What kind of ingredient are Mexican quelites?

Quelites are what Mexicans call wild greens, and there are a lot of them — all worth your time to get to know.

Cookbooks from Mexico that feature the common cuisine in each of their 32 states, have quelites featuring in every one of them. Other than perhaps the Greeks, no culture may make more use of wild edible greens than the Mexicans.

The word quelite is of Nahuatl origin, which is the language of the Aztecs and their neighbors in central Mexico. It means, as you might imagine, “edible herb.” Mostly edible weeds many of you are already familiar with: purslane, pigweed and lambsquarters.

Some of the most common are:

-one other wild green used in Mexico you are also probably familiar with: watercress

- purslane is a warm weather plant which is totally edible, so much so that cultivated forms exist.

- Chamisal quelites, named for the area of New Mexico they are from.