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It started with the Tansy
cakes. I had to ask myself 'Why would anyone eat anything
so utterly disgusting in taste'? Chrysanthemum Vulgare is
a common perennial in the British Isles and the name Tansy
is said to be derived from the Greek 'athansia', meaning
'immortal'. Reasons suggested for this include the fact
that the dried flower lasts forever or that it has a
medicinal quality contributing to long life. Looking back
to Greek literature, Tansy was given by the Gods to
Ganymede to make him immortal. In the language of flowers
the gift of Tansy means 'Rejected address' - " I am
not interested in you". Its strange taste, not unlike
the smell of 'mothballs' might have something to do with
this.
Tansy certainly had a
reputation as a vermicide and vermifuge (killing and
dispelling intestinal worms) in the middle ages. John
Gerard wrote in his 17th century Herball:
"In the Spring time
are made with the leaves here of newly sprung up, and with
eggs, cakes of Tansies, which be pleasant to taste, and
good for the stomacke. For if any bad humours cleave there
unto, it doth perfectly concoct them and scoure them
downewards".
Tansy was a common kitchen
garden herb for medicinal and culinary use, in place of
expensive foreign spices such as nutmeg and cinnamon. It
was used to flavour custard, cakes, milk puddings,
omlettes and freshwater fish. In Ireland it was included
in sausages called 'Drisheens'. Its use as a springtime
'cleanser' became ritualised into a part of the Christian
religious Easter traditions;
"On Easter Sunday be
the pudding seen,
To which the Tansy lends her sober green."
The consensus on this much
written about herb is that it was used at Easter to purify
the blood after lent. This consensus shows a problem
though, in that in England the plant does not show leaves
until the end of May - well after Easter. This is evidence
of the assimilation of natural 'self-medicating' herbalism
into a controlling religious patriarchy.
Observation of wild and
domesticated animals shows that they regularly
self-medicate with wild plants. Sick chimpanzees chew
bitter leaves from a bush not normally part of their diet,
and then recover. Research by Michael Hoffman shows that a
particular nematode worm is common in the monkey's gut
during the rainy season and that their chewing of the
leaves coincided with the prevalence of this parasite,
which it destroyed. This was the same bush that local
tribes use to get rid of stomach parasites.
Dogs and cats self medicate
by eating couch grass or cleavers. Parrots, chickens,
camels, snow geese, starlings - all have been observed
consuming substances normally alien to their diet to
remedial effect. Bears particularly are venerated by North
American Indian culture because they symbolise the powers
of 'regeneration'. North American Indians discovered the
use of a root called Osha from bears. It is so effective
as an all round painkiller, antiviral, antipeptic that it
is now on the endangered species list.
The Woolly Bear caterpillar
has also been observed to change its diet according to
whether it is infected by a particular parasite. Normally
a Lupin eater, the caterpillar increases its chance of
surviving a particular fly parasite by changing to a diet
of Poison Hemlock. Self-medication is not therefore a
'rational choice' in other species, but a carefully
integrated part of a survival mechanism against an
invisible predator - disease. Humans seem to have lost
this sense of their own health and are not usually
informed as to the uses of plants growing around them.
Humans often self-medicate
though - alcohol indulgence to deal with stress being an
obvious example of this or the ready availability of
pharmaceutical or street drugs. We often consume
substances such as caffeine or sugar drinks for easy
energy. The natural trait towards self-medicating may well
be at the basis of many of our unconscious 'eating
choices'. Potatoes contain a form of opiate and all foods
to some extent can act as 'alteratives' to a unique
physiology. We talk about comfort foods and rewarding
ourselves with treats to eat. Often we might have a
favourite food that can help if we feel too ill to eat,
like scrambled egg. This is a unique food because it
contains all of the amino acids we need to digest it.
Chocolate is to many the ultimate comfort food treat.
An extreme example of what
we do is shown in 'Pica' where a person gets
uncontrollable desires to eat certain edible (and
inedible) substances. This condition occurs in pregnant
women and is thought to express the need for particular
minerals. Because our food sources are often limited to
processed (and demineralised) food, and because of the
destruction of herbal folk-lore and access to wild
medicine, many of us have lost touch with our 'health
sense' and an ability to use food or wild plants for
self-medication. A regular preventative 'detox' was an
essential part of our diet at one time and if you like the
taste of mothballs you could even try Tansy cakes.
Article with thanks to
Roger Phillips and Michael Hoffman
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