Eating Cactus and Other Desert Edibles(Yucca, Ocotillo) -Junkyard Fox

hello everyone James from junkyard Fox thank you so much for joining me we are out here on a desert hike now it is currently late spring / early summer and a lot of these plants are fruiting their flowering they're blooming you know it's around that time of year where they're getting a lot of sunlight there's we're getting some rain so we're gonna take advantage of that and we're gonna do some foraging so for you vegetarians out there this video is for you so I'm gonna walk you through a couple of the staple plants that we look for and I'm gonna give you guys information on them gather some and then we're gonna cook them right up so thank you for joining me let's get started okay so let's begin with one of my favorite plants now this right here is the Ocotillo plant and these are very easy to identify they look like long spindly fingers growing up out of the ground and they have spines on them leading some people to believe that there is species of cactus they are in fact not a species of cactus now the reason we're here is for these flowers during spring and early summer they bloom these vibrant red beautiful flowers and you can consume those or you can make them into a tea and that's what we're gonna do now a little bit of a side note is these spindly fingers these these limbs the old-time ranchers used to cut them off and used to plant them because they can cultivate them and they will take root and they will grow making something of a living fence for their livestock or for their garden now we're not gonna do that but that is an interesting note for some of you homesteaders out there you can do that now let's go back to these flowers once again we're gonna consume them now just be careful because of course they are flowers so they're gonna attract pollinators such as bees and of course there's gonna be predators going after the bees so there might be a spider there so just look out um but yeah we're just gonna gather some of these to brew now you don't want to get too much of them because I've noticed that if you're if you get a small amount such as these the tea will taste like chamomile its pleasant now in case you get too much flowers you just put way too much in there it's gonna taste like dish soap and it's not very enjoyable so this is a perfect balance right here this is we're gonna take [Music] okay so time to talk about our second plant and you've seen this plenty of times in my previous videos this is the yucca plant right here and there are so many uses for this particular plant now let's go starting from the bottom now have you seen me before dig up the roots shave them off and then wet them and you can make soap out of them that's what the natives would use to make shampoo on body wash or wash their clothes and they contain a chemical compound called saponins and that's what makes the soap so good source of desert hygiene is the roots but we're not focusing on that moving upwards you see all these fibers right here and some of the dead stalks that makes excellent tinder bundle step that makes excellent tinder to get a fire started right away very easy to make very easy to gather they're everywhere so that's easy way to get a fire going now let's move up to these spikes now these spikes you got to be careful because they are quite sharp at the end but these spikes you can cut them you can pound them down and the inside fibers can be made into cordage and it makes really strong cordage and rope is extremely underrated when you're outdoors it helps you set up a shelter it helps you make traps that kind of stuff so we've shown that previously but today we're gonna focus on the food aspect and that's up there you see all those bright green fruits now two months ago you saw us make a video where we cut up a stalk and we cooked it now if you leave the stock alone and you let it grow it'll flower into these brilliant white flowers and they are edible as well in time those flowers become these fruits and we're gonna gather some of these fruits and we're gonna bake them now I'm not gonna lie to you guys these fruits are some of my least favorite desert food I particularly do not like them but you know what it's they're not running away so you don't have to go through all the trouble and an expenditure of energy and calories trying to catch a rabbit you know when they're these you could just gather so we're gonna go gather a couple of these fruits and we're gonna bake them up okay just look for a fruit that doesn't seem to have any holes in it from bugs or anything like that just give it a couple of twists you could use your knife as well but you don't necessarily need to off that open and there we go now I'm not gonna be greedy with them because of course the wild life depends upon these foods we don't necessarily need to but I'm just gonna take about two of them couple of twists there we go so moving on to our next plant and is the most abundant plant out here the prickly pear cactus now have you've seen us use this plant for a lot of things particularly a food source but longtime viewers will know that you're able to use one of these pads a larger fatter one hollow it out fill it with water and you can boil that water to make make an improvised drinking container now right now once again we're focusing on the food aspect of things now during springtime they start to bloom such as this one and then they'll open up such as this one this bright yellow flower is very beautiful now these flowers are edible let me take a little petal largely tasteless I'm not a big fan of flowers give those a couple of weeks and say next month we're gonna have these dark purple fruits called Dunas and those are delicious probably my favorite plant-based food out here you just burn off the hairs the the little small thorns and you can cook them up eat them and they're good to go now once again it's early for that season but another source that we have is the small pads these are larger pads obviously they're older but during springtime they start sprouting these a little small ones I'll show you those in a little bit and we're gonna gather a couple of them roast them up and we're gonna cook them up and eat them okay so that's a large pad now notice at the top you have this little small one right here we're gonna take that one once again the younger the more tender it is that's just the basic universal law of all kinds of food so we're gonna just take this one now you see all these thorns are already starting to grow normally we wanted to film this video about two weeks ago before these thorns started growing but we had a lot of winds and they were messing with our audio so we had to wait but you could just get a couple of rocks give this a twist and there we go and we're gonna gather about three of these and we're just gonna roast them up to make sure that all those small thorns are gone notice my hand right here has a couple of these already yes we're gonna get about three of them and roast them right up [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] okay guys so we are running out of sunlight so we got to make this fast now our water is boiling for our ocotillo tea now we have our second container now we're gonna place our yucca fruits in here place the lid and we're gonna bake them we're gonna place them in the heat now ideally we would want a lot more coals but right now we're running out of light so we're gonna have to work with what we got it won't take too long we just want to soften them up because they're very fibrous we're gonna leave them in there for about 20 minutes okay so we're getting in the meantime our water boils and our yucca bakes we're gonna start getting these cactus and using these rocks we're gonna start scraping off the thorns now don't worry you don't have to scrape everything off just try to get what you can and the fire will do the rest but whatever is visible try to knock it out you know the more you're careful about these the better because you don't want to eat this and it gets you know you get these spines on your tongue or your fingers that's gonna be very unpleasant so try to get what you can for now okay it's been about five minutes we have a rolling boil let's get our cup out of there and then time to place or Ocotillo flowers in there let them steep for a little bit so I removed a lot of these now some of them are still gonna be like some of the spines still stay because of the stickiness of the cactus that's where we placed some onto the coals and the coals will begin roasting them and burning off these glow kids and we just got to turn them around here and there there we go okay folks so we turn the cup the other way around up right and Bianca is still bacon in there I just want to make sure that it's soft it's probably already ready to go in the meantime we did turn our nopales in the coals a little bit and I did scrape him off with the rock so I'd say these are pretty good I did rinse them by the way because they were all ashy so these are pretty good to go and then of course we have our Ocotillo tea right here and the t-shirt I've already cooled off it's already been about 15 minutes so Sun is setting we got to make this fast so time to eat paint some prickly pear cactus pad not bad we didn't season it this time it just tastes like cactus I don't know how better else to describe it um somewhat like cucumber like a hot Cooper you hot cucumber largely tasteless so not too bad well you want to stick to the younger ones because they're a bar more tender they're not gonna be so fibrous so that's what I like about all these these are all very easily I mean they could just rip apart so easily that's how they look on the inside not my favorite but they'll do alright and now for our tea should be cooled off by now yeah very subtle I feel like I can taste like chamomile to me just a very gentle subtle tea but um yeah ocotillo okay so these fruits have been cooking for about 20 minutes I say they're about just about ready I just want to soften them up because they're quite fibrous they're quite stiff there we go let them cool off a bit okay folks so we gave them a couple of minutes to cool off I don't want to burn my mouth so moment of truth not my favorite not at all but as far more palatable now that you cooked it and it's a lot more softer it's mush here as opposed to when you eat them wrong it is possible to eat them raw all these foods are possible to you raw but trust me they're gonna be a lot more enjoyable and a lot easier to digest when they're softer and these other seeds the seeds that I'm talking about these seeds right here they look like corn kernels these are all mushy because they've been baking but normally they look like corn kernels and they're largely tasteless and they're very soft now give them a couple of months and these will turn black and they will Harden and they obviously they become seeds you can crush those up and make make them into a flour substitute we will do be doing that later on this year but yeah normally I like to just eat the seeds and dispose of the outer shell the leathery outer shell but yeah all this stuff very much like corn it's just the outside that's the leathery cover that's just really unenjoyable oh yeah all this stuff inside a lot better let's try another one break it apart an even better example the seeds are a lot more together on this one and check it out don't they look like albino corn kernels not too bad honestly not too bad if you leave out the outer shell eat the insides it's pretty good alright guys so that's about the conclusion of this video we better get a move on the Sun is setting just wanted to give you guys a brief summary of the plants that are edible out out here during springtime summertime so once again we have yucca fruits once again not my favorite the outside is pretty gross but the inside the fruits I'm sorry the little kernels they look like corn they're pretty largely tasteless and they're pretty enjoyable so yucca it's everywhere right now it's quite abundant then of course we have pre-clear cactus pads now these are all nice and roasted cuz I don't want to like I don't want to get thorns in my mouth but nobilis traditional meal here in the southwest and then of course we have our Ocotillo tea now these are by far not the only plants edible at this time of year these are just some of my favorites and there will be others coming on later on like I said the cactus they will in a couple of weeks the flowers will become fruits and the fruits are very delicious and there's other foods other types of cactus as well like chia cactus and stuff like that that are also edible we will be touching upon those later on also keep in mind as I said earlier the seeds of the yucca later on will darken up they will become black and it will harden up and they become seeds obviously those that can be crushed down pounded down and be made into a flour substitute to make something like bread that kind of stuff so we I'm hoping to do that sometime around August so fingers crossed we'll have that done and that's about the conclusion of this video guys so if you enjoyed it go ahead and give us a thumbs up if you have any questions or any anything like that on these foods go ahead and comment down below and keep in mind that all these plants that we've shown they each have their own specific video so I'll we'll post our playlist at the end that has all our desert edible playlists so you can gain more information and that's about it for this video guys we have a great time coming out here um so if you enjoyed it go ahead and give us a thumbs up once again comment below if you have any questions and we'll see you guys next week with another video bye go outside and get your boots dirty [Music]

Channel: Junkyard Fox

Views: 161,605

Rating: 4.8899236 out of 5

Keywords: Bushcraft, Survival, Junkyard Fox, Cactus, Cactus eating, Prickly pear Cactus, Cactus Fruit, Camel eats cactus, yucca fruit, yucca, desert survival, ocotillo, texas survival, desert bushcraft, wild edibles, foraging, cuervo negro music, catch n cook, cactus container, dave canterbury, Self, Reliance, nopales, nopalitos, survival food, hunting and gathering, opuntia, el paso, texas, new mexico, cuervo negro, camel eating cactus, cameleatingcactus, cactus eating, zombie juice!

Id: HplAd2Hc0rU

Length: 18min 19sec (1099 seconds)

Published: Tue May 14 2019