Since its colonial introduction to the Old World, the golden berry also has been referred to as the cape gooseberry; however, Physalis peruviana from South America is marketed in the United States most commonly as golden berry and sometimes Picchu berry, named after Machu Picchu in order to associate the fruit with its origin in Peru and to address the fact that this fruit is not actually a gooseberry as the name cape gooseberry implies. As a member of the plant family Solanaceae, it is closely related to the tomatillo . High in Vitamins A, B, and C, as well as phosphorus and protein, golden berries also have a range of documented medicinal uses, including antitussive, antihelmintic, antidiabetic, and diuretic properites; they are also used to combat a range of maladies from eczema to conjunctivitis to gonorrhea . Recent studies have discovered 14 new compounds in various species of wild tomatillo that have anti-cancer properties; these compounds, known as withanolides, are already showing promise in combating a number of different cancers and tumors without noticeable side effects or toxicity . Passion fruit/maracuyáis a woody perennial climbing vine that originated in Brazil and then spread throughout South America. Cultivated in humid and dry climates, passion fruits can be grown up to 1,500 masl, but require non-flooded land with good drainage to produce successfully. Both the fruit pulp and seeds of this sweet fruit are consumed as desserts, and the fruits are also squeezed into juices and made into salsas. Similar to cotton, passion fruits can be pressed for oil, which is used to aid digestion. Passion fruits also possess magical and medicinal properties; they are used an as anaphrodisiac , as well as a muscle relaxer and sedative . Cactus fruits of the genus Opuntia are abundant in the Moche Valley today; this plant grows between 500 and 3,000 masl in interandean valleys and survives in soil with low to medium soil fertility. The pulp of the cactus fruit is consumed also has a variety of other uses, including medicinal ; cosmetic ; to attract cochineal insects used for dyes; and as fodder for livestock .
In addition, various wild plum or wild cherry/cerezospecies are distributed throughout Peru, wild and cultivated up to 3,500 masl, with known comestible and medicinal uses .A number of other miscellaneous/wild taxa were identified in the assemblages,vertical grow rack including various weedy taxa found in agricultural fields and on habitation sites, many of which have known economic uses . Others likely represent incidental inclusions, unintentionally transported to the site in the clothing of family members and fur of livestock returning from agricultural fields. In contrast to field cultigens and tree crops that produce large seeds or rind fragments, many of the miscellaneous/wild species discussed below have not received much treatment in the Andean archaeological literature. Only in the past few decades have paleoethnobotanists made attempts to systematically identify small weedy seeds from archaeological samples , in contrast to the recovery of larger taxa hand-picked during excavation or from larger mesh/screen sizes that characterize earlier excavation techniques.Some of these families are represented by multiple genera and hundreds of species, so it is difficult to make specific inferences about their economic uses by Moche Valley residents. Some of these families are well adapted to disturbed environments and occupy agricultural fields , in open uncultivated areas , or on rocky hill slopes or other relatively undisturbed areas . Other species identified to the species or genus level have well-documented economic uses, with data from ethnographic studies and some have longer histories of use evidenced archaeologically. Many of the taxa discussed below had multiple uses, including as food, medicine, fodder, fuel, or other purposes, with different portions of plants used for different purposes, including with different preparation methods . I draw primarily on ethnobotanical uses discussed by Brack Egg , along with other scholars cited below. Food taxa in the miscellaneous/wild category include amaranth/kiwicha 17, lupine/tarwi , mesquite/algorrobo , plantain/Plantago spp., oregano , purslane/verdolaga , rattlepod/crotalaria , saltbush/orache , sow thistle , trianthema , vetch/haba , wildbean and a member of the genus Rubus. Some of these comestibles are fairly well known; for example, amaranth is fairly cosmopolitan in cuisine, as a nutritious grain that can be toasted, popped, ground into flour, or boiled for gruel . Native to Peru, amaranth is distributed throughout the Andes from Colombia to Argentina, on the on the coast, highlands , and high jungle.
Both wild and cultivated , different species of amaranths grow within different elevation zones, with coastal varieties that can be grown up to 500 masl and altiplano varieties up to 4000 masl . Brack Egg lists two wild species that can be grown in the north coast region . Amaranth has long been used as a food source in the Andes, including by the Inka , with archaeological evidence of cultivation going back as far as 2,000 years, recovered in tombs in northwestern Argentina . It is also used as livestock fodder and has medicinal uses, including to treat diarrhea, sore throats, menstrual cramps, and rashes. The green leaves also be can be eaten like vegetables . Mesquite, or algarrobo , is another well-known food; ripened seed-pods are often ground into flour and also used to make chicha. The seed pods also serve as camelid fodder. The sweet, molasses-like flavor of mesquite is incorporated into many beverages in Peru today, including algarrobina, a cocktail that uses mesquite syrup extract. Thriving in alluvial and rocky soils up to 1,500 masl, mesquite trees grow quickly and are long-lived . Their hardwoods are a source of long-burning firewood and charcoal as well as a raw material for wooden tools . The leaves, greens, and seeds of many of the miscellaneous/wild taxa may have been eaten raw or cooked, including lupine, plantain, purslane, saltbush, rattlepod, Rubus spp., sow thistle, vetch, and wildbean, while others were used as seasoning or condiments, such as oregano or trianthema . Some of these taxa have moderate to high degrees of toxicity and must be processed, e.g., lupine, which has a high alkaloid content. A member of the Fabaceae family, lupine, or tarwi, is typically considered to be a ‘highland’ food, as it grows up to 3,850 masl . A number of the miscellaneous/wild taxa have known medicinal uses as well, including acacia/faique , amaranth, knotweed/smartweed , milk thistle/cardo , oregano, purslane, ragweed/ambrosía , rattlepod, saltbush, sedge/piri-piri , spurge , tillandsia/achupalla , sage/salvia , shoreline purslane/capin , sida/pichana , vervain/verbenaand violet/violeta .
These plants have known analgesic properties and been documented for the their use in treating a range of maladies, from coughs/colds, headaches/earaches/throat aches, gastrointestinal distress, rashes, and menstrual cramps, among others, and also have been used in fertility management as contraceptives or abortive agents . Certain taxa, e.g., vervain, have known uses in veterinary medicine as well; used to treat cattle hooves in the Andes today , it is possible that vervain could have been used to treat prehistoric ungulates . Certain spurges that have known purgative properties, along with sedges that have aphrodisiac properties have documented uses in shamanic rituals as well . Some of the miscellaneous/wild taxa also have known fuel uses, including tillandsia, saltbush, mesquite, and acacia. A few archaeological studies have identified plant taxa and other organic materials including woods and other herbaceous plants used as prehistoric fuels on the north coast , for cooking, firing ceramics, and working metal. In Inka times, fuel was an important tribute item . Beyond potential inventories of north coast fuels, the social relations associated with fuel use remain poorly understood. Moche Valley residents likely burned dung as a source of fuel in addition to grasses and tree fuels . In order to identify dung burning archaeologically, Wright suggests that researchers consider the following: if there is a basis for using dung such as a shortage of available wood, the presence of suitable dung-producing animals in the archaeological context considered, recognizable animal dung in the archaeological deposits,vertical grow table and the recovery of such samples from hearth contexts . No wood analysis was conducted in this dissertation, so it is difficult to say at this point if there was a shortage of any particular taxa in the Moche Valley that would have been used for fuel. As discussed further below, seeds of the potential fuel taxa only were recovered in small quantities, but future wood charcoal analyses may reveal a different pattern. The Moche Valley does not have the dense stands of algarrobo trees witnessed in the more northerly Jequetepeque Valley ; I imagine that Moche Valley residents likely used a combination of gathered wild plant taxa and dung as fuel sources.
Camelids would have served as suitable dung-producing animals; indeed, ample amounts of dung, from camelids as well as guinea pigs, or cuy , were recovered throughout the Moche Origins Project excavations at MV-224, MV-225, and MV-83, and was present in many flotation samples . Hastorf and Wright and Miller and Smart argue that animal dung can serve as a vector for seeds from fodder plants, e.g., Poaceae, Chenopodiaceae, Verbenaceae, and Boraginaceae, taxa that were present in the Moche Valley assemblages. A number of the miscellaneous/wild taxa were likely used for animal fodder as well, including amaranth, grasses including crown grass/gramaloteand panic grass/grama , lupine, rattlepod, sandbur/pega pega , sida, tillandsia, trianthema, vetch, and wildbean. All of these taxa have ethnographically documented cases of fodder use for livestock . Brack Egg lists sida in particular as a fodder used for guinea pigs. However, as Wright identifies, separating taxa used for fodder from taxa used for human consumption is complicated. Fodder can often be the same species as food used for human consumption and may also be processed and stored in a similar fashion . Ethnographic data suggest that the boundary between food and fodder is flexible and often depends upon the success of the harvest. In other words, what might be fodder in one year, could be used for human consumption the next year if yields of more preferred foods are low. This distinction even relates to fodder and fuel; for example, the preferred economic use of tillandsia is as fuel, but it can also serve as a fallback fodder for animals . Finally, some of the miscellaneous/wild taxa have other technological uses, as construction materials, for matting/thatching , textile production, etc. Sage and field madder have documented uses as green/yellow or red dyes, respectively . Other taxa may simply be the result of incidental inclusions in the archaeobotanical assemblages, and may not have been used by Moche Valley residents. The archaeobotanical assemblages from the five Moche Valley sites include a combination of wild and cultivated plants, with ecological requirements in many cases involving anthropogenic intervention. Moche Valley farmers had sustained access to water from irrigation canals, resulting in the creation of a landscape of cultivated fields, orchards, and fallow pastures.
Aside from a wide range of field cultigens and tree crops , other fruits would have been actively managed, likely lining fields. A number of miscellaneous wild species thrive in areas disturbed by humans and likely existed and were harvested in gardens even if not intentionally grown. Certain economic weedy species thrive along irrigation canals ; in disturbed areas ; and in fields under cultivation or recently fallowed , presenting Moche Valley farmers with opportunities to collect them while managing farming tasks. Ethnographic and Ethnohistoric Perspectives of Food Preparation and Processing Some materials and techniques of processing and preparation of plant foods recorded in ethnohistoric documents and witnessed today may have some bearing on past practices. Many of the edible plants and animals listed in the inventories of prehistoric sites in Peru are still grown, purchased, or gathered today, and while I do not assume an unbroken continuity for two millennia regarding the ways in which foods were processed and prepared, ethnographic and ethnohistoric sources are a useful starting point for thinking about the organization of food ways. Throughout South America, the practices of baking in ovens or frying over fires were virtually unknown in prehispanic times . While much literature has focused on Inka or highland traditions rather than coastal valleys, a small amount of ethnographic and ethnohistoric information is available for the north coast region.