Health Benefits of Prickly Pear Cactus with Mimi Hernandez

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It was an honor to sit down with Mimi Prunella Hernandez to discuss the many health benefits of Prickly Pear Cactus (Opuntia spp.). Mimi also shared her passion for science and her herbal journey that led to becoming the executive director of the American Herbalists Guild. You can find a wealth of wisdom and inspiration as she shares many personal stories and talks about the beautiful gifts of prickly pear.

Also, don’t miss downloading your free recipe card for Mimi's Prickly Pear and Lemon Verbena Infused Vinegar!

By the end of this episode, you’ll know:

► How you can bridge your love for science and herbs

► How prickly pear shines as food, beverage, and medicine

► Multiple ways to prepare and eat prickly pear cactus

►  and much more…

For those of you who don’t already know her, Mimi Prunella Hernandez is an herbalist and author of the book National Geographic Herbal: 100 Herbs From the World's Healing Traditions. Mimi is known for her ability to explain complex information in a relatable way, which has gained her a dedicated following. Her warm and approachable nature has made her a sought-after speaker at conferences and events.

With over a decade as the executive director of the American Herbalists Guild, she shares her wealth of knowledge, unwavering dedication, and genuine love for all things herbal and ensures that herbalists have a strong professional community to support their work. She has devoted her life’s work to advocating for traditional and professional herbal pathways.

Mimi is a recipient of the Botanical Excellence Award from the American Botanical Council, a prestigious honor that recognizes her as a Mark Blumenthal Herbal Community Builder. Mimi's volunteer work inspires sanctuary dreamers. She not only strives to ensure the continued availability of native and medicinal plants but also educates others about their importance and traditional uses. 

Mimi's herbal roots are inspired by her Colombian and Mexican Grandmothers via a Latin American Folk Herbalism and Curanderismo lineage. While Mimi finds immense joy in practicing kitchen herbalism, she finds tremendous fulfillment delivering herbal house calls. She brings a basket filled with homemade nourishing remedies, using the herbs she grows in her garden to provide natural remedies to those in need.

I’m thrilled to share our conversation with you today!

-- TIMESTAMPS -- for health benefits of prickly pear cactus

• 1:12 - Introduction to Mimi Prunella Hernandez
• 4:06 - How Mimi found her herbal path 
• 11:02 - Mimi shares her journey to becoming the director of the American Herbalists Guild
• 13:10  - The gifts of prickly pear (Opuntia spp.)
• 19:03 - Demulcent properties of prickly pear
• 20:27 - What about the prickles?
• 22:06 - Mimi’s Prickly Pear and Lemon Verbena Infused Vinegar
• 24:58 - Closing thoughts about prickly pear
• 26:19 - National Geographic Herbal / Mimi shares her experience in writing about herbs
• 33:30 - A tribute to James Duke
• 43:49 - Herbal tidbit

Get Your Free Recipe!

Connect with Mimi

• Website | MimiPrunellaHernandez.com
• Instagram | @MimiPrunellaHernandez
• Facebook | @MimiPrunellaHerbal

Transcript of the 'Health Benefits of Prickly Pear Cactus with Mimi Hernandez' Video

Rosalee de la Forêt:
Hello and welcome to the Herbs with Rosalee Podcast, a show exploring how herbs heal as
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Okay, grab your cup of tea, and let's dive in.

Mimi is a heart-centered herbalist who's been in service to the herbal community for a long time. It was an honor to sit down with her and hear about her traditions with nopales and tunas or prickly pears and their fruit, and to hear about her journey of writing her fabulous new book.

For those of you who don't already know her, Mimi Prunella Hernandez is an herbalist and author of the National Geographic Herbal. With her wealth of knowledge, unwavering dedication, and genuine love of all things herbal, she has devoted her life's work to advocating for traditional and professional herbal pathways. For over a decade, Mimi has served as the executive director of the American Herbalist Guild, where she has worked tirelessly to ensure that herbalists have a strong professional community to support their work.

In 2023, Mimi received a Botanical Excellence Award from the American Botanical Council, a prestigious honor that recognizes her as a Mark Blumenthal Herbal Community Builder. Well, Mimi, I'm so excited to have you on the show. Thank you so much for being here.

Mimi Hernandez:
Oh, thank you. I am thrilled to be here. I am just such a huge fan of yours, and when I got the invitation, I was so happy and I'm so happy to be sitting here now.

Rosalee de la Foret:
Well, I have to admit something that maybe sound a little weird or awkward to you, but as I was prepping for our time together and thinking about you, I was like, "I think in my head, I know Mimi better than I actually do in real life, because we've met before and we have social media going, and then of course I know you because you're the executive director of the AHG and all this stuff." And then I was thinking about it, I was like, "But we haven't actually hung out a whole bunch," but in my mind we have. I think it's just been that many years, like a decade of just going in the same circles and stuff. So I was kind of like, "Oh yeah."

Mimi Hernandez:
I know.

Rosalee de la Foret:
So within that, I'm excited to hear your story and your plant path and all of that. Because I don't really know it that well.

Mimi Hernandez:
Right. It's true. I have sat down with you a couple of times, but there was always other people around and I felt shy. I don't know. I was thinking about the last time you were like... We were out to lunch or something with other people. I don't know. I was kind of still in my shy years, but I had this whole imaginary world about you too, about your [inaudible 00:03:40], your fields of flowers right outside the front porch and the woodland nymph stuff going on. I just have this whole imaginary world about you.

Rosalee de la Foret:
I'll take it. I'll totally take it. That's funny that you say that too. I think now if we went out to lunch, I would feel shy. Just because you are Mimi Hernandez.

Mimi Hernandez:
It'll be a power lunch. Let's just put it that way.

Rosalee de la Foret:
Okay. All right, I'll take that. So I would love to hear about your story and just all the weavings that have led you here to us today.

Mimi Hernandez:
All right. Well, I'm glad. So it's hard to really pinpoint how I got here today, but I would say that my quest was multifold. I've always had a deep passion for science, and so I was very much a science fair kid, and my first science fair project was in second grade, and it was growing an avocado plant from a pit, and it's been like plant science ever since.

Rosalee de la Foret:
Nice.

Mimi Hernandez:
So the science which draws me into all that stuff like anatomy and how the body works coupled with botany and things like ecology and even birdwatching or mythology that takes you outside. So I was all over the sciences in a very academic way, but then there was also this undercurrent of just my family background and having aunts and uncles and grandmothers who were... Herbs were just a normal part of life, and I never really questioned it or even took it seriously as a young person. I really was just a fly on the wall that was like, "Oh, now she's doing that. Now she's rubbing this herbal thing all over her. Oh, she woke up. She's fine." It's just witnessing all these healings that especially my grandmother in Mexico would participate in because a lot of the neighborhood children and moms came to her. And so she was the one that she just always had something in her cabinet that she was tinkering with, was always stirring something on the stove and always just talking to plants outside in the courtyard.

And I think that I took on a lot of that, especially tinkering in the kitchen because it's been a long path of, "Am I this laboratory scientist person or am I this kitchen person?" And I found out pretty quickly in my young adulthood that I'm definitely a kitchen person because I cannot measure things. It's like some of this and let's stir this in and taste it, and more of that. And that quality was not really synergistic on the lab bench because having to measure things to the micro milliliter, it was just infuriating to me. So yeah, the kitchen kind of took center stage in my life from a very young age. I've always been trying new recipes and cooking and being creative in the kitchen. So, I think at some point with all the sciences, I was really drawn to do something like medical school because that's what they say when you're a real scientific smart person.

They're like, "You should be a doctor." And I always knew that I wanted to go into some kind of healing, and I had just a lot of question myself personally about what I really wanted out of that was that an egoic kind of feather in my cap, or if I really wanted to see, really wanted to learn about real world healing, and that wasn't medical school for four or five, eight years, whatever they do. So that's when I decided I really was going to do the academic herbal path. And of course back then, what did that mean? What's the academic herbal path?

Now there's lots of programs. Back then, it was 30-some years ago, and I was like... I had that academic rug pulled out from under me because I thought, "Oh, I'll go to Herbal Medical school," and there really wasn't such a thing back then. And so at that point, that's when I didn't go to grad school at first and decided to go hang out with the Amish people in Indiana because that's where I lived. That's where I grew up, and I learned a lot in a couple summers with Amish people of just really tending to bumps and bruises and cuts and things like that, and sleepy time stuff and growing things and just really simple things-

Rosalee de la Foret:
Very practical day-to-day stuff. Yeah.

Mimi Hernandez:
Yeah. But that was who I could find to teach me because, at that point, my grandmother in Mexico had passed away. So it was that point in life where I'm like, "All right, what am I doing? How am I going to learn this?" And wanting to be academic. But if you've got a bachelor's and you want to do PhD or something, I ended up looking at all these Botanical Medicine PhD tracks, and it was like, "Oh, you're going to study the pigment in the carrot for the rest of your life." It was so honing in on just reductionist. I was like, "I don't want to study saw palmetto for the next four years. I want to study all the herbs." And that's when... Yeah, I did actually at that point found an American Herbalists Guild Symposium, and I went... Actually, first I started doing this herb, what is it?

The Herb Society of America, and I was like twenty years old or 19. And so it was me and all these little old ladies and they were all making lavender cookies and cinnamon cupcakes and stuff like that. And there was one lady on there who's like, "Ooh, we should go to this Medicinal Herbalist Conference." And she had this VW van, and I'm like, "Let's go." And we drove from Indiana to Georgia and went to an H conference, and it was like, "Ooh, definitely people are doing this." And I kind of found that there's a lot of people into it.

Rosalee de la Foret:
I love that thought of young Mimi going to her first American Herbalists Guild Symposium and now 11 years you've been the executive director of the HG.

Mimi Hernandez:
I would never have dreamed that. I still talk to that lady too. I'm like, "Can you believe I'm now in charge of that organization? That I got there?" I remember being really overwhelmed because I'm like, "Oh, this is exactly everything I was looking for." And then I went outside. It was very overwhelming. I'm a very emotional person. I went outside and sat on a rock and just cried. I'm like, "Ah, yes." Yeah, because ironically, I did have the academic degree, so I was working at a company called Dow AgroSciences, and it was like, "This is some hardcore plant research stuff." And I was working on this research project where they were studying the DNA of tobacco plant, and that was a cool project, and then it ended, and then they reassigned me to this greenhouse laboratory that was working with Roundup, and literally we were testing these chemicals on weeds, and that's when my heart was like, "I cannot do this. I cannot." So I got that whole plant consciousness type of this wall came up in me and I was just like, "What?"

Rosalee de la Foret:
Yeah. Wow. That's so interesting. I did not know that as part of your background, so yeah, that's fascinating.

Mimi Hernandez:
No, I saw a lot of interesting things of working in my lab science days, and I also did some work at University of Wisconsin in their nutrition lab, and so it was like, "I still love science." I wanted it directed into a different way and in a kind of more overall way where I could learn about a lot of plants.

Rosalee de la Foret:
Oh, I'm really excited to talk about your book because this seems like a great segue, but I'm going to hold off and just follow the formula of the podcast, and let's talk about the health benefits of prickly pear cactus. I'm really excited that you chose prickly pear as your herb because it is such a fascinating plant with so many gifts. So I'd love to hear from you about the health benefits of prickly pear cactus.

Mimi Hernandez:
Okay. Yeah, I chose prickly pear cactus. It's definitely... First of all, in the kitchen, it's so versatile. It's a food that I grew up with my Latin American roots. We call it nopales or nopalitos, and we have it for almost every meal. It's kind of our garnish to everything, and the fruit is really delicious. It takes a lot of effort to get into it because of all the little spines and all the prickles, and so it's kind of a labor of love, but once you're into it and got either the juice or the pulp, then there's so many fun recipes, just a really beautiful flavor, especially I live in North Carolina in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, and it's just phenomenal to me that it grows native here in this area. I've got a big stand of it here at the Ponderland, and it's just like I have a love affair with it, and it's still a very respectful thing because I can't just go grab it. My son does go up and grab it. He doesn't care, but I won't do that because it hurts.

Rosalee de la Foret:
Yeah. This is not like a stinging nettle hurt too. This is like you get those glochids in you and they keep coming back. Well, they stay there. They stay embedded. Yeah.

Mimi Hernandez:
They're sneaky and almost microscopic. But yeah, no, first of all, I love the flavor. I love making the salsa with it and everything. As a herbal medicine, I'm very intrigued in the Mexican diet, there's a lot of, I guess, propensity for diabetes type two, and not only in Mexico, but in a lot of Latin American countries and in the Southwest. And so it's just amazing that this cultural indigenous food is really helpful at preventing that postcranial glucose spike according to some research. And some of the research is really fun because they really are eating a lot of Mexican food, like chilaquiles and enchiladas and chile rellenos, and then they're like... Give you a big authentic Mexican food, and then they give you cactus. And so it's a really just beautiful, even just as a beverage, I like making the green cactus smoothie. I like juicing it. It's just so refreshing. But I really love the fruit. I'm so in love with the fruit.

Rosalee de la Foret:
I was recently in Austin, and there's not like prickly pear things where I live here up north, I'm almost by Canada. And down in Austin, it was like I went into health food stores or even just restaurants, and there was so many... If it had some kind of prickly pear beverage, I just got it every single time because I was so excited. Just the ubiquitousness of it.

Mimi Hernandez:
And then since I've had a patch here, it's just been really cool to tend to it and then see all the seasons around it because the flowers are gorgeous. They're just so beautiful, and it's just like nothing else that grows around here. It's just such so precious to my heart and to such a beautiful food and medicine.

Rosalee de la Foret:
I don't know if you would know this Mimi, but as you're talking about just how popular it is in Mexico, and as we know all over where it grows, are there prickly pear cactus farms? Are people cultivating it? And especially because when you buy it in the store, it comes off in process, like they remove the spines and the Glockens, and so I just imagine there, obviously there has to be some kind of production around it, but I've never thought of prickly pear cactus farms before.

Mimi Hernandez:
There's a couple that I know of, even in my region. I don't don't know them by name, but I've seen a couple of just have noticed. I don't remember even where, but I would look it up. But yeah, no, I am aware of a couple of places that were just starting some cultivation, so I wouldn't say big farms, but it grows where it grows wild. It grows pretty abundantly. And out here in North Carolina, even toward the coast, it's all over the place. But yeah, no, I definitely could see the fruitfulness of growing it and cultivating it because there's beautiful products that can be made from it, value-added products and jams. I love the prickly pear jam that I've got right now. I made a bunch because I just got married, and so we did a lot of homestead foods and prickly pear was real center in a lot of my recipes for the wedding. So I've got a couple jars of jam in there. It's so good.

Rosalee de la Foret:
I'm definitely of the philosophy that pink makes everything better, and so I feel that way with prickly pear and Jamaica or Hibiscus that those, I love making medicine with them because the color is so amazing.

Mimi Hernandez:
It's so brilliant. And then it's really trendy too, and these really expensive bars where you can have the martinis and things like that, but it makes such a beautiful cocktail too, and mocktail. So yeah, I just love that.

Rosalee de la Foret:
So, so far you've talked about prickly pear as a food and as medicine, especially for postprandial glucose spikes, and it seems like we should maybe mention that it's kind of demulcent. I think of that when I think of-

Mimi Hernandez:
Very slimy. There's of course, the outside, which is a little daunting. And I use my gloves and tongs to pick the young pads. Ideally, we want the pads that are the spring growth, because it's the most tenderest and the most flavorful. And so I would pick those young pads or the fruits, which the fruits are just stopped fruiting. So we're thinking late October for fruits and maybe June for the spring pads. So after you cut into them, it's very slimy. The pads are just kind of aloe, just thick and mucilaginous on the inside. So it's interesting because if you get the prickles on you, then you just use the poultice of the inside of the pad as a drawing poultice to pull it out. It's very [inaudible 00:20:23] slime.

Rosalee de la Foret:
I thought it was interesting in your descriptions that when I've prepared it prickly pear from the earth, so I'm the one that's prepped for doing all the prep. I've done the burn method, use tongs, put it over open flame and let the things burn off. And you also mentioned rubbing it off with sand, rubber gloves and sand, which I thought was interesting.

Mimi Hernandez:
Yeah, that's how I do it, because I like to just sit on the porch and I've got my big sink. It's like a big bucket of sand, and I've got my gloves. I'm just kind of sitting there and chit-chatting with whoever's here, because usually there's someone here because it's a big job to bring in the cactus, the tuna. We call it tuna.

Rosalee de la Foret:
Tuna, yeah.

Mimi Hernandez:
But yeah, I just sit there and I'm scrubbing and toss it in the other bucket and then scrub and toss. For me, fire is not... I feel like it wouldn't be as efficient with me. I'm not saying that I'm not into fire. It would just be a whole different thing. Then I got to make a fire. Well, I know some people use the little torch. I don't know. I'm not a torch-

Rosalee de la Foret:
Like a [inaudible 00:21:40]. Yeah.

Mimi Hernandez:
Very water, sand-oriented.

Rosalee de la Foret:
Love it.

Mimi Hernandez:
I can see other people being drawn to the fire method. But yeah, the fire methods also, I've heard it's really effective. But the sand method was... I've never had to try anything else because it just works.

Rosalee de la Foret:
Yeah, I'm very curious now. I want to try that. Well, the recipe that you've shared with us is absolutely gorgeous. It has that hot pink color that I know and love, and I love how versatile it is too. And I haven't tried it yet, but I plan on it. And I love the additional herbs that you put in there too. So will you share a little bit about that recipe?

Mimi Hernandez:
Sure. Yeah, and that came about because usually when I'm doing the prickly pear tuna, the fruit, I am going for the pulp. I'm either scooping pulp out or I'm juicing it because it juices pretty well. But then you're left with this huge sludge of seeds that have a lot of substance all around them. The seeds are pebbles. So the way it started is I just put all that, I'm like, "What am I going to do with this?" And I put it on a jar of vinegar, vinegar, and I was just amazed at the color, but also at the texture because the vinegar became very viscous. And so it just had this very soft, velvety feeling on the tongue, and it was just such a beautiful flavor. And so now every year, I also do the infused vinegar, but the time of the year is also the time of the year that I harvest lemon verbena.

And lemon verbena is a South American plant that I have a lot of kinship with, and it grows in my herbal spiral garden. And I just felt like the flavors... They're both like Latin, American fusion flavors, but you got this tropical and this very aromatic citrus, and they just meld so well together. And so I decided to combine them, and it's just such a great... It's just so delicious now. It's like aromatic and beautiful, fuchsia pink, and then it has texture, and then it's just beautiful. And I like vinegar a lot, so I probably have vinegar every day somehow, either on salad or greens or a spoonful. But it also, because it's October when I'm doing this every year, it's kind of perfect timing for holiday packages and festivities, and you show up to potlucks, and I've got the big bottle of this fuchsia vinegar, and it's just so-

Rosalee de la Foret:
Oh, I love it.

Mimi Hernandez:
Yeah, it's really good.

Rosalee de la Foret:
Yeah, I love vinegar so much. It's one of my most... I just strained off almost three gallons of Hawthorn vinegar and we go through it in a year. I just love it too, for all of the things you mentioned and as a drinking vinegar too. Yeah. Well, wonderful. Well, thank you so much for sharing that recipe with us. Is there anything else that you'd like to share about prickly pear?

Mimi Hernandez:
Oh, yeah. I can't wait to just for people to try it. Definitely, if anyone tries it, I'd love to hear your impressions of it. I have a whole... Just called Prickly Pear Cactus Adventures. It's just an album on my Facebook page, but it's like... Because it's just messy too, right? So there's that you mentioned that's very mucilaginous, and so whenever you open one, put it in the juice. The whole juicer is overflowing with slime, so you can't avoid it. Very messy. It's definitely something you do on the porch. I also make a colonche, which is a traditional Mexican recipe that's fermented, prickly pear fruit juice, so it just kind of tastes like wine. It's really good.

Rosalee de la Foret:
No, that sounds lovely.

Mimi Hernandez:
Wine with legs, because it still got that viscosity.

Rosalee de la Foret:
Well, thank you so much for sharing about prickly pear and just your traditions around this plant. I love that, that it's really is just something that is a part of your life and something that you work with all the time and just have these seasonal traditions with. It's lovely. Well, I'm really excited to talk about your book, Mimi. I don't know what I was really expecting with this book. This is the National Geographic Herbal and just published recently, and I don't really know what I was expecting.

Because I knew it was you. So there's that expectation, but it's also like, "Oh, National Geographic, what kind of book is that going to be?" I've seen their magazines about herbs and stuff, and I am just blown away by this book really because of you.

Mimi Hernandez:
Aw.

Rosalee de la Foret:
I love... First of all, there's a hundred herbs in this hardback edition. It's beautiful, but the writing is just so great. When did you learn to write like this?

Mimi Hernandez:
That's a good question because I'm never really considered myself much of a writer aside from... Okay, scientific writing back in the day. But that's all citation after citation after... Okay. And then, at some point, I've written a lot of music lyrics and things like that. I've got a lot of music community locally.

Rosalee de la Foret:
Interesting.

Mimi Hernandez:
And so I think that kind of brought out a more poetic, meaningful way to communicate. But in terms of writing about herbalism, I haven't done a lot. I was always a lecturer. I was always a verbal teacher, which is something that even in Latin American herbalists are more like, we're talking about it, we're just going to keep talking about it, and we're going to bring you to our kitchen and keep talking about it. So when I had to sit down and write about it, it was definitely a lot of setting ritual for myself to let the words come. So I would sit and just write everything I knew about a plant, just freeform, and then think about why I love the plant because-

Rosalee de la Foret:
That really comes through.

Mimi Hernandez:
Yeah. It's always like I want... Because it's National Geographic, so there's an assumption that this is going out to general public and a lot of people that don't have this love affair with plants like we do.

So I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to open people's eyes." And there was a lot about bringing in the senses and also not just the senses, but also bringing in the herbalist experience because I feel like with a lot of reference books like this that they forget to mention that herbalists are out there or that herbalists use these and herbalists know these.

They just kind of talk about plants without talking about herbalists. And so that was really important for me to make sure that I was talking about how a herbalist would use this plant or how a wild crafter would work with this plant, or how a clinical herbalist or a kitchen herbalist or a woodland herbalist and just different ways of relating to plants. And of course, I'd mentioned researchers and doctors here and there, but for the most part, I really wanted people who picked this up to know that it's from the lens of an herbalist in many different contexts. So that was really important ethos to me. So yeah, that's-

Rosalee de la Foret:
It really comes through. And I think that is what sets this book apart from other compendiums, like you said, that don't take in that herbalist perspective because you have a hundred plants and each plant, as far as I can tell, I've read a lot of it, but not all of it, but pretty much all books. It's like... What? Two pages, right?

Mimi Hernandez:
Yeah.

Rosalee de la Foret:
These front pacing pages. And that could easily be filled with facts that could be one ear and out the other. And I think a lot of books like this are right? They're just these quick facts. These are the uses of this herb. And they're just almost like list-based or something. I don't know. There's just no magic to them. But your book doesn't do that. Your book, just the writing of it is very inviting and you share so much information in a short span of time, but it's so readable. It's not over-the-top heady. And like you said, you often talk about herbalist experience from all over the world too. And the sidebars have been so fascinating to me. I've learned so much about plants, like the flax drink of Peru, I didn't know about that. I didn't know about the Spilanthes leaves being used in a soup.

Mimi Hernandez:
Oh, you can [inaudible 00:31:15].

Rosalee de la Foret:
So there's just so much Dr. Taylor on a raw diagram wrote your introduction as you know. And in it, she says that from the herbal curious to the experienced herbalist will love this book. And I 100% agree with that. I think somebody could pick up this book just being like, "Oh, what are plants good for?" And they would get so much out of it. And I'd like to think of myself as somewhat of an experienced herbalist. And I love it. I love it. I absolutely love it. And two, there's all these herbs in there, and then there's these kind of little breaks in it where you have herbs for the skin, or you talk about energetic herbalism, or you talk about different herbal preparations. So there's a lot in there. It's not just a list, which would be plenty because again, there's so much fabulous information in here about the plants themselves, but just also about herbalism and herbalists. Yeah, this is truly an herbalist's herbal, this book.

Mimi Hernandez:
Yes. Yes. And I just also wanted to point to different traditions and remind people that this wisdom is seeded from different parts of the world, from different habitats, from different traditional people, indigenous people, just all over the world. And so I wanted to make sure there was that kind of cultural context with the way we're looking at things. And so yeah, that was-

Rosalee de la Foret:
Very much comes through too. The cow chapter, the Spilanthes again. Yeah, just so many things. I couldn't praise this book enough. And Woodland herbalism, and this is one of those books that I will keep it on the coffee table, but not as just something that looks pretty, but something I want to have readily at hand because it's so readable. It's not just a lookable, it's a readable. And yeah, I love it so much. Well done. I can't imagine.

Mimi Hernandez:
Thank you.

Rosalee de la Foret:
It's a lot of work I know to put out a book like that. And yeah, it's just absolutely phenomenal.

Mimi Hernandez:
It means so much, especially coming from you because your books are so beautiful.

Rosalee de la Foret:
Oh, thanks. Well, Mimi, I would love to hear about... The question I'm asking a lot of people in Season 10 is about their herbal teachers apart from the plants, and I already told you that I have a specific request in mind. Because I know you have a lot of herbal teachers, your abuela, and many people along the way, but I would love to hear about James Duke because that is someone who I was never able to meet and someone who is just such a beloved person who's done so much for the herbal world. And so I'd love to hear from you just a little homage to Jim Duke.

Mimi Hernandez:
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. He definitely was the person that changed my life and put me on the right path in terms of... I told you all, we went to this AHG conference. Well, before that I was a big Jim Duke groupie in terms of reading all his books and his articles. And there was just something in the way that he described plants that was just so upbeat and uplifting. And I have to say also, this is real curious because my family's Columbian, and I understand that he's like a southern white gentleman, but he in some ways opened my eyes to Ethnobotany of Columbia because he was doing studies in the Amazon and working with indigenous folks in the Amazon for the USDA and to do study some of the cultural plants there. And so that was such a passion of mine because I still have family in Columbia, but they're not taking me to the Amazon to look at the plants. They're more like in Bohtan, the city.

It was interesting. So then with that context, he also has written books, and his books have been translated to Spanish. And he even wrote a book about Spanish lexicon of some interesting and curious words in Spanish, and... I don't know. Then it ended up being like a family thing where my mom and my aunt, we were all reading his Spanish books and stuff. But when I was at the AHG conference, I met a couple of people there who were going to this grad school in Maryland, and that was Ty Sophia at the time. And Kevin Spellman was one of these people, another teacher of mine, and he's like, "Yeah, so James Duke is going to be one of the faculty persons there." They're starting whole botanical program and herbalism, and I didn't even need to hear more. I had a little baby, and I was like, "We're leaving. We're moving. I'm quitting that AgroScience job and we're going to pack it up, move to Maryland."

And I was probably there three months later at the foot of Dr. Duke just listening to him sing songs about plants. He had a little ditty about every plant, and then I just kind of became his shadow. I was working in his gardens, the Green Pharmacy Gardens a lot, learning with my hands in the dirt and helping him. And he always had a soup. Every time we had a crew at the gardens, he just had this outdoor area where he would make a big old pot of vegetable soup with fresh herbs. And that to me, was something that really spoke to my heart a lot because it's that kitchen herbalist thing that calls to me, which is how I first got into herbs. And then my teacher, who's probably one of the most scientific people I've known, because he will talk jargon.

He will talk very scientifically. He's a very brilliant scientist, but he also had this kitchen effect and feeding people and exploring these flavors around the garden and singing songs too. And singing songs. Yeah, we've sung. I was like, "I've got to sing songs with him on stage." Is probably some of the most beautiful moments of my life. The singing about Appalachian plants and singing about ginseng and just these fun songs. And I've got his trunk because they gave me a bunch of his tapes and I've got a bunch of his old books and I'm like, "What am I going to do with all these?"

Because he made a recording called The Herb Album or Herbal Bum, it depends on how you say it, but he had a CD that came out and saw his songs that he used to play the fiddle. And just seeing these songs directly to the USDA and the research and the people in power about the importance of plants and simple remedies, because yeah, he just such a loving, loving gentleman and his wife, Peggy, beautiful union because she was the illustrator of all his books. So she also was a very special connection for me, and yeah, I miss them dearly.

Rosalee de la Foret:
Yeah. Oh, thank you so much for sharing a bit about them both and just what a character he was. And I just love that. He really held that space of communicating to the USDA and being able to go in with the scientific jargon while also being so deeply rooted with the plants themselves in the garden and feeding and music and... Yeah, it's beautiful.

Mimi Hernandez:
And he knew that I was going to write a book. It was several years after he passed away that I did, but he used to always tell me, he's like, "I'm going to write your forward." So in a lot of ways, when this book came out, you see, I wrote about him in the intro to kind of still weave him into the story. I can't think of anyone. Dr. Low Dog is such a blessing that she stepped in and did the forward and did such a beautiful, beautiful work with that. But yeah, it took me a long time to be able to sit and write. But I kept hearing his voice of reassurance during that whole process.

Rosalee de la Foret:
Oh, how beautiful, Mimi.

Mimi Hernandez:
Thank you.

Rosalee de la Foret:
Well, Mimi, I'm walking away from this thinking you are a manifestor of your dreams. You went from being like herbs, all right? To going to an herbal symposium to becoming the executive director of the American Herbalist Guild and just all your stories of like, "I knew this was my path, and then I found Ty Sophia and three months there, I was there with my babe in arms." I mean, you really are a go-getter and just a manifestor of your dreams, and I'm so glad that you said yes to this dream of the book with National Geographic because it's an herbalist's herbal and your passion and love for plants and all of that, you brought the traditional plants, and there's science in there. There's the herbalist perspective. It just has everything. It really feels like... I think that's what it was. Reading the book, I feel seen like, "Oh yeah, this is my life here in this book."

Mimi Hernandez:
Awesome. Oh my gosh, thank you.

Rosalee de la Foret:
Well, thank you so much for sharing all of your gifts for all that you've done with the AHG for the past decade, for the book, and yeah, just all of it, Mimi. I'm very impressed with you and grateful for your work.

Mimi Hernandez:
Well, thank you. Well, we'll have that power lunch someday soon.

Rosalee de la Foret:
That sounds wonderful.

Mimi Hernandez:
Okay.

Rosalee de la Foret:
Thanks Mimi.

Mimi Hernandez:
All right. Thanks Rosalee.

Rosalee de la Foret:
Thanks for being here. Don't forget to download your beautifully illustrated recipe card above this transcript. And sign up for my weekly newsletter, which is the best way to stay in touch with me. The best way to check out Mimi's offerings is on Instagram @mimiprunellahernandez. I also highly recommend her book, the National Geographic Herbal 100 Herbs from the World's Healing Traditions. You can find that wherever books are sold. If you'd like more herbal episodes to come your way, then one of the best ways to support this podcast is by subscribing on YouTube or your favorite podcast app. I'd also love to hear your comments about this episode. What's your biggest takeaways? I deeply believe that this world needs more herbalists and plant-centered folks, and I'm so glad that you are here as part of this herbal community.

Okay. You've lasted to the very end of the show, which means you get a gold star and this herbal tidbit. Well, a couple of months ago, I had the pleasure of being down in Austin, Texas at the American Botanical Council Gardens with Gail Engels and Jesus Garcia. And as we were walking around, in one corner of the gardens was this large patch of a prickly pear cactus. And as we walked by, I noticed that there was a lot of white clumps on the pads. And so I asked what that was, and Gail reached out and she plucked some up and she crushed it between her fingers, which instantly turned this bright red-pink color, and I knew what it was: Cochineal.

This is a scale insect that grows on opuntia plants or prickly pear plants, and it makes this substance that's commonly made into a red or pink dye. I have a beautiful pink scarf that my friend Emily, who I met in college, made for me when she was in Africa that she made with cochineal. It was really fun to finally see that relationship with the insect and the plant in person.