I did that once when I was living in Silver City, NM.
Gathered them in SE AZ. Cooked them down in honey.
They are huge there! Yuge even.
Most people wouldn’t know what you meant by tuna.
People look at the desert and think ‘barren.’ The truth is
there is a lot more diversity of plant life in the desert
than there is in northern forests. Even the rain forests
of the Pacific NW. That might be true of animals too.
There are a lot of critters out there.
Yeah, it’s amusing to offer someone a jar of “tuna jelly” and see the revolted expression.
I lived in Silver City for a few years, working at Tyrone and Chino, before moving back to Arizona in 2004. The winters are just a bit cold for sitting a drill rig. I heard El Paisano closed; I sure miss really good Mexican food. Jalisco was good, but El P was better. (Now I’m thinking about making a batch of red chile, but not today.)
I grew up in Oregon, and spent a lot of time in the woods. You’re right, I think, about the diversity of the desert flora compared to there, though I knew more about the plants in those parts.