Trading for herbal medicine

So Saturday, I traded one herbal remedy and one herbal beverage for a tire. I'm not sure it was a fair trade, but what in this life is fair?

I had been planning to go out and gather elderflowers for a week or so, and was hoping the temps would drop from the high 90s every day. But it was not to be. So at 8:45-ish I drove out with my pruners and my basket, my jeans and my sneakers. I had no trouble spotting elderberries. Getting to them can be a challenge. They like to live near creeks and ditches, and walking (creeping cautiously) through that rough ground with 4-ft-tall grasses and forbs ... well ... it was hot and I knew there were ticks out there. Sometime before my jeans were actually saturated with sweat, however, I deemed I had enough elderflower. And each place I gathered had plenty of other flowers to become berries this summer and feed everyone. Everyone = animals who eat elderberries.

That's a thing about sustainable, responsible foraging or wildcrafting. You must not only know what plant to get, say, elderflowers versus cow parsley flowers or spotted hemlock flowers, which both look sort of similar to elderberry. (Okay, I don't think they do, but it's documented that people make mistakes, right?) (This kind of mistake can cost you your life. Period.) ... But you must also know how much of what you take is too much. If you can only find one patch of a plant in your area you should leave it alone. These plants have enough troubles trying to exist whilst being sprayed, mowed and bladed. They do the best job they can while Monsanto and farmers try to poison them out of existence. So, when you find a lot of a plant please just take some of it. To me "some" is a quarter of that patch or less. Then it's time to move on.

This brings up another important point. Make sure the plants you are gathering from have not been sprayed with herbicides or pesticides. Talk to landowners. If this all seems like a lot of trouble, then grow your own. It is a lot of trouble! But quite often these plants and the land they are on don't belong to you, and you really have no business gathering if you haven't talked to the landowners. And you can grow your own, but it takes a long time to grow enough to make a recipe of anything. the supreme advantage of growing your own is that you know if it has been sprayed and with what. Do your research. So back to talking to people. Do it. they're going to look at you funny, so what? You can look at them funny for not using these marvelous plants.

Ah, but I do go on!

There was something about trading for tires in this story, was there not?

Well here we are with a basket of elderflower. The basket is about 18 inches long.











As you remove them from the green stems, they start looking like tiny fake flowers as they fall.










 

Here's after I've done a few more.

And here's where we find the kidnapees. I shook off the umbels in the field, and again before I brought them in the house. Yes, individually! And two crab spiders and this pale green orb were still in the flowers.

I am getting closer, but at this point, I had at least a pint of loose flowers, so ...

I wantonly stuffed them into a pint jar. I poured in vodka up to about the 3/4 mark. There. No ... there. I just estimated, really. Then topped off with water. I shook it, but not too much moved. Then I put it into my herb cabinet, in the dark. You want to put your herbs in a cool, dry place, definitely out of the light. If you don't have AC in the house, you settle for dark, as I do.

After finishing off the last few umbels, which took a total of 45 minutes, I think. My feet are saying "75 minutes," but they could be kidding. I then popped them into a big saucepan and tried to cover them with water. Ahem. They are buoyant, LOL. So I tried to press them under. They are buoyant.

I applied heat and then looked at my recipe that said to add two thinly sliced lemons. So I did that.

And I simmered this a half hour. Then I let it steep with a lid on the pot for another half hour. I was looking for a color change, where the liquid got darker, but I was getting bored. I accidentally left the heat on for another half-hour on low, and then I sieved it.

There was a fair amount of material in there for my compost pile!

Then it looked like this, and I added sugar to make a syrup. Pretty ugly, so I whipped out my cheesecloth to sieve it again.

When it's already hot and now it's a syrup, and now it's cooling, guess what? It doesn't really want to go through that cheesecloth. Neither gravity nor staring nor shaking really have an effect on it. I don't recall if I swore at it, but I wasn't upset, so you'll have to try swearing on your project. Not that I don't swear, mind you, but I didn't that day.

The syrup left a sludge behind, which I suppose is a combination of plant material and sugar left behind.

And I got nearly two quarts of elderflower syrup. It was still fairly warm, and I let it cool.

I put some syrup over a couple cubes in a jelly jar. Note: Use a larger jar. All the recipes I read about using this syrup suggest sparkling water and other ingredients I don't have. Did I mention I live 35 miles from a real grocery store? So I added cold water over the top and gave it a stir. Note: Stir it more.

Anyway I gave it an immediate 8. And then went up to 8.5 when I stirred it better and some of the ice melted so I could actually move the fluids in there better. Purdy cool.

Also, it did not taste of lemons at all. It has a delicate flavor ... I guess of elderflower ... although I don't think it tastes like they smell. Maybe it tastes like it tastes to a bug!? Anyway it's nice. Be careful about using too much syrup. Gack. Then it's just "swayt." Don't overpower the flavor. If you are unimpressed, add more water.

Later on I also tried it with vodka. That's okay. I may also try it with a Pino Grigio. But for now I'm enjoying the uniqueness of it.