The mojos are falling!

​In our orchard and garden we have a lot of volunteer trees, things that birds or animals or the wind have sown over the years, and that our lackadaisical gardening efforts haven’t pulled up as “weeds”.  One of these is what’s called a mojo tree.  We know it’s a mojo because, this year, it’s started throwing mojo nuts at us.
 
It started a few weeks ago.  We’d hear a plaat! and ignore it, figuring one of our eleven cats or three dogs had knocked something over – again.  Then we’d hear plaat! plaat! pause plaat! spaced out, like a Chinese water torture.  We’d finally get up to investigate, but didn’t ever see anything knocked over, so went back to ignoring it.
 
But it got harder and harder to ignore.  Then one day, I was sitting having my mid-day cup of coffee and tortilla with cajeta on it (a very sticky caramel sauce made from goat’s milk), on our second terrace.  I heard plaat! plaat! and then felt a sharp rap on my head.  I finally looked around, indignant.  Lety, the woman who cleans our house for us, had been on vacation for the holidays so hadn’t been sweeping, and I realized the flagstones were littered with small green balls, including the one that had just hit me in the head.

​One year shortly after we’d built our house here, a pair of red-and-white nuns came to our house and asked if they could pick our mojo – they sold it to pay for the church/convent they were building.  We said Go ahead and watched them fill their red tunics with the little balls.  But none had fallen since then.
 
I had never heard of mojo until we came here.  In our town they make an anti-coffee out of it, roasting then grinding it to dust, then brewing it like coffee.  Its Latin name is brosimum alicastrum, also known as the Mayan Nut, breadnut or ramon.  The tree is in the Moraceae family of flowering plants (kin to figs and mulberries).  Mojos aren’t actually nuts – they’re drupes, consisting of an outer skin, a pulpy middle layer, and a woody inner shell that has a single seed in it that looks like a nutmeg or a macadamia.

​Mojo, it turns out, is a traditional Mayan superfood, and ancient Mayans used every part of the mojo trees - bark, leaves, and nuts.  The only part they use here that I know of is the nut – a nutrient-dense caffeine-free coffee alternative that is high in potassium, fiber, calcium, iron, antioxidants, zinc, protein, and vitamins A, B, C, and E.
 
So, if you’re like me and really really love coffee but really really can’t drink more than two cups a day, consider mojo as an alternative!  Just send me a note and I’ll mail you a box – but you’d better hurry, they’re going fast!

​#MayanNut #SuperFoods #Mojo