Linden flower infusion is delicious.
Almost honey flavour.
I like a special hop infusion called Beer.
Almost honey flavour.
I like a special hop infusion called Beer.
Yerba Mate
- Thread starter Paul_B
- Start date
Yes. In Czech Republic, possibly Austria too, Urologists recommend beer to prevent kidney stones.
Beer also contain vitamins and minerals.
Plus one of the agents from the Hops aids in the digestion, specially of fatty foods.
Most beer drunk in Central Europe ( southern Germany, Czech R and Austria ) is around 3.5 to 4.2%. One litre will not make your head ache the next day.
Beer also contain vitamins and minerals.
Plus one of the agents from the Hops aids in the digestion, specially of fatty foods.
Most beer drunk in Central Europe ( southern Germany, Czech R and Austria ) is around 3.5 to 4.2%. One litre will not make your head ache the next day.
I live in the western boreal forest where Devil's Club (Oplopanax horridus) is quite common.
It is the #1 plant used for medicinal (proven phytochemistry) and spiritual purposes.
I drink the tea made from the inner bark and use a bear-grease salve on my legs.
I get what I need from a medicine woman far to the west.
It is the #1 plant used for medicinal (proven phytochemistry) and spiritual purposes.
I drink the tea made from the inner bark and use a bear-grease salve on my legs.
I get what I need from a medicine woman far to the west.
I had to look that one up
- the Native American Ethnobotany Database lists 157 uses for Oplopanax horridus
So far, it has given me some healing relief. No harm done!
European contact here was only a couple of centuries ago. We very much have paleo learning and practices all around us.
These First Nations have had 15,000+ years of work with local plants.
There was no copper age, there was no bronze age. Iron was delivered on the tides and by later trade.
Very sudden shift all over North America from stone to iron. 1600's, I'll suppose.
European contact here was only a couple of centuries ago. We very much have paleo learning and practices all around us.
These First Nations have had 15,000+ years of work with local plants.
There was no copper age, there was no bronze age. Iron was delivered on the tides and by later trade.
Very sudden shift all over North America from stone to iron. 1600's, I'll suppose.
Lead was the first metal they came into contact with? ( I am being nasty here!)
I read somewhere a non sanitized account how the first colonizers behaved. Atrocious.
Sadly much of their medical knowledge has been lost. We lost most in Europe because we had a habit of burning 'witches'.
Dad, an MD, explained to me when the first 'doctors', the first trained ones. started practicing, they needed to get rid of the knowledgeable (usually) women, for two reasons: To get their business and to remove them as their medication and treatment methods were vastly better than the new 'doctors') treatments and methods.
Only a Witch in cahoot with the Devil could heal.
Bear fat is for some reason against the Homo S. skin. Sheep's wool fat is second.
I read somewhere a non sanitized account how the first colonizers behaved. Atrocious.
Sadly much of their medical knowledge has been lost. We lost most in Europe because we had a habit of burning 'witches'.
Dad, an MD, explained to me when the first 'doctors', the first trained ones. started practicing, they needed to get rid of the knowledgeable (usually) women, for two reasons: To get their business and to remove them as their medication and treatment methods were vastly better than the new 'doctors') treatments and methods.
Only a Witch in cahoot with the Devil could heal.
Bear fat is for some reason against the Homo S. skin. Sheep's wool fat is second.
There's a lot of hedgewitch type knowledge still around in Europe though.
Sad thing is that it gets mixed up now with too many people latching onto poorly understood herbal research and picking out bits instead of seeing the whole. Like using statistics to prove what they want it to say instead of what they were actually recorded as.
Raspberry leaf is a classic case in point.
We also have a huge amount of archaebotanical research and information from sites such as the monastic hospitals. The one most local to me is Soutra Aisle,
https://www.ancient-origins.net/anc...dical-interventions-monks-soutra-aisle-003285
but this type of site is found right across Europe.
Tie that in with folk knowledge (and Janne's right, about too clever women being treated as 'witches' and subjected to horrors because of religious attitudes) and there's a surprising amount that's still known.
Religion, industrialisation and a changing world though have shattered most folks intimate connection to nature, the seasons, and the botany around them.
M
Sad thing is that it gets mixed up now with too many people latching onto poorly understood herbal research and picking out bits instead of seeing the whole. Like using statistics to prove what they want it to say instead of what they were actually recorded as.
Raspberry leaf is a classic case in point.
We also have a huge amount of archaebotanical research and information from sites such as the monastic hospitals. The one most local to me is Soutra Aisle,
https://www.ancient-origins.net/anc...dical-interventions-monks-soutra-aisle-003285
but this type of site is found right across Europe.
Tie that in with folk knowledge (and Janne's right, about too clever women being treated as 'witches' and subjected to horrors because of religious attitudes) and there's a surprising amount that's still known.
Religion, industrialisation and a changing world though have shattered most folks intimate connection to nature, the seasons, and the botany around them.
M
The history of European medicine, including Britain, is somewhat more complex than that though. By the time the 'new doctors' arrived we had the written word over most of Europe and the old medicine was well documented. Unfortunately the worst thing the 'new doctors' did was re-write a lot of it but there's still a lot of the original lying below.
What I don't understand (or have any knowledge of) is why the role of healer passed from the men in druidic times to women in medieval times
Both my Grandmother and my Mother had a lot of knowledge of the old ways so, although I accept a lot has been lost, only a couple of generations ago a lot was practiced - at least in the rural communities.
P.S. I think we're drifting off topic again
What I don't understand (or have any knowledge of) is why the role of healer passed from the men in druidic times to women in medieval times
Both my Grandmother and my Mother had a lot of knowledge of the old ways so, although I accept a lot has been lost, only a couple of generations ago a lot was practiced - at least in the rural communities.
P.S. I think we're drifting off topic again
Well, Mate is supposed to have med properties too.
Also it can give you oral and oesophegal cancer, but the science is unclear if it is the high temperature or something in the infusion.
Also it can give you oral and oesophegal cancer, but the science is unclear if it is the high temperature or something in the infusion.
There were women druids. They weren't all men.
The rise of the monotheistic religions from the middle east caused enormous disruption from the common knowledge of the past.
Take elder for instance.
Ask the hag before you take fruit or flower or stick from her tree.....basically it's a brittle kind of tree, and if you pull on it, or climb it to gather, it'll often break under you.
The jelly ears (and yes, I know that there's a huge divide among some bushcrafters about this name, tough, those who refuse to use the Jew's ear name have very good reasons for their choice) that grow on it, medieval religious opprobrium blamed the Jewish for Christ's crucifixion, and the Jews were targeted when any social ill arose. Their ears were cut off as a clear and unmistakeable sign of their Jewishness and punishment, and those ears were nailed to the tree....like some trees became known as the gallows tree,
So the church disapproved of any sign of respect to a pagan 'hag', and of the Jews, and the elder tree became the evil tree that was used in the crucifixion.
Thing is though, the elder doesn't really grow in the middle east, it's a tree of temperate climes and the tree is very useful herbally, but the hag bit...they couldn't stomach that, so the tree was evil and much knowledge of it's usefulness was suppressed and forgotten.
Now, repeat that kind of thing for every plant that had some kind of pagan significance, and suddenly it makes sense why Britain has such a poor record of things like fungal gathering and use, and add in the Industrial revolution, when the UK became the first country in the world to overturn the rural/ urban population balance, and even commonplace food plants became ignored and forgotten. Now occasionally somewhat scathingly referred to as 'famine foods'. Instead we import huge amounts of stuff like chia seeds, when our own native seeds are easy to grow and harvest and healthy eating too, but don't come with all the hype and advertising.
Add in the way that those monotheisitic religions looked at women's roles in society, and their suspicion of any woman knowing something that a man might not, and there's the tie in with the 'witch' thing.
Fear and social conditioning are powerful tools in a patriarchal and monotheistic world.
Now of course many herbal products can't be advertised because the producers cannot afford the 'scientific' testing that would make them acceptable to the regulatory authorities.
Not all a bad thing, but it is very, very limiting.
Sorry, rant over
M
The rise of the monotheistic religions from the middle east caused enormous disruption from the common knowledge of the past.
Take elder for instance.
Ask the hag before you take fruit or flower or stick from her tree.....basically it's a brittle kind of tree, and if you pull on it, or climb it to gather, it'll often break under you.
The jelly ears (and yes, I know that there's a huge divide among some bushcrafters about this name, tough, those who refuse to use the Jew's ear name have very good reasons for their choice) that grow on it, medieval religious opprobrium blamed the Jewish for Christ's crucifixion, and the Jews were targeted when any social ill arose. Their ears were cut off as a clear and unmistakeable sign of their Jewishness and punishment, and those ears were nailed to the tree....like some trees became known as the gallows tree,
So the church disapproved of any sign of respect to a pagan 'hag', and of the Jews, and the elder tree became the evil tree that was used in the crucifixion.
Thing is though, the elder doesn't really grow in the middle east, it's a tree of temperate climes and the tree is very useful herbally, but the hag bit...they couldn't stomach that, so the tree was evil and much knowledge of it's usefulness was suppressed and forgotten.
Now, repeat that kind of thing for every plant that had some kind of pagan significance, and suddenly it makes sense why Britain has such a poor record of things like fungal gathering and use, and add in the Industrial revolution, when the UK became the first country in the world to overturn the rural/ urban population balance, and even commonplace food plants became ignored and forgotten. Now occasionally somewhat scathingly referred to as 'famine foods'. Instead we import huge amounts of stuff like chia seeds, when our own native seeds are easy to grow and harvest and healthy eating too, but don't come with all the hype and advertising.
Add in the way that those monotheisitic religions looked at women's roles in society, and their suspicion of any woman knowing something that a man might not, and there's the tie in with the 'witch' thing.
Fear and social conditioning are powerful tools in a patriarchal and monotheistic world.
Now of course many herbal products can't be advertised because the producers cannot afford the 'scientific' testing that would make them acceptable to the regulatory authorities.
Not all a bad thing, but it is very, very limiting.
Sorry, rant over
M
Across western North America, medicine man or medicine woman depends upon the ancient social structure of the tribe.
Regional differences of some sort. They put no claims on the jars, bottles and packages.
You talk to them. They decide what you need. That's important direction.
I can harvest lots of Devil's Club. I know how to prepare it. But out of respect, I won't.
I always tend to think of medicine woman as they are the only ones I encounter in a matriarchal social structure.
Regional differences of some sort. They put no claims on the jars, bottles and packages.
You talk to them. They decide what you need. That's important direction.
I can harvest lots of Devil's Club. I know how to prepare it. But out of respect, I won't.
I always tend to think of medicine woman as they are the only ones I encounter in a matriarchal social structure.
Men hunted, fished.
Women foraged for plants.
Remnants of this is still present in central Europe. Women pick billberries, wild raspberries and lingon berries. Men shoot.
Funghi picking is for both sexes, but if there are berries to pick, the women do that while men pick fungi.
Do not laugh. It works!
Women foraged for plants.
Remnants of this is still present in central Europe. Women pick billberries, wild raspberries and lingon berries. Men shoot.
Funghi picking is for both sexes, but if there are berries to pick, the women do that while men pick fungi.
Do not laugh. It works!
Interesting how other religious, European countries have kept traditions of gathering various things especially funghi. Take France for example has a tradition of funghi collection with pharmacists having to identify safe ones to eat as part of their training and licence to operate iirc. In other countries families collect funghi and go to great lengths to prevent their secret gathering sites from being found by outsiders to their family. In sure medicinal use of plants is likely to be better known on the continent too despite religion being stronger there.
Whilst religion has a role to play it was really the society that did the purges. Under the cover of religion perhaps but the drivers were from society. Of course you can't distinguish culture, religion and society. They're all part of the mix that makes a collective persecute another group or individual.
I guess my point is that the knowledge of the natural world and its uses for medicinal or food purposes seems to be found more widely on the continent than in the UK.
There must be some reason besides just religion. What that is I don't know.
As for mate potentially causing cancer, well I'm pretty certain that science will eventually find everything we eat or consume causes cancer of one kind or another given enough time. It seems one minute something is the best thing ever for your health then it's a cancer causing food. It's dizzyingly difficult to keep up to date with all this health advice.
Take salt for example. Not good, cut back. Except if you have low blood pressure which is a big risk for some major health conditions so increase your salt intake. Plus the US nutrition body that every few years publishes the federal nutrition guide very nearly increased the maximum Salt levels because of fresh evidence. Apparently the original guidance was a best guess that even the two experts that gave it said they had no faith in it's value.
Sorry way off topic.
Whilst religion has a role to play it was really the society that did the purges. Under the cover of religion perhaps but the drivers were from society. Of course you can't distinguish culture, religion and society. They're all part of the mix that makes a collective persecute another group or individual.
I guess my point is that the knowledge of the natural world and its uses for medicinal or food purposes seems to be found more widely on the continent than in the UK.
There must be some reason besides just religion. What that is I don't know.
As for mate potentially causing cancer, well I'm pretty certain that science will eventually find everything we eat or consume causes cancer of one kind or another given enough time. It seems one minute something is the best thing ever for your health then it's a cancer causing food. It's dizzyingly difficult to keep up to date with all this health advice.
Take salt for example. Not good, cut back. Except if you have low blood pressure which is a big risk for some major health conditions so increase your salt intake. Plus the US nutrition body that every few years publishes the federal nutrition guide very nearly increased the maximum Salt levels because of fresh evidence. Apparently the original guidance was a best guess that even the two experts that gave it said they had no faith in it's value.
Sorry way off topic.
Not disputing that religion is not the entirety of the loss of the folk knowledge, but the concommitant opprobium tied into the early industrialisation really did cut off much knowledge and connections that otherwise might have thrived.
There's also the huge thing that on the continent, when they have war, by heavens they have war, and famine, and desperate people use those famine foods. It keeps memory alive.
French history of it's peasants struggle, (or Russia) might have cumulated in revolutions, but to be honest, any nation that makes meals of the very debris of butchery (China, ducks feet !!) knows starvation.
The British Isles are generally very productive, we are very fortunate.
Our islands are somewhat of a limitation on war and disease. There's only so much room available....and if folks were hungry enough, well fish was plentiful in every river in the land until we polluted them with industrial and urbanised waste, and nowhere are you more than walking distance from the sea.
The last famine here was the potato one in Scotland and Ireland. That was totally exacerbated by the disbelief of the majority elsewhere in the islands that such a thing was possible, and by the time realisation came, it was too late for many. The social structure re land ownership really exacerbated matters, instead of allowing the natural flow of people.
Previous to that the archaeological record shows that the Romans burnt the Pictish lands at harvest time in an attempt to cow them. The Picts survived and thrived, so they clealry found other foods, even if that particular time was harrowing. King Robert and the Border Reivers raided down into the middle of England, and yet the English survived, the English did much the same agin the Welsh, yet the Welsh survived.
There's also the huge thing that on the continent, when they have war, by heavens they have war, and famine, and desperate people use those famine foods. It keeps memory alive.
French history of it's peasants struggle, (or Russia) might have cumulated in revolutions, but to be honest, any nation that makes meals of the very debris of butchery (China, ducks feet !!) knows starvation.
The British Isles are generally very productive, we are very fortunate.
Our islands are somewhat of a limitation on war and disease. There's only so much room available....and if folks were hungry enough, well fish was plentiful in every river in the land until we polluted them with industrial and urbanised waste, and nowhere are you more than walking distance from the sea.
The last famine here was the potato one in Scotland and Ireland. That was totally exacerbated by the disbelief of the majority elsewhere in the islands that such a thing was possible, and by the time realisation came, it was too late for many. The social structure re land ownership really exacerbated matters, instead of allowing the natural flow of people.
Previous to that the archaeological record shows that the Romans burnt the Pictish lands at harvest time in an attempt to cow them. The Picts survived and thrived, so they clealry found other foods, even if that particular time was harrowing. King Robert and the Border Reivers raided down into the middle of England, and yet the English survived, the English did much the same agin the Welsh, yet the Welsh survived.
This was the case for butter when I was a kid in the 1970s and 1980s. "Stop eating butter! It clogs up your arteries and gives you heart attacks! Eat margarine!"
Hmm... Except that it wasn't true.
Now, it's "hydrogenated fats (i.e. margarine) are bad for you"...
Cream wasn't good once. Tell that to my grandad who ate cream every lunchtime for a long as I remembered him and still lived to 90 when life expectancy was high 70s. He had a fry up every day with bacon another cancer causing foodstuff too.
Truth is a basic tenet along the lines of "a little of what you fancy does you good" holds a degree of truth. Others like "everything in moderation" too.
Truth is a basic tenet along the lines of "a little of what you fancy does you good" holds a degree of truth. Others like "everything in moderation" too.
I think that's so true.
My Grandpa lived, sane and fit, until his late nineties.
One of his favourite dishes was a singed sheep's heid....that was the sheep's head roasted on a fire (because Granny wouldn't allow that stink indoors!) so that the hair burnt off and the skin roasted while the brains more or less boiled inside the skull. It was cracked open with a hatchet and he ate it with a horn spoon.
It used to be considered good food, now it's consigned to incinerators because of scrapie and BSE.
He had a boiled egg every day, and butter on his toast, and he drank tea so black that you couldn't see the bottom of the cup. Ate his porridge with loads of salt too.
Marrow was well liked in the past as well.
Now folks would have conniption fits about his diet, yet he was a clever and very able man, who lived a long healthy life.
I think we need to appreciate our native 'peasant' foods a lot more than we do.
I don't eat meat, but there are at least 60,000 too many deer on the hills.....that's a lot of dinners, especially if not left to hang so long that only those who think it a good thing, decays to 'gamey'. Mostly fresh venison just tastes of meat, and most folks are happy with that. But, we're still stuck in the rules and regulations of 'fair game' in the UK, and the hunting shooting and fishing sports that mean licenced game dealers and the like, and those make good simple native foods very expensive indeed.
M
My Grandpa lived, sane and fit, until his late nineties.
One of his favourite dishes was a singed sheep's heid....that was the sheep's head roasted on a fire (because Granny wouldn't allow that stink indoors!) so that the hair burnt off and the skin roasted while the brains more or less boiled inside the skull. It was cracked open with a hatchet and he ate it with a horn spoon.
It used to be considered good food, now it's consigned to incinerators because of scrapie and BSE.
He had a boiled egg every day, and butter on his toast, and he drank tea so black that you couldn't see the bottom of the cup. Ate his porridge with loads of salt too.
Marrow was well liked in the past as well.
Now folks would have conniption fits about his diet, yet he was a clever and very able man, who lived a long healthy life.
I think we need to appreciate our native 'peasant' foods a lot more than we do.
I don't eat meat, but there are at least 60,000 too many deer on the hills.....that's a lot of dinners, especially if not left to hang so long that only those who think it a good thing, decays to 'gamey'. Mostly fresh venison just tastes of meat, and most folks are happy with that. But, we're still stuck in the rules and regulations of 'fair game' in the UK, and the hunting shooting and fishing sports that mean licenced game dealers and the like, and those make good simple native foods very expensive indeed.
M
My great auntie used to eat pheasant like most people eat chicken for Sunday roast. Reason was they were country folk and her husband was a beater for the local shoot (their neighbour in the big house next door). Payment was on pheasant. In season they never had less than 3 or 4 hanging, probably more too. Afterall they ate one or two a week, two in one meal if there's guests. I suspect they kept the other birds to themselves.
