Black American history is incorporated into the story of Southern Arizona in ways we don’t see in other cities. In the Sonoran Desert, Black life didn’t grow out of the big migration waves or the busy neighborhoods that influenced food in Chicago, the South, or Los Angeles. There were no rows of storefronts, no restaurant scenes built on being seen. Instead, in this arid landscape, where survival depends on resilience, Black communities adapted to the land, forming in small, often invisible ways.
Black history in Tucson and throughout the borderlands starts with the Spanish colonial era, not the U.S. South. By the mid-1500s, Afro-Mexicans were living throughout the region, outnumbering white settlers, with Mexico ending slavery in 1829. After the Civil War, the Buffalo Soldiers stationed in Arizona remained and built lives there. As time passed, Black Arizonaians entered the military, worked on the railroads, taught, and held civic jobs. Neighborhoods formed, as they often do, around churches, schools, and civic institutions.
Enslavement under Spain was brutal, just like that of those bought and sold in the American South, but it operated differently. Spanish colonial slavery allowed for indentured servitude, wage earning, and migration freedom, so by the eighteenth century, many people of African descent in Mexico, then called New Spain, were living outside plantations or farms. Regarding food, cooking was done at home rather than along trade routes, unlike much of the Confederacy. In other words, they were tending their farms and livestock because they owned them. In Chicago and other northern Midwest cities, Southern recipes and traditions were sustained by churches, clubs, and restaurants that served as community gathering places. In the South, food came from working on plantations and farms. Black cooking along the West Coast is part of a broader conversation, blending with Mexican, Central American, and Asian Pacific flavors.
In Tucson, Black life took shape through military service, particularly at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, because the city is a service town—railroad jobs, education, and civic work—not through dense neighborhoods like Harlem or South Central. There was never a big soul food scene here. Instead, a blend of Afro-Mexican and Mexican cultures began to emerge, found in ingredients that could withstand the heat. The result is a mix that also draws from Indigenous culinary history, too, in what the desert grows and sustains.
Importantly, the Tucson Black History Museum tells the story of Black culture in Southern Arizona, weaving work, service, and the slow building of community, not through big culinary scenes. Across the region’s churches, homes, and workplaces, the food stories told become part of everyday life rather than being celebrated publicly.
Preserved by the museum, a quote from a longtime resident, “You cooked what you could get here, not what you remembered from somewhere else. The desert decided a lot of that for you.”
The other night, I cooked cod with garlic, butter, lime, and chiltepín. I used what I had on hand, which I thought might honor those before me. I served the pan-roasted fish with quinoa, roasted cabbage and green onion. It’s a Borderlands meal, but the ingredients might show up in Black kitchens in Borderlandia. Instead of vinegar or tomato sauce, lime provides acidity, shifting the flavors toward the Southwest. Chiltepín, native to this region, adds the heat. Quinoa can be used in place of sorghum or rice, though either would work. The farmers-market cabbage and green onions, sautéed and mixed in, tie it together.
These ingredients don’t match what you’d find in Chicago, the South, or Los Angeles, because life and farming are defined by the desert and what grows here. Everything in the Sonoran has to adapt to heat, to scarce water and to being resilient in the face of adversity.
Recipe
Cod with garlic, lime, butter, and chiltepín
Quinoa with charred cabbage and green onion
Serves 2
Ingredients
2 cod fillets
Olive oil
Salt and black pepper
2 tablespoons butter
2 garlic cloves, smashed or thinly sliced
1 lime
Chiltepín, crushed, to taste
1 cup cooked quinoa
2 cups thinly sliced green or Napa cabbage
2 green onions, sliced
Roasted unsalted peanuts, chopped or crushed
Instructions
Begin by cooking the quinoa, then set it aside.
Heat a wide skillet over medium-high heat with olive oil. Add the cabbage and let it sit undisturbed for a minute or two, until it starts to char. Stir, add the garlic, season with salt, and cook until tender, with browned edges. Remove from the heat and fold into the quinoa, along with the green onion and peanuts, if using. Finish with lime zest, a small squeeze of lime juice, and salt to taste. Set aside.
Pat the cod dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat a skillet over medium-high heat with olive oil. Add the cod and cook without stirring for approximately 3 minutes, until lightly browned. Flip, add butter and garlic, and baste the fish for another 1 to 2 minutes as it finishes cooking. Remove from heat and finish with lime juice and a pinch of crushed chiltepín.
To serve, spoon the quinoa and cabbage mixture onto the plate and place the cod on top. Drizzle some of the spicy butter and lime sauce over the fish.
