The first European to observe the use of pecan nuts was Cabeza de Vaca during the early 16th century: “They grind up some little grains with them [the nuts], two months of the year, without eating anything else, and even this they do not have every year, because one year they bear, and the next they do not. They [the nuts] are the size of those of Galicia and the trees are very large and there is a great number of them.” (Krieger 2002:189-190). In his account, Cabeza de Vaca uses the Spanish word for walnut (nueces), but the pecan is by far the most abundant nut-bearing tree in the region and the Spanish did not have a word for pecan at that time.

I got this information from a site called Texas Beyond History, but I already knew about Cabeza de Vaca, aka Mr. Cowhead, and the Indians and Esteban the slave. Year before last in our American history studies we read Walk the World’s Rim by Betty Baker. In fact, I read this book aloud to my older set about ten years ago, and some of them still remember it. Good old Esteban. And Chacko.

The book mentions nuts as a part of the Indians’ diet, but the indication in this fictional account of the exploration of Texas by de Vaca and his companions is that the Indians in South Texas subsisted mostly on roots and lizards. Chacko, a fictional Indian boy and the main character in the story, goes to Mexico City with Cabeza de Vaca and is amazed at the abundance of food the Spaniards are able to grow and produce and cook and eat.

Chacko should have given them a pecan tree to sort of even things up a bit.

If you have anything to say about pecans or nutcrackers or the price of pecans in China or anything else pecan-related, post it on your blog and leave a link here. November is Pecan Month at Semicolon. And I’m planning to send a bag of shelled pecans to the one blogger, of those who have left a link, whose name I draw at the end of the month.