One reason to visit Tucson: Mission Garden

An unassuming city proud of its idiosyncrasies, Tucson may not at first glance seem like a place of global gastronomic fame.

But a closer look reveals that Arizona’s second-largest city might be one of the most important food destinations you’ll ever visit. Tucson is a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy – the only one in the US – thanks to the abundance of “heritage crops” that have supported locals since time immemorial (more on this later) and the essentially Tucsonan flavors shaped by people from all around.

And there’s no place that will help you better understand the soul of this city than the Mission Garden, a living agricultural museum that highlights the bounty of the Sonoran Desert, the introduced crops that flourished here, and the culture these plants helped create.

This space is perhaps one of the most carefully curated museums I’ve ever visited, and it’s more than just a lovely place for a stroll – this is a working garden that provides food to indigenous elders, local chefs and charities from around the world. Tucson, and it is an outdoor classroom for people who want to cultivate their own relationship with the Sonoran Desert.

Tucson’s Native History

The Mission Garden is located in an area known as Cuk Ṣon, the native O’odham land from which the city of Tucson eventually emerged. When you step through the gates, you enter sacred territory.

Much of the garden is dedicated to the foods that have been central to local indigenous culture for thousands of years, and you can’t help but marvel as you browse the rows of towering corn stalks, spiky agave, striped squash and small-but-mighty tepary beans. How come all this is growing in a desert? The answer: Tucson sits on an ancient floodplain with good soil, and the native people here have been meticulous in its care and conservation.

Cultural Outreach Liaison and Gardener Meagan Lopez, a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation, emphasizes the importance of keeping these foodways alive, both for indigenous people and those who have come to Tucson.

“For the O’odham, I think it’s really important to re-establish these connections because this is something that has been part of our culture and our history for thousands of years, from the beginning of time.” she says. “It is important to me, at least, to continue growing these foods and offering them to people who understand their value, who will seize the opportunity to taste them and share them with others.”

And for Lopez, these plants do more than just nourish the body; they have taught the O’odham important life lessons. Take agave, for example, one of her favorite plants.

“It looks like something spiky and pointy. It looks very aggressive. But it is also very nutritious; it’s very sweet,” says Lopez, smiling at the sword-like leaves. “And it’s part of our story as desert dwellers. It teaches us to be desert dwellers so that we can reach our full potential, whether it’s the amount of water we consume, choosing the best place to live (or showing) how healthy we can be if we encounter extreme temperatures. ”

Visitors to the garden can share in the love for agave themselves. Learn how to plant, roast or process the agave into food in one of the many workshops in the garden that focus on indigenous dishes and preparations.

A global influence on the ancient Pueblo

As essential as indigenous tradition has been to the development of Tucson’s gastronomy, it has not been the only influence. People from Europe, Africa, Mexico and China have brought their own specific crops to this corner of the desert, and the combination of all these foods has created a cuisine of international importance.

The garden plots demonstrate that diversity: the Spanish colonial orchard contains an abundance of lush fruit trees that thrive in the desert winter (figs, pomegranates, Valencia oranges, grapefruits), while the Africa section of the Americas is a vast field of yams. basil, gourds, moringa trees and chickpeas. The Mexican plot highlights drought-tolerant crops such as summer corn, winter wheat, chili peppers and cacti, and the Chinese garden hosts daikon, bitter melon, jujube trees and goji berries.

Each community played an important role in Tucson’s development; Chinese residents, for example, helped spark a more diverse restaurant scene early on.

“By 1900, there were already Chinese restaurants in Tucson, foreshadowing the restaurant diversity and city of gastronomy we have become today,” said Kendall Kroesen, Mission Garden’s outreach coordinator. “And some of them became farmers in these floodplains in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, growing crops that they could sell to Mexican and Anglo-Americans in what is now downtown Tucson. They were among the first commercial farmers here.”

The Mission Garden and the Age of Climate Change

While much of the garden’s design reflects the city’s history, it is also progressive. “If you don’t know what happened in the past, you don’t know what is possible for the future,” says Kroesen.

Tucson’s UNESCO application emphasized the fact that its ecosystem and gastronomic traditions could be immensely valuable to other places as the world’s weather patterns change, a philosophy that points to the concept of climate analogs – algorithms that link a City 1 to a City 2 currently experiencing weather conditions that City 1 may have in the future.

And the desert can be a volatile place: dry to a flash flood, extremely hot and giving way to extreme cold. But flora and fauna have adapted to these challenging conditions, and for Lopez, being aware of these shifts is an essential part of moving forward in the age of climate change.

“The relationship with nature here in the desert is overwhelming,” she says. “You find new appreciation for sunlight and warmth, even for the coolness and the cold. We can sense these different things, so it’s not that scary or cumbersome to think about how we can adapt to what’s changing in our environment. Things have always changed.”

How to visit the Mission Garden

Visiting the Mission Garden is as easy as attending: admission is always free and most classes and events won’t cost you a dime. You can book a guided tour with a docent (highly recommended), or wander through the rows on your own.