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Mesquite: An Arboreal Love Affair
Winner of a 2019 Southwest Book Award (BRLA)
An homage to the useful and idiosyncratic mesquite tree
In his latest book, Mesquite, Gary Paul Nabhan employs humor and contemplative reflection to convince readers that they have never really glimpsed the essence of what he calls "arboreality."
As a Franciscan brother and ethnobotanist who has often mixed mirth with earth, laughter with landscape, food with frolic, Nabhan now takes on a large, many-branched question: What does it means to be a tree, or, accordingly, to be in a deep and intimate relationship with one?
To answer this question, Nabhan does not disappear into a forest but exposes himself to some of the most austere hyper-arid terrain on the planet--the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts along the US/Mexico border--where even the most ancient perennial plants are not tall and thin, but stunted and squat.
There, in desert regions that cover more than a third of our continent, mesquite trees have become the staff of life, not just for indigenous cultures, but for myriad creatures, many of which respond to these "nurse plants" in wildly intelligent and symbiotic ways.
In this landscape, where Nabhan claims that nearly every surviving being either sticks, stinks, stings, or sings, he finds more lives thriving than you could ever shake a stick at. As he weaves his arid yarns, we suddenly realize that our normal view of the world has been turned on its head: where we once saw scarcity, there is abundance; where we once perceived severity, there is whimsy. Desert cultures that we once assumed lived in "food deserts" are secretly savoring a most delicious world.
Drawing on his half-century of immersion in desert ethnobotany, ecology, linguistics, agroforestry, and eco-gastronomy, Nabhan opens up for us a hidden world that we had never glimpsed before. Along the way, he explores the sensuous reality surrounding this most useful and generous tree.
Mesquite is a book that will delight mystics and foresters, naturalists and foodies. It combines cutting-edge science with a generous sprinkling of humor and folk wisdom, even including traditional recipes for cooking with mesquite.
An homage to the useful and idiosyncratic mesquite tree
In his latest book, Mesquite, Gary Paul Nabhan employs humor and contemplative reflection to convince readers that they have never really glimpsed the essence of what he calls "arboreality."
As a Franciscan brother and ethnobotanist who has often mixed mirth with earth, laughter with landscape, food with frolic, Nabhan now takes on a large, many-branched question: What does it means to be a tree, or, accordingly, to be in a deep and intimate relationship with one?
To answer this question, Nabhan does not disappear into a forest but exposes himself to some of the most austere hyper-arid terrain on the planet--the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts along the US/Mexico border--where even the most ancient perennial plants are not tall and thin, but stunted and squat.
There, in desert regions that cover more than a third of our continent, mesquite trees have become the staff of life, not just for indigenous cultures, but for myriad creatures, many of which respond to these "nurse plants" in wildly intelligent and symbiotic ways.
In this landscape, where Nabhan claims that nearly every surviving being either sticks, stinks, stings, or sings, he finds more lives thriving than you could ever shake a stick at. As he weaves his arid yarns, we suddenly realize that our normal view of the world has been turned on its head: where we once saw scarcity, there is abundance; where we once perceived severity, there is whimsy. Desert cultures that we once assumed lived in "food deserts" are secretly savoring a most delicious world.
Drawing on his half-century of immersion in desert ethnobotany, ecology, linguistics, agroforestry, and eco-gastronomy, Nabhan opens up for us a hidden world that we had never glimpsed before. Along the way, he explores the sensuous reality surrounding this most useful and generous tree.
Mesquite is a book that will delight mystics and foresters, naturalists and foodies. It combines cutting-edge science with a generous sprinkling of humor and folk wisdom, even including traditional recipes for cooking with mesquite.
- GenresNonfictionNature
213 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 14, 2018
25 people are currently reading
195 people want to read
About the author
Gary Paul Nabhan
87 books96 followersGary Paul Nabhan is an internationally-celebrated nature writer, seed saver, conservation biologist and sustainable agriculture activist who has been called "the father of the local food movement" by Utne Reader, Mother Earth News, Carleton College and Unity College. Gary is also an orchard-keeper, wild forager and Ecumenical Franciscan brother in his hometown of Patagonia, Arizona near the Mexican border. For his writing and collaborative conservation work, he has been honored with a MacArthur "genius" award, a Southwest Book Award, the John Burroughs Medal for nature writing, the Vavilov Medal, and lifetime achievement awards from the Quivira Coalition and Society for Ethnobiology.
--from the author's website
--from the author's website
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
April 11, 2025
The Mesquite tree is ubiquitous in the American Southwest, ranging over desert and scrublands and several states. These trees usually hang out together, loving their inner families. Because of this, the ranchers who were busy denuding the Southwest of its foliage so their cattle could roam free, became very anti-Mesquite, as though the arid-loving trees were enemy aliens. However, the trees have had the last word, adapting, like coyotes, to being cleared. The revenge of the Mesquite has resulted in even more Mesquites advancing across the land, like Triffids on steroids.
The book takes time to explain the history of this tree along with the history of the various peoples who came to live beside it, namely the Native Americans. It’s amazing to discover the various ways they utilized this tree, including Mesquite flour, which is sold online today. The tree also provided holistic medical solutions while Mesquite groves could shade and shelter entire families of human tribes. The Spanish, Mexicans, and Americans upset this human-flora relationship, clearing the “nasty” tree for housing and open space. But Honey Mesquites, for example, help hold together the desert ecosystem, as this species helps protect other forms of nature. Quite simply, it is one amazing tree.
My issue with the book is that it isn’t a serious overview of the Mesquite tree. Instead, the author does some of that strange 1960s-ish hippie vibey thingy which really threw me off track. Every time I was able to get back into the read, he would once again divert to humor, such as pretending he was a Mesquite tree. Maybe it’s just my taste, but it was very off-putting. However, for instances where basic scientific facts are on display, the book becomes extremely interesting. So, if you want to learn more about the fascinating Mesquite tree, go ahead and give this book a try, perhaps your tastes are different than mine.
Book Season = Summer (thorns and sand)
The book takes time to explain the history of this tree along with the history of the various peoples who came to live beside it, namely the Native Americans. It’s amazing to discover the various ways they utilized this tree, including Mesquite flour, which is sold online today. The tree also provided holistic medical solutions while Mesquite groves could shade and shelter entire families of human tribes. The Spanish, Mexicans, and Americans upset this human-flora relationship, clearing the “nasty” tree for housing and open space. But Honey Mesquites, for example, help hold together the desert ecosystem, as this species helps protect other forms of nature. Quite simply, it is one amazing tree.
My issue with the book is that it isn’t a serious overview of the Mesquite tree. Instead, the author does some of that strange 1960s-ish hippie vibey thingy which really threw me off track. Every time I was able to get back into the read, he would once again divert to humor, such as pretending he was a Mesquite tree. Maybe it’s just my taste, but it was very off-putting. However, for instances where basic scientific facts are on display, the book becomes extremely interesting. So, if you want to learn more about the fascinating Mesquite tree, go ahead and give this book a try, perhaps your tastes are different than mine.
Book Season = Summer (thorns and sand)
March 3, 2023
This little book took me an unexpectedly long time to read, mostly because it kept overloading my quirkiness tolerance - and that bar is quite high! Most of it reads like what might happen if a stereotypical dad got really, really stoned under a mesquite tree:
"I look out through our dining room windows to that world framed by the feathery leaflets or 'pinnae' of mesquite trees. It's so pretty - it gives me pinnae envy."
However, there's a lot of good ecological and cultural knowledge in among all the puns. Mesquite is a pretty amazing tree. It's kind of like the coyote of plants - adapted to tough environments, hunted for over a century, and still thriving. Only with more human uses!
There's actually some recipes at the end. The ones requiring whole mesquite pods would be hard for most outside of the southwest to replicate, but mesquite flour can be obtained from the Native Seeds Search organization in Arizona (https://www.nativeseeds.org/ ). I'd quite like to try making the mesquite tamales with berries or mixing it with panko to make a crispy coating for meat, fish, or tofu.
Though I wish the author had shared (or perhaps remembered) the secret of the hair-blackening mix used by spicy old lady Marquita as a remedy against loneliness. Putting the black pitch straight on there sounds both sticky and flammable - neither qualities one would want associated with hair!
"I look out through our dining room windows to that world framed by the feathery leaflets or 'pinnae' of mesquite trees. It's so pretty - it gives me pinnae envy."
However, there's a lot of good ecological and cultural knowledge in among all the puns. Mesquite is a pretty amazing tree. It's kind of like the coyote of plants - adapted to tough environments, hunted for over a century, and still thriving. Only with more human uses!
There's actually some recipes at the end. The ones requiring whole mesquite pods would be hard for most outside of the southwest to replicate, but mesquite flour can be obtained from the Native Seeds Search organization in Arizona (https://www.nativeseeds.org/ ). I'd quite like to try making the mesquite tamales with berries or mixing it with panko to make a crispy coating for meat, fish, or tofu.
Though I wish the author had shared (or perhaps remembered) the secret of the hair-blackening mix used by spicy old lady Marquita as a remedy against loneliness. Putting the black pitch straight on there sounds both sticky and flammable - neither qualities one would want associated with hair!
February 20, 2021
I could not get into this. The ratio of folksy wisdom, or well, just folksiness, to cutting edge science was way too high for me. There was also far too much wordplay--a treesome? Really? It was like listening to your weird uncle monologue, uninterrupted, at a family gathering. I love the desert and its crazy forms of life, but this one was too out there for me.
Books like this make me think maybe I will never enjoy anything written by a straight cys white man ever again.
Books like this make me think maybe I will never enjoy anything written by a straight cys white man ever again.
August 5, 2019
I just cannot finish. I have tried. It's a short read and the info about mesquites is really interesting but I could not get past the ridiculously joke-y tone. The author was impressed with his own jokes and constantly called the Sonoran Desert the "Snorin' Desert" and used weird metaphor. It just did not appeal and I could not continue.
March 3, 2019
Ironically, I started this book while fighting another bout of pneumonia and was ordered bed rest and no work. I then discovered to my great chagrin the author — Gary Paul Nebhan — was scheduled to speak at one of the many incredible author panel discussions put on at the Tucson Festival of Books this weekend. Against doctor’s orders and in a “hurried” fashion — how fast you move when you have pneumonia is relativistic — I dressed and “hot-footed” it to the main Science Center stage where Gary and another author and Fred Ronstadt would soon be speaking; not necessarily about this book, but another book by Gary Nabhan — “Food From the Radical Center” — and a timely topic about getting real with nutrition and food production and local food sourcing. My reason for going was to encourage Mr. Nabhan to attend our monthly meeting of “august” scholars and book readers in the “Second Tuesday of the Month ‘Gentlemen’s’ (we use that term loosely) Book Club,” to meet his “mesquite muse” (his adorable wife) and to try and locate a dependable source of mesquite flour for cooking. Some of the characters mentioned in this incredibly well-written, upbeat, oft humorous, but always insightful book, we’re there, including Martha “Muffin” Burgess and the author’s saintly wife, Laurus noblis, a/k/a Laura Smith Monti. As an aside, there is something truly noble and classy about Arizona women — Hispanic, Native American and Caucasian — who reach a certain age beginning in their mid to late 40’s whence there raw beauty, grace and intellect shine forth with no effort whatsoever. You can keep your thin-railed NYC models and So Cal upstarts; for me, it’s Arizona women ALL the way! They are living proof there is an Almighty God, and that She loves us! But I digress.
Gary is instantaneously a brilliant, likable, friendly, familiar sort whom people of all walks of life naturally gravitate toward. Count me in! His knowledge of food, nutrition, micro and macroeconomics, local food sourcing and taking the long, philosophical view toward national and global events knew no limits. Gary and his “Mesquiteer Mentors” are quietly attempting to reshape, revitalize and rework the communities on both sides of international borderlands through the saving grace of the mesquite trees whose many uses we are only now growing to appreciate. Curiously, knowledge acquired by our ancestors over 8,000 years ago. Feeling a “little behind the time,” I read this book at my already “feverish pace” due to the pneumococcal bacterium. An easy, enjoyable read filled with Gary’s vignettes from his adventures gathering and harvesting mesquite pods for cooking and balms of every kind to making one-of-a-kind gorgeous mesquite furniture, tamales, microeconomic entrepreneurs and grand scale land management, replete with harvesting instructions and recipes; all in slightly under 200 pages! Who’d a thunk it possible?!?
Mission accomplished, thank you Gary! I not only met your beautiful “mesquite muse” and soul-mate, but will forever enjoy a steady supply of safe, nutritious mesquite flour, and now have a greater appreciation of this misunderstood “scourge of the desert Southwest” and how like a messiah the mesquite will revitalize and rebuild our border communities torn by misunderstanding, ignorance and prejudice. Run, don’t walk, to your local book store and see why this book deserves everyone of its five (5) stars. Yes, it’s that good.
Gary is instantaneously a brilliant, likable, friendly, familiar sort whom people of all walks of life naturally gravitate toward. Count me in! His knowledge of food, nutrition, micro and macroeconomics, local food sourcing and taking the long, philosophical view toward national and global events knew no limits. Gary and his “Mesquiteer Mentors” are quietly attempting to reshape, revitalize and rework the communities on both sides of international borderlands through the saving grace of the mesquite trees whose many uses we are only now growing to appreciate. Curiously, knowledge acquired by our ancestors over 8,000 years ago. Feeling a “little behind the time,” I read this book at my already “feverish pace” due to the pneumococcal bacterium. An easy, enjoyable read filled with Gary’s vignettes from his adventures gathering and harvesting mesquite pods for cooking and balms of every kind to making one-of-a-kind gorgeous mesquite furniture, tamales, microeconomic entrepreneurs and grand scale land management, replete with harvesting instructions and recipes; all in slightly under 200 pages! Who’d a thunk it possible?!?
Mission accomplished, thank you Gary! I not only met your beautiful “mesquite muse” and soul-mate, but will forever enjoy a steady supply of safe, nutritious mesquite flour, and now have a greater appreciation of this misunderstood “scourge of the desert Southwest” and how like a messiah the mesquite will revitalize and rebuild our border communities torn by misunderstanding, ignorance and prejudice. Run, don’t walk, to your local book store and see why this book deserves everyone of its five (5) stars. Yes, it’s that good.
October 1, 2025
Interesting take on the history and current state of the mesquite. Weird little chapter intros and outros with information presented with humor (although probably not for everyone, sometimes they felt like dad jokes). Personal knowledge mixed with cultural history and current science makes for a wide-ranging read WITH recipes!
This book helped me remember that I'd started The Hidden Life of Trees two years ago. LOL. Oh! My brain, it is so silly.
More desert-life reads:
This book helped me remember that I'd started The Hidden Life of Trees two years ago. LOL. Oh! My brain, it is so silly.
More desert-life reads:
June 19, 2023
DNF. I started this book because a friend recommended it to me and said it was "hilarious!" I guess this just isn't my brand of humor. I was hoping to learn a lot of interesting things about the mesquite tree, but by chapter 4 I was still just reading about a man who is literally falling in love with a tree and believes (jokingly) that he is turning into a tree himself. The joke is filled with odd sexual humor such as the author joking that his wife is okay with a "treesome" to the author referring to eating mesquite waffles as "consummating" them rather than consuming them. I gave the book several chapters in the hopes that it would become interesting and informative, but I found it to be neither and I just couldn't keep going with this one.
January 6, 2025
*DNF at 56/176 pages* Owned, donated*
I'm all for quirky non-fiction, but this was weird and ick in ways I couldn't get behind.
Interspersed in factual, interesting knowledge of the Mesquite tree were strange, uncomfortable quips and jokes about becoming the tree in either form or lover, a "treesome," and "consummation" in place of "consuming" tree products.
Yeah, I'm 100% serious.
The factual info was barely that, with the author spending more time on who might've done some research than he spent telling us what that research was.
The subject matter was something that interested and excited me, only to be creeped out and annoyed that I bought this.
I'm all for quirky non-fiction, but this was weird and ick in ways I couldn't get behind.
Interspersed in factual, interesting knowledge of the Mesquite tree were strange, uncomfortable quips and jokes about becoming the tree in either form or lover, a "treesome," and "consummation" in place of "consuming" tree products.
Yeah, I'm 100% serious.
The factual info was barely that, with the author spending more time on who might've done some research than he spent telling us what that research was.
The subject matter was something that interested and excited me, only to be creeped out and annoyed that I bought this.
May 19, 2019
I expected a bit more and found the alternation between self-consciously playful (sometimes silly) writing nearer the beginning and a more level style towards the end a bit uneven, but I'm always glad to read a book like this that takes us deep into the life and history of a species and by extension of ourselves.
May 29, 2023
Gary Nabhan writes with a wit and humor that made me want to reconnect with native plant communities in my area (central Ohio) and pursue a relationship with my environment that balances utility and aesthetics. Both literary and informative, 'Mesquite' is a treasure for those hoping to reengage with "place-based science."
October 8, 2018
In this book, Nabhan is a mix of old Cactus Ed Abbey, Douglas Adams, and something I haven't yet been able to define.
I will have to revisit this review after it has time to settle in my mind.
I will have to revisit this review after it has time to settle in my mind.
January 22, 2020
I was so sorry to leave the lands of the mesquite trees and its inhabitants. The book took me into the desert so thoroughly -- what a joy!
December 1, 2020
I enjoyed this book very much. It's humorous yet informative. Above all, it is about a tree we should appreciate and love.
March 18, 2021
Good book, very informative, lots of rambling from the author on other subjects, liked it overall.
September 6, 2021
The scientific information - where it shows up - is really good and fascinating. The author's humor admittedly just isn't for me. But the information is good!
November 13, 2022
3.75 so I rounded up. Thought it was good and the stories were great but yeah don’t care for the weird tree metaphors
August 1, 2021
I have red many of Gary Paul Nabhan's books and found them to be a wonderful mix of history, ethnology, ethnobotany, science, natural history, etymology and folklore written in a an enjoyable, descriptive style. I was really looking forward to his new book Mesquite: An Arboreal Love Affair, but must admit it was different than the expectations I had based on his past work . The author opens the book by describing a spiritual experience he had (some might characterize it as a physical/emotional breakdown) that altered his way of seeing and being in the world. He brings that new consciousness into the book and sometimes it works, but other times I found his repeated mentions of his wife as Laurus nobilus (the Bay tree), the references to the "Snorin Desert" or the "Stinkin Hot Desert", the puns "take a bough", "the great Colonoscopy of the Americas", "Rootly's Believe It or Not", "holy ma-tree mony", "our home on De-range", "some call us a Tree-some" to be tiresome and at least for me they took away from the incredible information he was sharing and the story he was telling. But as I said that is me, perhaps I just need to get a better sense of humor.
July 1, 2023
What a quirky unexpected book. I'm not quite sure what to make of it yet, but I liked it. I wouldn't be surprised if I read this one again. He definitely converted me to the mesquite tree, and I am in love.
November 28, 2020
Great book. I love the writing style and there is so much global historical information provided.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews