Making a meal from traditional ingredients at the Button family home

The Button family invited us to their home to share in a meal that featured their tepary beans and corn along with items foraged from their yard, including cactus paddles and cholla buds.

Cholla buds are flower buds of the cholla cactus — when freshly harvested, they are covered in spines, and Velvet cleaned then by putting the buds into a container and swishing them around with a few branches. The spines fell off the buds and they were clean and ready to be used in just a few minutes.

If you want to try your hand at cooking with this unique ingredients, check out this super simple recipe from our friends at Edible Phoenix. You can purchase the cholla buds online here as well!