Edible flowers commercialized in local markets of Pachuca de Soto, Hidalgo, Mexico

Abstract

Background: Edible flowers are important food resources due to their high content of nutrients and bioactive compounds. In Mexico these resources have been part of the diet of indigenous and mestizo, and are also important sources of income for the families that cultivate, gather and sell them.
 Questions: What are the species of edible flower commercialized in local markets in Pachuca de Soto, Hidalgo, Mexico? How are they prepared? What are their nutritional contents and conservation risk categories according to literature?
 Studied species: Agave salmiana, A. mapisaga, Aloe vera, Arbutus xalapensis, Chenopodium berlandieri subsp.nuttalliae, Cucurbita pepo ssp. pepo, C. moschata, Dasylirion acrotrichum, Erythrina americana, Euphorbia radians, Myrtillocactus geometrizans, Phaseolus coccineus, Yucca filamentosa.
 Study site and dates: Local markets of Pachuca de Soto, Hidalgo, Mexico. January 2019 to March 2020.
 Methods: Interview-purchase with sellers and direct observations in markets. Bibliographic review of the nutritional contents of the recorded species and their conservation status.
 Results: We recorded 13 species of edible flowers and eight preparation methods. Five species are cultivated, five are gathered from the pine-oak forest or xerophilous scrub ecosystems and three are obtained from crops and natural ecosystems. The gualumbos (Agave salmiana and A. mapisaga) are the most commercialized flowers and had the most forms of preparation (six). Seven of the species traded are placed in a conservation risk category.
 Conclusions: The diversity of edible flowers used, and their preparation methods exemplify the traditional knowledge of the groups that handle them and their importance as food and economic sustenance.

Ethnobotany in Iturbide, Nuevo León: The Traditional Knowledge on Plants Used in the Semiarid Mountains of Northeastern Mexico

“…Finally, through the Fidelity Index, the relative importance of each species i in a specific medicinal category is calculated, with respect to the total degree of consensus among the informants. It is calculated as: FL(%)= Ip/Iu (100), where: Ip= total number of interviewees who independently indicated the use of specie i to treat the disease particular; and Iu= corresponds to the frequency of informants who mention the specie i to counteract a specific disease, within a category of specific medicinal use .…”

“…Agave americana is also cultivated in Ecuador as a live fence to delimit land for grazing and farming [97]. The flowers of this and other species of Agave are eaten cooked, including A. salmiana and A. mapisaga (called "gualumbos"), both species are two of the most commercialized flowers and with the largest number of ways of cooking in popular cuisine of origin Otomí, in the Center of Mexico (Pachuca, Hidalgo; [100]).…”

“…Their resistant stems and thorny, leathery leaves cannot be easily broken by domestic cattle, and they reach up to 4 m in height. In addition, their flowers are edible and provide delicious seasonal food; which is also consumed in the Center of the country in the State of Hidalgo [100]. In drier areas of Iturbide, dried stems from Fouquieria splendens are widely used as barriers, for instance, to fence goats and chickens.…”

Montañas, Milpas Y Platillos De Oaxaca, México: Una Aproximación Al Territorio Desde La Cocina

“…Es común que los quelites provengan de pueblos aledaños a la ciudad, los elotes y el fruto de la calabaza pueden variar, algunos vendedores sí traen el producto de esta misma u otras regiones de Oaxaca, algunos inclusive de otros estados, destacando Puebla. Los mercados locales representan un acervo genético de la agrobiodiversidad de la zona, donde se comercializa e intercambian productos y conocimientos locales (FIGUEREDO-URBINA et al 2022).…”

Diversity and traditional knowledge of pulque agave landraces in the community of San Pedro Tlalcuapan, Tlaxcala, Mexico

“…Studies on the morphological diversity of agave plants have been based on measuring all possible morphological -mainly vegetative-characteristics. Reproductive traits are hard to observe because the floral scape is removed by peasants for the consumption of flowers and the floral scape but mainly to stimulate the accumulation of sugars in the stem in order to produce sap (Figueredo-Urbina, Álvarez-Ríos, & Zárraga-Cortés, 2021). Little research has been conducted on how peasants identify their landraces (Colunga-GarcíaMarín & May-Pat, 1993;Ramírez-Manzano et al, 2020).…”