Yerba Mate

[Janne]

Collecting ( funghi, berries)in Europe is done today not for medicinal purposes, but culinary.

In the countries where funghi are collected, they have a huge amount of ways to prepare mixed or solitary funghi species.
The British cuisine has lost this. And is slowly regaining it, or maybe taking on the continental recipes?

I do not think it has much to do with starvation.
Autumn, when funghi is plentiful, other foods are plentiful too. That is the time everything ripens. Spring and early summer was the 'lean times'.

Scandinavia experienced some very bad years in the mid 1800'. Funghi collecting and preserving was not in the culture of either Swedes or Norwegians. Finns collected and preserved..
In addition to lots of people dying in Norway and Sweden, emigration to North America got a huge, huge boost.
Finland - not so much.

Yerba Mate - not much drunk in Scandinavia. Was introduced by the Chileans that came in the late 70's.
A Chilean friend introduced it to me.

In general, we prefer that Arabic drink. Many times a day.
Finns too. The World's largest consumers. Sweden and Norway follow after that.

 

[Paul_B]

It must have been in those lean times in the 1800s that by grandads Swedish ancestors reached America to mix with his English ancestors. I think my mum got a pack of genealogy information from an American cousin which led back to England (via Georgetown's earliest settlement) but also back to the Olsons and back to Sweden. I thought she had the village they were from but when asked recently she didn't know. With Olson being a common name in Sweden (AFAIK) I doubt it'll be easy to trace back now.

I always say the reason I'm most alive on cold days (where it's cold enough to take your breath away) is because of my Swedish links. Although michigan great lakes area right up against the Canadian border isn't exactly unknown to have cold winters. Fires under trucks or drain them, climb out the first floor to get out then dig the house or truck out, etc. All the barely believable stories my grandad told me about where he came from.

 

[Broch]

Sorry Toddy, my post wasn't supposed to sound sexist if that's how you interpreted it. I suppose my real question is why it was mainly witches burnt at the stake when there were documented male healers at the time.

There is only third party reference to female druids, at least in Wales, but I believe that to be sufficient evidence that there were female druids I agree. There is little evidence of females medical practitioners in ancient British history that I have found however - I'd be pleased to be directed otherwise. There is plenty of evidence in other cultures especially shamanism. Of course the druidic system forbade the skills being written to ensure they were passed by apprenticeship so any information is from 'observers'.

I think Janne's interpretation that man hunted, women collected herbs is simplistic; in most indigenous cultures that we have knowledge of now there are both male and female herbalists, witch doctors, healers, shaman … whatever you want to call them.

 

[Paul_B]

I wonder which culture first used mate and for what purpose. I believe it is actually of the genus Ilex (same as Holly). I find that interesting if true. Would you infuse Holly leaves? Which is why I am curious as to who started infusing it and why.

 

[Janne]

I have always wondered this over many food stuffs.
Some need very elaborate preparing before the toxicity vanishes and they become palatable.
Some plants are toxic, except the part we eat.

Some say that humans followed what animals did for many vegetable food stuff.
Maybe the S. Americans saw a Llama chomping away on the leaves and twigs, and was after that very alert?
Or a S. American decided to become a proto Vegan, but was so hungry after a week of Veganism he was eating every greenery in sight, and became alert after devouring the leaves and twigs of that bush?

 

[Broch]

Both Ilex aquifolium and Ilex paraguariensis contain caffeic acid, saponins, caffeine, theobromine, ilexanthin, rutin and quercetin but, I believe, only Ilex aquifolium (common holly) of the two contains Cyanogenic glycosides.

 

[Janne]

So no more than 5 cups of Aquifolium infusion?


First time I had Mate, I was surprised that it contained twigs. Then I realized cheap crappy tea does the same. we just do not know it as it is fine pulverized and placed in tea bags.

 

[Toddy]

Sorry Toddy, my post wasn't supposed to sound sexist if that's how you interpreted it. I suppose my real question is why it was mainly witches burnt at the stake when there were documented male healers at the time.

There is only third party reference to female druids, at least in Wales, but I believe that to be sufficient evidence that there were female druids I agree. There is little evidence of females medical practitioners in ancient British history that I have found however - I'd be pleased to be directed otherwise. There is plenty of evidence in other cultures especially shamanism. Of course the druidic system forbade the skills being written to ensure they were passed by apprenticeship so any information is from 'observers'.

I think Janne's interpretation that man hunted, women collected herbs is simplistic; in most indigenous cultures that we have knowledge of now there are both male and female herbalists, witch doctors, healers, shaman … whatever you want to call them.

No, I didn't take it as sexist, just I felt it needed a wider explanation.
Why were mostly women burnt at the stake ? well, men were too, but why mostly women....this is a sexist answer, even if I think it's correct....patriarchy. Do as your told, do not step out of the bounds of 'normal' i.e. acceptable female behaviour.... like modern honour killing, except the command that 'thou shalt not kill', so, apparently that's why they could be burnt, but not stabbed or hung, why they could be drowned but not stoned.
The excesses of the S. Inquisition (and though they appear to have done most, they weren't the only ones guilty of such behaviour) were justified in the eyes of the men in charge, so that legitimised it, and that reinforced 'true behaviour'.

Even today in much of the world women walk a very fine line. The 'healers' offering vaccination to infants are being targeted now in some countries. In others women are still subject to not only patriarchy but the reinforcement of that by older generations of women already cowed and brainwashed to believe that subservience is their place.

I think Janne's interpretation isn't the whole answer. We know from anthropology that the majority of food gathered in a hunter/gatherer society is done so by women and children. Men provide 'feasting' food. High fat, high calories meat, fish and the like. Thing is though, humanity is omnivorous, and more so when food is cooked. So the small but constant gatherings bring in more food in total.

Midwives and the women who tended to the last rites of the dead often built up a wide knowledge, but then they were only midwives and only the old women who laid out the dead. They end up nameless, but they are there at birth, at death, and the silence of mercy when both go wrong.
No, they aren't given much credit, but if you lived then, everybody knew who they were, and they were given their place in society.
In comes monotheistic religion and instead of respect they are denigrated as crones, they are drunken wretches, etc., etc.,
Four hundred years ago a Scottish noblewoman was burnt alive because she asked the midwife, who the male protagonists claimed had to be a witch, for drugs to ease the labour pains.
And that cruelty that was repeated and repeated until Queen Victoria told the physicians quite bluntly that she was having the baby and she would have morphine.

A century ago the Lancet published, "
'Woman as nurse is the natural help of man. Woman as doctor is a conceit contrary to nature, and doomed to end in disappointment to both the physician and the sick.''

That stupidity and the attitude underpining it was an entrenched view of those making a 'profession' from healthcare.

There were women known as healers in earlier times, Hildegard of Bingen for instance. Noblewoman, abbess, etc., but even the few women who were educated still faced opprobrium, and they were not allowed University education, at all.

Load of published stuff around about all this.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1694293/

http://greenmedicine.ie/school/images/Library/Women Healers of the Middle Ages.pdf

 

[Broch]

Apologies, medieval period has records of many women healers I agree - I was really talking about BCE - so Greek and Roman or other cultures before the Roman invasion of Britain.

 

[Toddy]

So no more than 5 cups of Aquifolium infusion?

I wouldn't. I really wouldn't.

 

[Toddy]

Apologies, medieval period has records of many women healers I agree - I was really talking about BCE - so Greek and Roman or other cultures before the Roman invasion of Britain.

Ah, well, we don't have many names of folks back then anyway, and with no written records..... Greece and Rome are different, and we do have literacy, as we do for the Egyptians, and we do have medical texts from all of those cultures. Female names do crop up, as do 'categories' of women healers, the medicae, obstetrix, nutrix, and latromea of Rome for instance (Agnodice). Antte of Greece is often quoted as the first known named female doctor though.

M

 

[Paul_B]

Oh burning was done to men too, usually it's about making a big statement to deter others from doing the crime the victim had been found guilty of. Apparently families of the condemned would pay gunpowder to be put around their necks in the hope they'd die quicker with less pain. Unfortunately that didn't work in fact it actually increased the pain of their death not a nice death at all hence the statement. It would have been terrible to see and hard to forget.

The fiendishly evil tendencies of mankind is truly terrible.

The twigs in mate isn't a problem, I read somewhere that it's better with twigs in it than without. Just looked for my bombilla. I had it at my partner's flat but it got lost when she moved in years ago. Not drunk mate for years so didn't need it. Looks like an Internet purchase is due. What's a good brand of mate? My partner drinks taragui brand from Argentina. It's her preferred brand. What's yours?

 

[Broch]

Of the 60,000 executions for witchcraft in Europe (15C to 18C) about 75% were women (note that this is a much lower figure than was once thought to have died). However, many accusations were started by other women - so, men dominated the 'interrogations' but it was other women that brought the initial complaint! It is interesting to note that the 'experts' on the subject matter (people that have written papers and books) disagree with quite fundamental aspects of the period though.

 

[Paul_B]

If only there was yerba mate in those days...

 

[Broch]

I fancy carving a mate gourd now! Think I'll make it out of holly

 

[Toddy]

You'll have fun trying to keep it whole. Holly splits like you wouldn't believe. I had a spindle whorl made of holly, and not a blooming thing I could do would stop it splitting.
Beautiful white timber though
Sycamore might work, but I think I'd try a burl, or one of those tree wart type lumps that grow near the base of the tree...the ones you can kick off whole, I mean.

I don't know what we have growing here that could be used in one though
Actually, I do. Chaga would work I reckon.

@Paul_B, do you have chaga to try ? I've some older stuff here that I could pass along. We usually only pass on the freshest we can find for the folks who need it, but just for drinking the older stuff is fine.

M

 

[Broch]

Yep, sycamore will work. I've also made drinking vessels out of birch. The spoons I've made from holly have never cracked and I have seen old Welsh utensils from holly. On the other hand, I've got some nice pear and plum...
To be honest any of our wild teas could be drunk using one - pine, nettle, blackberry... the filter straw/bombilla would mean I wouldn't have to strain it .Not sure how I'm going to make that though - the straw is easy enough but not the filter.

 

[Toddy]

If you can season it long enough, then holly's good, and if it's split, it really helps, but keeping it whole in the round to make a gourd ? I don't see it being easy, I really don't.
I know the local woodturners don't even try to keep it round, they wax both ends and put it by for a long while, and even then it shakes. One fellow tried four times to turn a quaich from holly, and in the end just gave up. The flower arrangers got some interesting 'structural' pieces out of it
Fruit woods are lovely timbers. The distaff on my spinning wheel is apple and it's now nearly three hundred years old, and it's still sound

I was thinking more that one fill was an all day kind of drink with repeated infusions. That's why I suggested chaga instead of ones such as those that you mention.
Nice teas, but not really repeat brewings, iimmc ?

How about just fitting one of the modern in-mug type teastrainers to your straw ?
There are loads around just now.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Metal-Te...Strainer-Filter-Herbal-Spice-UK-/263551618349

 

[Paul_B]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gourd-Bombilla-drink-Yerba-Mate-x/dp/B001E1VXR8

Why make do when £15 gets you the real thing? First thing I found on Google search for bombilla.

 

[Broch]

True, but why make anything in that case? You have to season most natural material drinking vessels anyway