Mezcal as Food, Beverage, & Heritage | Part 1

“Welcome to the Agave family!” was the way that late Arizona botanist Howard Scott Gentry used to greet aficionados of these wondrously-shaped and deliciously-tasting desert-adapted plants. Of course, many Americans are aware of the fact that is the popular name of a distilled alcoholic beverage, but how many newcomers to

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Howard Scott Gentry Memory Recognized the Week of April 28th to May 7th

Let us now praise famous mezcaleros! It was 75 years ago that my mentor, the great plant explorer Howard Scott Gentry, published his Rio Mayo Plants, and 35 years ago that he published Agaves of Continental North America. As a kid, I worked one summer at the Desert Botanical Garden

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Tucson Becomes an Unlikely Food Star

There are food deserts, those urban neighborhoods where finding healthful food is nearly impossible, and then there is Tucson. When the rain comes down hard on a hot summer afternoon here, locals start acting like Cindy Lou Who on Christmas morning. They turn their faces to the sky and celebrate

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