Plant makes many a dish
There’s a secret to sprouting the notoriously difficult chipilín seed. Los Angeles gardener Victor Diego said the best approach is to put the seed in an oven’s warming tray for a week. Let it dry. Then plant. “It will open,” he promised. Chipilín ( Crotalaria longirostrata) has been called one of the most important edible plants used by humans globally. Native to southern Mexico and Central America, the plant has leaves that are used in tamale masa, soups, omelets and pupusas. They taste like watercress or sour clover mixed with spinach — a flavor improved by cooking, which explains why the leaves are not usually eaten raw.
Besides being a staple in cooking, it’s a nitrogen fixer, helping to enrich soil. And it makes a decent licuado, the Latin American equivalent of a smoothie.
Chipilín grows like a weed, popping up in abandoned places. Frank Mangan, a professor in the department of plant and soil sciences at the University of Massachusetts, is overseeing a research project focusing on immigrant populations and the crops they grow. For his farmers growing chipilín, he had to get the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s approval to import the seed from El Salvador. It’s considered an invasive plant, and it’s banned in Australia and Hawaii, where it has gained a toehold.
Mangan’s research station in South Deerfield, Mass., grows the chipilín like peppers or tomatoes. The plant starts in a greenhouse and gets transferred to a plot and harvested every few weeks.
“It’s like alfalfa and keeps growing,” Mangan said, adding that the potato leaf hopper is the primary pest. Getting it: At the Stanford-Avalon Community Garden in L.A., members hold a party at the end of October where they sell chipilín and other rare seeds. It’s one of the few places in the country where it’s available.