Food Travel: Chaya from Isla Mujeres in the Yucatan Peninsula

Isla Mujeres is a small island located in the Caribbean just off the northeast corner of the Yucatan Peninsula. It derives its name from the Spanish Explorer Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba who discovered the island in 1517 and named it The Isle of Women because of the many statues of the Maya goddess Ixchel he found there.
The island is a limestone ridge approximately five miles long with palm trees and sandy beaches on the north end and rocky cliffs overlooking the Caribbean on the sparsely settled south end which boasts a point said to be the most easterly location in Mexico.

I came to Isla Mujeres looking for good fishing, snorkeling and a laid-back life style. I found all three in abundance. That was over a year ago. However, there is only so much relaxing one can do and as result my sense of curiosity has been sharpened which is how I found myself in pursuit of a Chaya bush.
I noticed that some local dishes contain a green leafy substance (no, not that green leafy substance) and when I asked I was told that it was chaya. It seems to turn up quite regularly in soups, egg dishes and tamales. I started asking around for the location of some chaya bushes, trees, vines or whatever it grows on. Within a week of beginning my quest some friends, Roberto and Maria, told me that there was a chaya shrub growing across the street from their restaurant La Bruja. At this point let me say that I will avoid using Spanish words and terms as much as possible because if you don’t speak Spanish you won’t know what they mean and if you do speak Spanish you won’t be impressed. Anyway the mystery of what form chaya takes was solved – it’s a shrub.
So the next day I walked down to the La Bruja restaurant at the north end of my neighborhood, Colonia La Gloria. With some help from Maria I found the chaya bush growing in dense shrubbery across the street. It had been pruned and picked over until only about half of the leaves remained but Maria assured me that this was enough to sustain growth. I took some cuttings for my garden and a half dozen leaves to cook. I later learned that most plants are grown from cuttings because chaya produces almost no seeds. The shrub can grow to be about nine feet high although domestic shrubs are usually trimmed to about six feet.
When I got home I simmered the leaves in a steel pot for about 10 minutes and drained off the juice to make tea. I lightly salted the leaves and ate them with melted butter. Delicious! Tastes a bit like spinach. I added a little sugar to the tea and found that I liked it best chilled.
Chaya is used locally to treat diabetes, high cholesterol, calcium deficiency, infection; and, is said to cure everything but stupidity. It contains more vitamins, iron, protein and calcium than spinach and it tastes better.
A caution though. There is a downside to everything and the downside to chaya is that it cannot be eaten raw because it contains a glucoside that releases cyanide. This is easily overcome by cooking. Cooking for one minute destroys most of the cyanide although the recommended minimum is ten minutes. Some of the four varieties have small stinging hairs but these too are destroyed by cooking. A final caution. Do not cook chaya in an aluminum pot because a reaction with the aluminum can cause diarrhea.
Chaya is native to the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico although it is cultivated in Central America and Puerto Rico. The scientific name, if you must know, is cnidoscolus aconitifolius although I don’t see myself having a conversation where I say “Tell me Senora Lima do you use cnidoscolus aconitifolius in your tamales?”
Now, if I can just find some pitahaya growing somewhere nearby……….