved chicken kassadillas. Tinga chicken cassadillas. It's a homemade tortilla with wahaka cheese and tinga de pollo. And it's the tinga de pollo is just shredded chicken with chippotle sauce and onions.

And it was the best thing I remember as a little kid. What was life like when you moved to Brooklyn? How would you describe that time? It was very gray. I remember that we went to school. I was not speaking the language. My teacher was speak to language, so he would speak Spanish and he helped me understand. And my brother has a lot of trouble because he couldn't.

attack and the language and the culture and then we didn't have no friends and then it was hard to get adapted and then the food was different and my parents work all day long they worked from 7 in the morning to 7 at nighttime and we were there all by ourselves all day long so it was it was hard were there other people in a similar situation around you like did you have community at that time no because I'm this is 30 years ago so when we moved to New York there were more Italians living in there some Puerto Ricans but there was not a lot of Spanish people living in New York in Brooklyn New York so We were, um, we were like very little and then the church was in English only.

So, um, it was, it was difficult because we didn't have other community to get support of it. What are the ways that you sometimes did feel at home or felt like something familiar was there? In New York? Um, I think the only thing familiar was my parents, with us and trying to I see all the sacrifice that they make for us working all those hours and dreaming going back to our country and keep saying that oh if we save enough maybe in two years we leave and that's what it's keeping us going and did you ever get close to going back no life changed for me for my

parents. They have another baby when I was 14 years old. So my sister was born at that time and we wouldn't never make it to go back to Mexico. How did your family keep the food traditions alive? My mom loved to cook and they just had the food. The food that she makes was part of her life and I still remember her when I cook because she always teach me that when you cook or you do something with the person that you love you remember them so she whenever time she cooks she remember where she works or who teach her that recipe or how she learned that recipe so she told me that with the smells and making that food bring you back

where you learn it. Do you remember any of her stories while cooking? Like what kind of memories it brought back for her? Yeah, she used to work in a restaurant and every time she makes a food because the way that my grandma used to cook, we call it the port way, just beans and salsa and tortillas. But the way that my mom learned to cook,

because she works in a restaurant. She cooked like Ceviche, fry fish, some different guisados. So she learned different ways. So every time she cooked, she was like, oh, I learned this in this place, and I was only 17 years old, and they teach me how to do it.

And she will tell me her stories every time that she will cook something. What was your favorite dish that your mother would make? Chiles rechennos. That was the best. And stream beans. Tertas de Ejote and Tertas de Papa. Tartas de Papa is just mash. It's like potato panquets. Almost like potato panquets. You mash the potato, put some cheese, rice, and make the poundkei, fry them. And then you can put salsa verde or you can put adobe. whatever is your your favorite sauce that you want to add and Dota de Jote is the same thing you boil the stream beans drain them as much as you can and then put cheese in the middle and then with egg butter just kind of deeper in it and fry them and then with green salsa or salsa verde and it tastes so good. Do you make these dishes now? I cannot do the stream beans at all because they are, if you

don't strain them well, all the water and the oil will make a big mess in your kitchen. But I do the chili reyenos and I do the tortas de papa. So the stuffed chilies. And it's just like pulano pepper. You smoke it or toast it and then take the skin out. and then you open it, put your favorite cheese, and then with the egg butter, you just dip it on it and fry them. And then usually we eat it with tomato sauce and white rice. How did you end up on a farm? Like, you talk about the gray experience of New York City, and did you ever imagine you would be a farmer when you grew up? No, when I...

Mary, my husband, we always dream. We always sit down in our apartment. Apartment was two bedrooms and a living room. And we used to sit down in their dream that we want a little house with a small backyard. So we can put a grill and do barbecue and our kids are playing in the backyard. And then when we decide to move to PA, we have a backyard. and we can put our grill but it was too small and we couldn't grow any plants so then we decided to buy a bigger house and in that house we have two acres of land but one of one acre

he used for his work and then the other another piece is for the house and then I have like probably a quarter of an acre for myself everything started like a joke because he says I told him one day I'm going to grow everything that we're eating at least 50% of what we're eating in our in our plate I'm going to grow it and he laughed about me and that turns me very upset and I'm like I'm going to show you that I can grow at least half of what we're eating in our plate I start growing and we have so much and we're just giving it away and one lady came and says why are you giving your staff away why you don't sell it and at least get money back for your seats and everything that you need to plant more and I was like that's a good idea so she signed me in in a farmer's market and I bring my stuff and from now on I start doing it in my house taking courses because I didn't know nothing about growing plants and then I met Owen and he gave me the contact for the the person that they're renting me, this farm, and now I'm here for two years.

Can we back up to your husband? Can you say a little bit about how you met? I met my husband when I was 21. He was a taxi driver. His brother was my friend, and I told his brother that he's going to be my husband, and he's like, no, not my little brother. And then one year later, we're married and getting ready to have a baby. And we, in New York, I was living with my mom and my dad. And when I met him, we decided to buy, because he was already a taxi driver, we decided to buy another taxi so we can have a taxi business. and we have now two taxis that we are working on it. But I feel like that was not the life that I want.

I want to be in a place that I can go out and sit down outside and listen to the birds and don't worry about the neighbors and that's what I was pitching. and I told him what I want to do and he told me that he is the same idea and because he grew up raising cows and goats and growing corn and hamika and sesame seeds and peanuts, cacahuate. So he has this idea in him and I didn't know. Every time he told me stories about how he was growing and how much fun he has, something in me want to do the same thing, and that's why we decided to move here. How did you know you were going to marry him so soon? I don't know. I kind of, I'm the kind of person that if I like something or I want something,

I work for it and I know the universe always give me what I want. So I saw him and I know that he was going to be my husband. It's kind of weird, but I did. I did see him and told universe I want him as my husband and look at me. Love at first sight. I saw him a few times. But yeah, and I even, it was bad because I even, I have one cousin. And he don't like me to tell this story.

But I have one cousin and I told him, I bet you that he's going to be my husband in a few months. And she's like, how much you want to bet? And I'm like, a case of beer. And she's like, okay. So he was my bed and he hates that I told this story. But he was my bed. And still, I'm still living with my bed. he's a very wonderful charming bet and then we met because you were in one of these courses

that you told us about with grow NYC yes I took a class um beginning farming with grow YNC from New York they teach me from financials to growing things and then at the end of the course it would They will take you to different farms and experience, the real farm experience, and they take us to your farm to see how safe seeds. And that's where I met you, and I fell in love with you. I have that first sight. Yeah, so since that, we become friends, and I really love having you as a friend. I love it too I'm so grateful

and so yeah there's also another bet in there that you had mentioned I'm realizing you bet about your husband and you bet about feeding your family

half of the plate from your own land so you're a betting woman I'm the kind of person when I told they tell them no you cannot do it it's like telling me

like go ahead and do it I don't like people telling me that I can um everything that you want in life you can so don't let nobody tell you that you can isn't you're you have the power to do whatever you want amen and so you came to our seed saving workshop we became friends now we see each other many times a year your family and mine and you grow seeds for our seed catalog and so can you tell us a little bit about what it's been like to save these seeds, how it's felt? It feels good because you're telling your story and at the same time

you're sharing your culture with other communities. So that's the good thing of saving seeds and selling it in your catalog. Yeah, and I know people have been very grateful to access these varieties, people who are longing for home the way that you have been longing for home. A bigger part of your business is selling to your community. Can you describe that? Yeah, I have a small community right here where I leave, but the community that I have, they're very grateful for the things that we're growing, especially there's a few things that is very difficult to get fresh, and it's the floor of calabaza, the pumpkin flower. And we grow the same pumpkin flower that you grown home the big Mexican squash the flowers are

very big and very thick so when you cut them and make them in your dishes they don't disappear in your in your pen because when you use other different kind of squash or pumpkin flowers they are very thin and they kind of disappear in your in your dishes but this kind of pumpkin flour is the same thing that we eat and people are very happy this year we grow so many that our community were able to come and grab them and we sell to a lot of people and also the little zucchini they're round I feel like the flavor doesn't change between zucchini's but just to have that kind of zucchini that reminds you're your your your your your country it makes a big difference so we grow that and people were coming and pick it up and happy because there's that you cannot find it in in the supermarket and how do people learn about you and these these like Mexican specialties um right now is mouth to mouth because um a lot of the

people that follow me in facebook they're not from around here so um usually it's like i told a friend and that friend told their friend, and they call me, and that's right now how they're finding me. What's your Facebook for people that want to follow? Cruise family little farm. That's Facebook and that's Instagram and that's TikTok too. Does your church community intersect with your farm work at all? This year, I involved them to come and pick it up. I told myself that I was going to do something like that. So I invite people and told them to bring their basket and people that they never, they even know that I'm doing this.

So they came with their basket and they, I told them what they can grab and they cut their own vegetables and they were so happy because they can bring home fresh vegetables from our farm. And that was just a small group, probably like 12 people. I was so proud that I can give our community a little bit of what we're doing this way. And I hope by next year we're able to bring more people and they can harvest their own staff and take it home and go happy, no charge. I know that this year it's gotten more difficult to connect with your community because of the political climate. And I'm wondering if you can share anything about that. We have to close our snack bar. We have a snack bar in Patstown.

We have to close it because our sales went down because our community being target and people doesn't want to go out, doesn't want to get out, doesn't want to spend money. So we were forced to close that. place we were selling um mexican snacks in there but now we use in that kitchen only to prep um giving value added to our products like we make salsas picos salsa verde make different things from our own farm but yeah this is a tough time for my community right now yeah we've been praying for some kind of change to happen so that people feel comfortable leaving their home at home in this country.

So what we could do maybe is go out and visit some of these important crops and hear more about how you grow them, how you use them, why they're important, so that people can learn about the varieties that you offer in the True Love Seeds catalog but also to your community here locally. Sure, let's go. This is our regular papado that we grow. every year with the big leaf but right now because it was a little bit of cold this last night the leaf are a little bit brown we're expecting any seats because right now our papalo it's almost

it's more tall than me it's probably like six feet six feet um the papalo and we already cut a lot of it so we can sell, give it to family, and eat ourselves. But we have no seats yet, so. And the way we eat papalo, we just, I like to make picaditas. It's a fresh corn tortilla with salsa on top, cheese, and then we eat it with papalo, or people put it in their sandwiches inside, and they call it semitas. and you tried the papalot at our farm which we got from someone else and you

had you approved of it which was a big deal for me because you're the papolo expert yeah that papalos was less spicy more soft and it's kind of purple too that one or is green like this one it was it was very good and ours is has um is covered in flower course now. So I'm hopeful that we get some seeds. And if we do, of course, we'll give them to you. Yeah, so the way looking, I don't think we're going to have any papalo seeds this year.

Can you harvest any of this to eat at this point? Yeah, the taps. The tops are still nice and fresh, so you can still eat it. The bottom's already brown and black and has some kind of fungus already because it's late on the season. and you cannot eat it, but the top is still nice and fresh, so you can eat them. For people who've never heard of Papolo, which is a lot of people in this country, how would you describe the flavor? I always said the flavor is almost like eating, like putting three leaves together. Watercress, spinach, and some kind of kale all together, put it together,

and that's how papalo tastes for me wow because to me it really tastes like cilantro but that wasn't one of your leaves no no cilantro is um completely completely different yeah so for me it's some kind of kale watercress and spinach nice okay now is this your special cilantro here yeah this is the cilantro macho uh this year uh this year didn't go grow as bigger usually grows the same size as the papalos six feet five feet but this year because we've been cutting so much um for our salsas it stays very short but um at the beginning of the season we grow in the other plat we grow cilantro and that one grows very big i have some pictures and we collect the seats already for that wonderful back to papaloo for one moment if you

were to go home with a bunch of this today what would you what's your favorite way to eat it um i would eat it with uh cecina salsa and beans cecina it's a um asex way of um preserve uh beef so they make a very thing and then they put salt and manteca lard and they put it in the sun and they let it turn like dark brown or dark black the meat and then fold it and you can put it in your house and was they've good for at least two weeks and before they used to let it dry so they don't go bad but um we just let it taste that um how you call like that dryness and then when you put it in your pan it tastes delicious and how would you prepare the papolo to go in that dish it just you just eat it like that like spinach you just grab it

wash it and you put a bite of beans and then you put leaves in your mouth and you chew it all together. So you just have sprigs of Papolo next to your plate. Uh-huh. Yeah. How did you learn about Aztec food ways? My mom. My mom and my grandma, she tells us how to, that's tradition. Tradition, and tradition, that's how we learn the different Aztec plate. Okay. Where should we go next? Sempasuchin? Mm-hmm. So this is our San Pasuchil, Marigold, Floor de Muerto. And I like to grow it because I like the smell.

It reminds me when I was little in Mexico and my grandma used to make this walkways for the Day of the Dead and she'll make this crosses with the petals of the flower. the flower and the smell it's a smell that you can never forget once you smell it and our house used to smell like that flower all the time did she have the flowers in the house all the time I know we used to buy them and I remember we used to buy big big bunch like as big as my arm and she'll take the petals out like this and then make a walkway with the petals and then in the front of the house she'll make a cross

and then she'll put it in the altar to flowers and petals so our house smells like sampasuchi so where was the pathway to and from from the entrance of the house that said that we have a gate from the gate of the main entrance of the house to the door of the house and that's how the petal goes and then inside the house she will put flowers and she will put more petals on top of the altar and what is the purpose of the petals to show your loved ones their way to the house so your ancestors would find their way home yes and then you show them the altar and in the altar you offer them their favorite food water candle and then once that they finish next day you take it out and you eat it yourself or you

give it away so do you remember any of those dishes like what your ancestors favorite dishes were that would be on the altar? My grandma always have PPN. It's a very old-fashioned dish. I don't know if they still make it. It's made with pumpkin seeds. Some people make it with chicken. Some people make it with pork. And then they make tamales. The senisa is just plain, plain, um, um, dough with some salt and larva and they put it together and you eat it and other people just put a mass inside the dish so instead of making tamales they just throw the mass on it but it's a very old dish I never see them in the restaurants or I only see it with families and friends that

they make it do you remember whose favorite dishes these were? I don't remember. I just remember that my grandma used to put them and Mule is one of the bigger dish that you see it in all the families in Mexico. But I don't know, I don't remember whose dishes were for. What dishes do you put on your altar now? Right now I just put, I make, I put bread. I put, um, my mom used to smoke. So I put, um, I put, um, my mom used to smoke. So I put cigarettes on it. I put um candles and I make dulce de calabasa that was my man's favor that's just pumpkin with sugar and cinnamon and people make it in the oven I make it in a pot and then just let the the sugar dissolve and the pumpkin

cook and but I don't really make big dishes for them I know that it's it's bad but I only sugarcoat them it still sounds nice a cigarette and a sweet pumpkin and fruit a lot of fruit we put in Mexico you put sugar cans orange mandarines you put a lot of fruit in the altar so that's what the same thing we do we put bananas orange whatever fruit is in season we put in there for them. Okay, and so some of these flowers that are going to bloom in the next few weeks will be made in your house into a path for your ancestors?

If we got lucky and we don't have froze and we're trying to cover them before the frost come, yeah, they're going to be able to be in my altar. Last year, we have so much beautiful flowers. It was beautiful. And then the frost came, and when I came to pick them up, they were all dead. So I know you're still trying to figure out the timing for it to work. I know that the frost here is consistently before the day of the dead. So how do you think you'll try next year?

I'm trying to see if I can buy a little hoop house and put it in there and put them in pads so that way we can be able to keep it alive or just keep it short, trying to trim them and make a little hoop with froze clot so that way the froze doesn't kill them. So I'm doing thinking different ways, but I'm not sure yet. Where do you get the flowers if you don't grow them yourself for a day of the dead? Usually you found them in the Mexican stores. You found them. We have family that comes from New York, so New York, you can find anything.

So over there, you will get little parts of flowers, and then you just take the petals and make the part for them. Okay. Some of these Sempasocio flowers are past their prime and moving towards seed production. And so can you explain the best way to save seeds from them? Sure. I like to save seeds when they are completely dry. I don't like them when they're green because there's difficult to clean them so when they're completely dry it's very easy you just take the tap let's find one that is very dry

right here this one this one is very dry and then you will take the head the petals like this all completely out and then once you take all the petals you can open it and then you have your seats and it's completely clean you don't have to um how you call it when you we know we know you don't have to winnow or do anything you you have your your seats ready and then if you trying to cut them when they're green there is a little bit more difficult because when you're trying to take the petals sometimes you take seats with you look there's a monarch on one of your Sempaso shield oh yeah they're pretty when you open it you still have some petals and it's a little bit more difficult to clean

so you do the cleaning here in the field once the petals are black basically you can easily separate them from the seats yes and sometimes when if you are lucky enough you can find one with no petals and you just can take them out let's see we can find one with no petals and they're ready to this one you see this one is no petals it's ready to harvest And it's already, you just open it and you have your seats. Beautiful. You don't have to do nothing. Has it been a good seed year for this crop?

Yes, yes. We planted very early. This one we planted in May. And we've been collecting a lot of seats. The only thing that I did run is that I let the weeds take over. So it's kind of hard to harvest seats in the middle of these weeds. but we have a lot of flowers this year we have hikama that I'm growing this year thanks to you because we got seats last year and you planted in your in your farm and we ate fresh hikamas

so I want to mimic this year planting it in here but where I planted is a jungle so I don't know if you want to try yeah let's go to the jungle While we're walking, you have a couple other varieties in our catalog, a bean and the Epizote, where you did have success one year. So I'm wondering if you could say a little about those two. Epasote is one of my favorite herbs. We use it for everything. That's like our magic earth.

We use it for soups for chilaquiles. We use it for kids when they're sick from the stomach. use it for our chickens when they have some kind of bug disease in their stomach like if you see parasites in your chickens you give them a pasote they eat it fresh you you don't have to do nothing but if they don't like it you can put it in their water boil some water and put it in their water and kills the disease is very strong so um this year we didn't have luck on because it was too wet in our lot but maybe next year we'll bring them back it's the jungle so this is our hikama so we have probably like six plants in here I'm not

sure when it's ready to harvest them because this is my first year growing them I know last year you grow them but I don't know when you took them out I took them out right before the frost so you probably could even wait i'm guessing you wait a little longer since they're underground but we just took them when we knew the frost was coming the next day and um i trying to trellis them but um because so many things that i'm doing um i didn't try us the right way so they're all in the floor how do you use hickama uh we use hikama fresh we like it um in our salads or we like it just like that We peel the hikama, we put some lemon and salt, and eat it as a snack.

It's juicy, kind of light sweetness at the end, and it's very crunchy. And it's right next to the Hamaika, which is you use for beverages. Yeah, our Hamaika, I think is late too. It took a long time to take off. It took off, but we don't have no flowers. So I don't think we're going to have hamaika flour this year, but thanks to you, we're learning to eat the leaf. So every time we're here, we're here, we snack on the leaf. They taste like sour and they have a good taste, so we're just snacking on the leaf.

And even my kids make videos of it because they never try it. And every time they come and visit me, they just snacking on the leaf. they just snack on the leaf in there. So delicious. And then right behind us is this beautiful green tomatillo. Yeah, our tomatillo, we grow them everywhere. We have them in different plots because we use tomato for everything too. And it's number one.

So at the farmer's market and we make salsas with it and we can the salsas and we make salsas fresh. So we can we can sell it different ways. the canned salsa it lasts a whole year in your pantry and the fresh salsa it only lasts one week but it's number one sell in our farm the best seller for someone who's never used tomatoes fresh how would you describe the easy way to start um the only way i know how to use it it's making salsa and our salsa it goes in everything that we eat so it's just the tomato you has like a little huss and then you take that huss away and then you wash it and I don't rust it because it's it's more water so when you

rusted it disappears in your pan so what I do is I kind of put it on hot water and as soon as the water, it's boiled, I turn it off and take them out, and then roast the jalapenos and put some garlic in the blender, and then blend it, and then you have a nice green salsa, and then you can use it in your soups, you can use it in your dishes. So this is the, like, the basic start for a lot of dishes. Thank you. And actually back to the Hamaica, which we call Roselle, if you had the red fruits what would you do with them um if i have the red fruit i will dry them and then every time we want something refreshing i will boil some water put them in there let the water rest drain the flowers out and put some sugar and ice on the on the water that left from the

the flowers and you have awa de jamaika and so do you put the whole fruit in there or you peel the outer part of the flowers off and put that in just the petals okay so not the petals of the flower but the petals of the fruit because it's the red fruit like thing right

that you harvest yes but I don't know if they have some kind of green thing and or it's just the flower yeah there's a green fruit inside it's really the calyx that's red it's called the calyx yeah that's that's what we use just that and then um boil it with a little bit of sugar okay i know some people like in the caribbean they put in like ginger and um what else um different spices and stuff do you ever do that kind of thing or just sugar just sugar just sugar

the way it tastes you don't need add nothing else and um and you can use it for your ponche too nice is there anything else that you want to share or how would you like to end the episode the only thing I want to share is that feel proud of who you are and always put attention to your elders because when they're not there you're going to miss what they're teaching you and they're not there to ask them to repeat that so whatever the oldest person in your family is is the one that carried all that tradition. If your grandmother was here today, what would you say to her? Thank you and I want to learn more because I didn't have that time to learn everything that she knows. And my grandma was

a person that it was white with hasten eyes and her grandma was white with green eyes. So I don't know where they came from. We never, I never have the question to us. her what the sense they came that why are there different color than us oh hope someday you can figure it out but thank you so much for taking this time and for sharing with the younger generations with with everybody about what's important to you where you come from and how to use these delicious foods from Mexico thank you for coming here and it's a beautiful day and thank you for for being present in our farm.

Thank you for being a friend. Thank you so much to Maria Hernandez and the Hernandez-Cruz family. And thank you for listening and sharing this episode of Seeds and their people with your loved ones. Please share this episode with someone you know and love and subscribe to our show in your favorite podcast app. Thank you also for helping our seedkeeping and storytelling work by leaving us. us a review and also ordering seeds t-shirt and more from our website true loveseeds.com and again if you'd like to support our podcast for one dollar or more monthly please join our patreon at patreon.com slash true love seeds and again like chris said if you like our episode or if you don't

we'd love to hear from you we put a lot of time into these and they kind of go out into the ether and I know that people are listening and we'd just love to hear about it. Send us a note. And remember, keeping seeds is an act of true love for our ancestors and our collective future. God bless.

God bless.