Natural Medicine in the City 6

Our workshop is nearing its conclusion and last week was our second last workshop. On a surprisingly sunny afternoon, we discussed potential herbs for our presentation next workshop, as well as collected some dandelion for eating and plantain to make a poultice. We also had our weekly tea session and bottled our garlic and oregon grape root tinctures.

At the beginning of our workshop, we discussed what ways we can explore herbalism in the future. For me, I'm most interested in looking at how traditional Chinese medicine compares to what I've learned throughout the last couple weeks. Since the workshops began six weeks ago, I've begun to notice that I've been inadvertently practicing herbalism since I was little. A lot of Chinese cooking that my mom makes contains Chinese ingredients which are supposed to provide medicinal benefits. This idea that I've been practicing herbalism really solidified since the rose hip tea we drank the other week. In the future, I will want to dig through my mom's pantry and try to identify which ones I've learned while at these workshops.

In the sunny weather, we went outside to the Strathcona garden to pick some dandelion and plantain leaves. The dandelion was to eat as a snack while the plantain leaves were used to make a poultice. To be honest, I didn't really like the dandelion leaves. While the ones we picked were really green and fresh, I found the leaves to be too bitter. However, there were many among us that did enjoy the fresh dandelion leaves and found them delicious. For the people that read this blog, I do suggest you try some for yourselves as you may enjoy them. For the plantain leaves, we used it to make a poultice, basically a bandage. We tore up the leaves into pieces and mashed it up while adding a bit of water. The poultice is effective for cuts and open wounds, having some antibacterial effects as well as closing cuts up. We applied it to Samantha's cat scratch wound and apparently, it was very effective in reducing the size of the wound. We also finished our tinctures by bottling them. It was quite difficult straining the garlic tincture since we had cut it very finely but the oregon grape tincture was easier to strain. The smell of the garlic tincture was breathtaking however. I can't really describe the scent but I assure that all garlic lovers will love to have a whiff of the tincture. Some people even took the strained garlic bits back home, either to make another batch or to use it in their home cooking. I took home a bottle of the oregon grape tincture since its supposed to "cleanse" your body.

Next week will be the last session of our workshop and we'll each be presenting on a herb we like. I'll be doing a presentation on oregano, one of my favorite cooking herbs. We'll also be ending our workshop with a potluck party so I'm excited to see what everyone will be cooking. Each of the dish will feature a main herb ingredient so I'm anticipating the different foods that people will be making. I think I'll be making a pasta dish featuring oregano so hopefully it'll turn out okay. Will update again next week!

Pictures here!