Susan Hess - The Herbal Medicine Cookbook: Everyday Recipes to Boost Your Health

Copyright 2019 by Rockridge Press, Emeryville, California

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Interior Designer: Jess Morphew

Designer: Katy Brown

Photo Art Director / Art Manager: Karen Beard

Editor: Vanessa Ta

Production Editor: Erum Khan

Photography 2018 Evi Abeler, food styling by Albane Sharrard

Donna Connor

Illustration shooarts/Shutterstock

ISBN: Print 978-1-64152-264-9 | eBook 978-1-64152-265-6

for emily & riley, who moved me to feed you, but trusted me to nourish you.

contents

Nearly 40 years ago, I wandered into my neighbor Peggys garden for the first time. It was alive and overflowing with colorful vegetables, fragrant herbs, and flowers. Her two small children danced through it like butterflies, nibbling cherry tomatoes and sipping fresh chamomile tea from tiny bowls. Inside, Peggys kitchen held her own handwoven baskets laden with vegetables, aromatic herbs hung to dry, and a spicy concoction simmering on the stove. In a single visit, I observed how fresh foods, pungent herbs, aromatic cooking, and healthy, vibrant children seemed naturally, almost magically, connected and inseparable. It was my first taste of a natural holistic lifestyle with a kitchen at its hub. Peggy took everyday life skills, like gardening, cooking, and raising healthy children, and elevated them to an art form in my young eyes.

When I decided to put up jars of peaches that summer, with no idea how, I spontaneously bought an entire bushel, drove home, and then called my grandmother to ask her what to do next. She got in her car and drove 40 miles wearing an apron to show me. We canned 15 quarts of peaches that afternoon. It impressed upon me the value of passing on skills centered in the kitchen. My grandmother and my mother had both dedicated their lives to the nursing profession. With the birth of my own children, it seemed inevitable that a deep-rooted interest in healing would soon be stirring in myself, as well.

When my three-year-old developed a cough that turned into pneumonia, many trips to the doctor ensued. After two rounds of antibiotics and a hospital stay looming on the horizon, I felt helpless and scared. A local nurse came to our home to show me how to apply a mustard plaster to my sons chest. In the kitchen, while we ground pungent black mustard seeds and water into a paste, she hummed and lifted the lid to my own simmering soup pot. With a wink, she suggested that I add more garlic, which I amended. My son recovered rapidly, and I felt the desire to learn more. Much more.

Creating and maintaining health through the lens of the family kitchen and sharing this lifestyle with others is at the very heart of my lifes work as an herbalist. I recognize the same hunger for healing knowledge in the eyes of every student I have the pleasure of sharing with. Its my pleasure to continue that tradition here on these pages with you.

The humble domestic kitchen has been the epicenter of care and nourishment of body and soul for thousands of years. Imagine a time when there was no distinction between nourishing foods and healing medicines. By artfully and mindfully combining seasonal foods and medicinal herbs, we can support the body through illness. When this knowledge is passed on, it ensures the health and well-being of families, communities, and future generations. I cant think of a more meaningful and inspiring way to live!

Im excited that you are here, in my own humble kitchen, ready to explore and embrace the basic concepts of everyday medicinal cooking. May you be inspired to create, enjoy, and above all, share these flavorful foods as an integral part of your holistic life.

Herbal Medicine

It goes without saying that humans and plants have coexisted since the beginning of time. How they interacted was largely a mystery until 5,000 years ago, when several early civilizations began to document their native food and medicinal plant uses. Traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic practitioners were trained in diagnostic and healing techniques with centuries of tradition and philosophy behind them. All aspects of a persons vitality were observed for diagnosis and treatment, including not only the physical state but the health of the emotional, mental, and spiritual being, as well. Today, the World Health Organization estimates that between 65 and 80 percent of the worlds population (5 to 6 billion people) still rely on some form of traditional plant-based medicine and healing foods as their primary form of health care.