This year we packed our bags again for an epic foraging and seafaring trip to visit our friend Micah, who runs the Atlantic Holdfast Company off of Deer Isle, Maine. Our visits are filled with exciting extremes, kept on our toes while clinging to rocks in crashing tides or laying back against soft grass under giant old maples as the wind runs soft fingers through the St. John’s wort. . .
The flowers are here, folks. Please enjoy!
Tiny Pony Apothecary is on a West coast visit for the wedding of dear friends and Seattle Pride. We of course have spent lots of time in the woods and at the shore. . .
Tiny Pony Apothecary has been enjoying a lovely visiting to the beaches, marshes, bogs, and mountains of the Southeast. Check out some of the friends visited in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina and the lowcountry of South Carolina.
Hi friends~ Tiny Pony Apothecary will be documenting the plants in the gardens and wilds that we cultivate and harvest for medicine-making and pleasure. We’d love to have you follow our journey this season. . .
The flowers of bloodroot, a member of the powerful poppy family, are some of the earliest to rise in spring in the eastern woodlands, often standing together in small elegant clusters that speak of the fierceness and good sense of putting our energies into collective survival.
Bloodroot flower essence offers support for moving through the difficulties and wounds we inherit from lineage and ancestries, scraping away at festering layers until the bones of the situation lay healthy and bare and available for healing.
This flower essence also reaches out to those who have been isolated or excluded by community or family, moving through the pain of not belonging toward self-love, exquisite worthiness, and being held unconditionally by those who commit to showing up mutually, always.
#stayclose #transformativeherbs #queermagic #rampseasonyall #plantsgotyourback #subtlebody #nooneisdisposable #witchery #floweressence
This flower essence is for everyone but especially supportive for teens, peri-menopausal folks, and those of us who make queer magic. Blue cohosh flower essence supports us in sifting through the hesitancy or anxiety we might feel around sex and sexuality, particularly during times of transition, change, and growth, and encourages openness and acceptance of the sacred ways in which we are each made to contribute to the creative and sensual energies of the planet in this body and lifetime.
#foresttherapy #sexpositiveherbalism #caulophyllumthalictroides #rampseasonyall #queermagic #vitalism #feministmedicine #floweressence #subtlebody
Check it out, friends.
I’ve been published on the blog of the Herbal Academy of New England, waxing poetic about the grizzly parts of the animal. Read on to see why you might want to be saving those chicken bones. . .
I’ve already rhapsodized about dandelion and ramps, and so I am attempting to limit my springtime-reveling posts to a few other forage-able spring greens available to many of us living in North America. The following spring greens are everyday heros, common, widespread, and abundant, offering proof to our winter-scarred hearts that the cold dark months have retreated, and they feed your cells in spades. In Pharmako/poeia, a poem/manifesto on the powers of plants, Dale Pendell notes that “almost ay edible wild green is richer in vitamins than domestic lettuce.” Vitamin D, which I hope you’ve been supplementing with from October to May, is abundant in wild game and fish and also in wild greens. So my hope for the humans emerging from snow banks is to make like the deer and start nibbling now.
Violets (Viola odorata)
Violets in ancient Rome were associated with Venus and thought of as an aphrodesiac, helped along by the heart-shaped leaf and the romantic purple of the flower of the most well-known species. In Greco-Roman legend, Persephone was enacting her role as springtime deity, picking violets, when Pluto kidnapped her to the underworld. In North America, there nearly 600 species of violet growing wild, with colors ranging from blue and purple to yellow and white, and it is one of the earliest leaves and blossom above ground in the spring.
Violet in a sweet, bitter, and cooling herb best known for its alterative actions, which act upon the lymphatic, renal, and hepatic systems, encouraging movement of fluids and excretion of waste and toxins. Getting things to move is a lofty goal for springtime, when we emerge from our sweet sluggish states. Susan Weed recommends hemlock needle and violet oil for massage in treatment of fibroids and other stagnant mammary conditions and as regular practice for prevention of breast cancer (check out herbalist Lise Wolff’s story about using violet tincture to shrink a breast lump). A syrup or honey with the flowers is a lovely base for a bronchial formula for conditions, including asthma and unrelenting coughs. The common name “Heartsease” also refers to its use treating heart-related ailments.
The deep hues of the little violet makes it an aesthetically-satisfying addition to salads. In recipes, I’ll mince this green into savory fritters or meatballs and allow the nutrients to join the melee of the recipe. Candied violets make appearances as confection decor on cakes, and Appalachian herbals offer many a recipe for violet jelly and syrups.
Chickweed (Stellaria media)
Nearly a succulent, the diminutive chickweed grows like abundant hair in garden aisles and corners of parking lots. The bright green heart-shaped leaves along the long stems appears unmistakable to me these days, although there was a time when I confused it with Scarlet Pimpernel. Please don’t! Not nearly as tasty or nutritious. The genus Stellaria refers to the white star-like flowers, which are easy to distinguish form the orangey blooms on the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Unlike nettles or ramps, chickweed is ill-suited for preservation or cooking but for me is the most immediate experience of spring, offering juicy, sweet, cool and green eats right from the ground. I’ve often harvested a bunch and kept it in the fridge for a few days for use in salads or sandwiches, but its shelf-life is shorter than that of lettuce. I make sure to take scissors to the long stems of this plant when adding it to salads, although it is definitely a silly spring treat to stuff a just-picked handful in your mouth and go about chewing it like a pony.
This cool and bitter herb is best known for its demulcent and emollient properties, offering safe nourishment for taxed bodies and drawing heat and irritation from wounds and infections inside and out. Like many of the spring greens, this herb is an alterative, encouraging the moving of fluids but without being drying or diuretic, and has been known to be useful in breast cysts, ovarian cysts, uterine fibroids or lymphadema. A soothing green salve recipe used for wounds, rashes, dryness often includes chickweed, plantain, and violet leaf.
Nettles (Urtica dioica)
Can enough ever be sung about nettles? Hairy, vicious, darkly green, fibrous and m
ineral-laden, nettles reign over my springtime heart. I’m not the only one with these feelings, as evidenced by the many stinging nettles tattoos I see people paint onto their bodies.
I love the prickly body of this plant, the tiny shots of formic acid offering the stimulating medicine of pain, the upright spine and the unfancy flowers so effective at producing the tiny powerful seed. There was a time when my friends and I were just crossing the threshold into the realm of plant magics, and stinging nettles seemed to embody the dark and nourishing practices of all the witches before us; you can try to walk through a patch with your sandals on, or harvest the tops bare-handed, but she will teach you again and again, until you like the teaching.
Clearly I feel drawn to the energetic and metaphorical aspects of this plant, but perhaps it’s also wise to address the bodily here-and-now of the stinging nettles.
The nettle most commonly used medicinally is of European origins, and the American wood nettle (Laportea canadensis) is of a different genus and also edible, but found in less abundant woodland patches, and also not as deeply green and mineral-rich. Minerals really are the most heralded aspect of nettles, which contain great amounts of silicon and potassium, as well as abundant chlorophyll and vitamins A and C. You’ll notice that many of these spring greens have bitter and cooling aspects, which indicate the alterative and liver-stimulating actions so helpful as we transition from cold to bloom. Nettles is incredibly diuretic, which is something to remember when drinking several cups daily, but its effectiveness in moving fluids helps to dispel dampness, inflammation, and stagnation, such in cases of bronchitis and asthma, nephritis and cystitis, mucous accumulation in the colon, and in eczema appearing particularly in the upper body.
These days I har
vest this fierce plant with the respect I feel she’s due: gloved and with scissors or some other kind of clipping device, striping the fresh or dried leaves from the stem since they are often woody or fibrous in a way that I don’t find enjoyable for eating. I love keeping a gallon jar of dried leaves around for cooking, to grind into soups or stir-fries or meat pies. When I was an intern in among the hills of southern Ohio at the United Plant Savers Sanctuary, I was generously tutored in the ways of herbs by Paul Strauss of Equinox Botanicals, who used to mow his nettle patch regularly to keep them from spreading too far. He sent the dried ground leaf to a local bread baker, who in turn sent him fresh-baked wheat-and-nettle loaves. While nettle tea isn’t for everyone on account of the diuretic nature of nettles, many folks love the flavor and vibrancy of this infusion.
Vinegars + Green Juice
Vinegar is the menstruum most efficient at extracting water-soluble nutrients like minerals. Taking a tablespoon of raw herbal vinegar, straight or in water, is a nourishing practice much older than an encapsulated multi-vitamin. My friends Justin and Amy at Circle Mountain Farm make lovely herbal vinegars, which I’ve used to great effect on salads and sauteed greens. In addition to the aforementioned chickweed, violet, and nettles, other abundant mineral-rich plants to add include red clover, horsetail, oat straw and seed, cleavers, and dandelion.
To stimulate the liver, replenish mineral stores, and move out the sluggishness of winter, Deb Soule of Avena Botanical recommends blending a green juice of chickweed, violets, nettle, dandelion leaf, watercress, and lamb’s quarters, asserting that “This drink will add strength and vitality to any northerner after a long, cold winter.”
While I haven’t the time to explore the myriad nourishing wild edibles one can graze upon these balmy days, I want to give a shout out to a few of the other tender spring shoots that offer themselves: hemlock tips, fiddleheads, grape tendrils, poke shoots, daisy leaves, basswood leaves, smilax tips. . . What are your favorites?
RESOURCES
Michael Tierra, CA, ND. Planetary Herbology.
Sally Fallon and Dr. Mary Enig, Phd. Nourishing Traditions.
Guerrero, Martinez, Isasa. “Mineral Nutrient Composition of Edible Wild Plants.” Journal of Food Composition and Analysis, Volume 11, Issue 4, December 1998, 322–328
Rachele Ellena. “Wild Edible Plants — An Overview.” Nordic Food Lab. http://nordicfoodlab.org/blog/2012/9/wild-edible-plants-an-overview. September 11, 2012
Deb Soule. “Chickweed: A Delicious and Nutritious. . . Weed.” Maine Organic Farmers and Gardener Association.www.mofga.org/Publications/MaineOrganicFarmerGardener/Summer2004/Chickweed/tabid/1326/Default.aspx
Lise Wolff. “Viva Violets!” http://www.herbalistlisewolff.com/violets.html
“A Year with Stinging Nettle.” Herbaloo Blog. http://herbaloo.org/2012/01/03/a-year-with-stinging-nettles-urtica-dioica-materia-medica/
Photo by Naomi Ullian.
Last summer I threw a potluck on the stone patio of my house-sit, which was tucked down in the fog-filled green mountains of North Carolina, and I let it be known to my dear guests that the food theme was Redwall.
That’s right. Food theme. Redwall. I’m not ashamed. Please, consider this passage:
“Brother Alf remarked that Friar Hugo had excelled himself, as course after course was brought to the table. Tender freshwater shrimp garnished with cream and rose leaves, devilled barley pearls in acorn puree, apple and carrot chews, marinated cabbage stalks steeped in creamed white turnip with nutmeg.”
If I have any ambitions at all as a gardener, forager, cook, or dinner host, how could the fare described in these woodland epics not be esteem-able inspiration? Is your mouth not watering?
And please be honest: how many potlucks have you showed up to with a bag of tortilla chips and a tub of hummus, not homemade? I name myself guilty. Throwing a themed potluck shores up the quality of the eats.
One of my favorite springtime recipes, the Dandelion Fritter, is a bitter-and-salty pancake treat whose main ingredient I glean largely from my backyard (and, okay, maybe also the neighbor’s) and which I consider entirely Redwall-worthy. It’s hearty, elegant, nutritious, and it satisfies so many of my personal food requirements: suitable for eating at any time of day, easily made by children, and lovely to slather with something delicious.
Many an herbalist has written about the root of dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), so I’ll touch only briefly on this. The root is cool and bitter as well as sweet, contains inulin and a latex-like substance, and acts as an alterative, cholagogue, and diuretic. The tonic use of this medicine is suited to chronic inflammatory liver conditions such as hepatitis, and its alterative properties have shown it to be effective in boils, edema, and breast health. The bitterness of the whole plant indicates its assistance at the intersection of the GI and hepatic systems, as bitter flavors stimulate bile flow and help with fat emulsification for digestion.
The flower, however, apart from its fame in wine recipes, deserves more thorough attention, which you may imagine me offering with a yellow pollen-dusted nose which comes from sticking your schnoz in a big ducky dandelion head.
The “aerial parts,” or the leaves together with the flowers, have long been prepared and consumed for their dense nutrition. Closely related to chicory, domesticated lettuce varieties, and of course the fancier bitter leaf vegetables like the escaroles,
the leaf of dandelion in Chinese medicine is thought of as a bitter and cold herb par
ticularly effecting the urinary tract, the liver, and digestion. What old world herbalists called the nutritious “salts” of the leaves and flowers refers to the heaps of mineral and vitamins, including beta-carotene and the resulting Vitamin A, famous for improving vision and found in research to support epithelial tissues battling cancerous growth, such as in the respiratory tracts. The rest of the micronutrient profile basically reads like a vitamin bottle label: fiber, potassium, iron, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, B vitamins, copper, cobalt, zinc, boron, molybdenum, and Vitamin D.
In my strolls through the interweb, I came across some exciting research about this plant, whose virtues cancel all considerations for me to consider it a noxious week.
+ In 1956, French researcher Dr. Remy Chauvin investigated the long-lived Korean folk practice of dandelion flower use in conditions involving boils, skin infection, edema, and poor circulation, demonstrating the antibacterial properties of pollen.
+ In 1982, scientists in dentistry at Indiana University created antiplaque preparations using latex extracts from dandelion.
+ The latex, the sticky milky goo that oozes when you pick a leaf or flower, has been used for wart removal and to soothe burns — kind of like medicinal band-aids.
+ On a good and windy day, the seeds of the dandelion can be blown miles away from the parent plant.
+ Dandelion root produce a natural dye that offers fibers a rich shade of brownish-red.
+ Botanists call dandelions “perfect” flowers because they contain both male and female organs within the same bloom.
+ The pollen produced by the dandelion flowers is sterile, and botanists do not yet agree on why the plant continues to use energy to produce pollen that it does not use.
I suppose the most appealing gustatory experience of the Dandelion Fritter is its texture. I adore the way the fried blooms offer a crispy pop as I chew, the fritter as a whole a satisfying experience in light savory hors d’oeuvres.
It occurs to me that I should acknowledge a certain lack of specificity when it comes to amounts (tsps versus tbsp, etc) in my recipes. This is how my grandmother cooked (and we adored her Hungarian Goulash), and this, as it turns out, is how I cook. You’ll probably guess I am a less successful baker than I am a cook (though my grandmother’s pies are experiences my family can wax poetic about). However, I do believe that cultivating an eye for texture and a tongue for tasting as you go along is the best experiential education in the acquiring of kitchen skills.
And so I offer you my Dandelion Fritter recipe.
DANDELION FRITTERS
+ Beat 2-3 eggs with salt, pepper, and a dash of cream or milk. (I like to add ground nettles and minced onions or garlic, although not strictly necessary.)
+ Add one cup of fresh dandelion blooms or enough blooms until a thoroughly coated mixture forms without excess liquid.
+ Sprinkle flour of your choice (I like teff or dark buckwheat) until the mixture becomes sticky.
+ Form cakes with clean hands and fry in butter until golden brown on both sides and egg does not run out when fritter is pressed with spatula.
+ Serve with goat cheese, sour cream, ramp pesto, or nothing at all.
DANDELION FLOWER BITTERS
Cooling bitter tonics clear heat and move dampness, so its a pretty good addition to the daily food rituals for those of wringing the melting snow from our bones and wishing the liver would move along with the accumulations from winters’ necessarily heavy foods. If you live in a warm and humid area, where springtime brings thick wet weather and temperatures that cause your clothes to cling, this is also a useful tonic. I like to take 5-15 drops of the following formula 20 minutes before or after eating.
3 parts fresh Dandelion blooms
2 parts fresh Mugwort leaf
1 part fresh Mint leaf
1 part fresh or dried Lavender buds
To make this bitters formula, you may either combine simples (single-herb tinctures) in the suggested ratio of parts, or you can pack the fresh macerated herbs into a jar with a clear grain alcohol according to the ratios suggested. Allow to infuse at least two weeks, and then press and strain the herbs out.
RESOURCES
“Health Benefits of Dandelions,” The Leaf Lady. www.leaflady.org/health_benefits_of_dandelions.htm
“Dandelion,” A Modern Herbal, M. Grieve. http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/d/dandel08.html
“Dandelion,” Winter Botany 2012, http://winter2012bioportfolios.providence.wikispaces.net/Dandelion
Matthew Wood, The Book of Herbal Wisdom: Using Plants as Medicines