The drinks preferred by the mountaineers of that bygone era tended to be coffee and milk, although some did make and keep wine both for a beverage and for medicinal purposes.
COFFEE
Spread out green coffee beans on a biscuit pan. Cook slowly in a moderate oven until they turn brown. It takes less than an hour.
—Lucy York
I have parched coffee, way back years ago, in a pan in the fireplace. I put my coffee in a pan, then set it on some coals, and let them get good and hot. I’d keep stirring it ’til it got good and brown. Then take it off, let it cool, and grind it. We used to have coffee mills that you put the coffee in and turned it with a crank to grind your coffee.
—Granny Mary Cabe
PLATE 62 Granny Cabe
GRAPE JUICE
Use 2 cups grapes and 1 cup sugar for each gallon of juice. Put washed grapes in a gallon jar and fill with boiling water. Seal jars, place upright in kettle of boiling water with jars submerged completely, and boil for 30 minutes.
WILD PLANT USES
“I used to go to the mountains and dig up herbs.”
Society has long had a fascination with natural things, and wild plants are no exception. Currently, there is a strong trend toward the use of herbal or other medicines as opposed to laboratory-produced drugs. Many of the people of Southern Appalachia continue to use wild plants—found in blessed abundance in the woods—not in response to trend, but because this has always been a way of life.
The fact that plants were a necessity of life is evident in the following recipe for a remedy for dropsy, or edema, an excess accumulation of fluid caused by, among other things, chronic heart failure. It is presented here exactly as it was written in a book belonging to Mrs. Zada Fowler, the grandmother of Dr. John Ed Fowler of Clayton, Georgia:
A receipt for the dropsy 3 qts. of apple vinegar nine bunches of black snake root three bunches of sinaker snaker root three handful of stare root three handfuls of cammil flours too handfuls of worm wood forty five new nails put them all in a iron oven set them in the coroner by the fier let it stand nine days till it works then rige out (Ed. note: “rige” is sometimes spelled “rench” and means strain—or remove foreign matter) and in the same oven add one bottle of rum one pound of sugar then set on a slow fier simer it down four days to too bottles full one spoonfull at a dose eat no fat meat and no sweat milk keep out of the rain and dew.
Dr. Fowler noted that the remedy probably did have some medicinal value, for a person suffering from dropsy would most likely need an iron supplement. The rust from the nails would add this in the form of ferrous oxide, and it would not be harmful but would be “clean rust.” The reason that we are normally so concerned about wounds caused by rusty objects is that dirt, germs, and bacteria collect on the rough surface of these objects, and it is these substances, and not the actual rust, that cause the infection.
As an afterthought, Dr. Fowler added, “By the way, my grandmother did not die of dropsy, so …”
The Foxfire Book and Foxfire 9 contain sections devoted to home remedies. Many of these involve natural or wild ingredients. Foxfire 2 and Foxfire 3 include chapters about wild plant foods. Since these books were published, much more has been collected concerning the use of wild plants for nourishment and medicinal purposes. We have attempted to compile these here. Due to limited space, we refer readers, where possible, to photos or drawings in previous Foxfire books in hopes of aiding them in the identification process.
Some of the plants listed here are very rare, and some are even on the endangered species list. Please be respectful of future generations and use a conservative approach when you “go a-gatherin’,” as Charles Thurmond does. “I prefer to go out and get my own herbs. When I go gather the herbs, I use the old Cherokee way of being conservative. I make sure that I find four of the plants before I’ll take one. This way I know that I will leave three plants to reproduce. You can take part of the root of most of the plants and leave part, and it will continue to grow. Always put something back.”
This reverent relationship with the land and the belief that God owns and provides all continue to be integral parts of the simple lifestyle of the people of the rural Appalachians. Having knowledge of the land and the wild plants available for consumption is still a source of pride for the mountain people, who strive to live simple, self-sufficient lives. While some cultures or geographical areas attempt to shelter their resources, the Southern Appalachian people have always been willing to share their wisdom and skill in the old ways with anyone eager to learn.
Charles Thurmond demonstrated this willingness through a recent interview. Much of his knowledge came from ancestors who shared with him. “My grandmother was a midwife and had at least one herbal cure for everything. Her having a good bit of Cherokee blood in her caused her to know a lot of the herbs. Grandma used to take me out to show me things in the woods and tell me what they were good for.
“My grandma taught me some of her herbal cures, but most of it I’ve picked up since then. When you are a child, you don’t listen enough. I remember some of what Grandma taught me. My father and uncles have supplemented my herbal education. I go to the doctor occasionally, but I like doctors that don’t go overboard with antibiotics and things like that. I don’t medically treat people, but I talk about herbs with ’em. I teach people about herbs so they can learn for themselves.
“My grandma had numerous cures for everything, usually two or three. There are many ways to prepare various herbs. Whether you want it prepared cold, warm, or hot depends on what you are treating. If it is cold, it takes longer to work, but it will work longer in your system. Most herbs can be boiled. You soak some herbs. Alcohol will take the chemicals and things inside the herbs out. It depends on how you fix them and, most importantly, how you use them.”
While the knowledge of those who graciously contributed information to this section is not questioned, we must caution readers that these are personal uses and experiences with wild plants, and we in no way guarantee accuracy, effectiveness, or safety in the identification or use of these plants. Charles Thurmond agreed, saying, “When people learn about these herbs, they must be careful. If you use them improperly, they can be really dangerous.”
Wild plants that have at least one medicinal or edible claim to fame are listed here alphabetically by the common Southern Appalachian name. The genus and, usually, species names follow.
—Teresia Gravley Thomason
WILD PLANT MEDICINAL USES
Alumroot (Heuchera) typically grows on rocks in open woodland areas and reaches a height of one to two feet. The leaves are usually parted into three or five divisions and are cleft and toothed. Flowers from this plant are small and white or green. Roots are usually thick and two to four inches long with several stem scars on the root showing old stem growth. The plant is gathered for the roots, which should be used before the spring flowering time of April through June. As the leaves get older, they are often spotted.
Alumroot has several uses as medicine. A tea brewed from the leaves is used for dysentery. A mixture made from the root is used for sore throats. Powdered root is also used on wounds to stop bleeding.
Clarence Lusk shared his experience with this root. “The alumroot is a very spindly little ol’ stem that runs up out of the ground. It comes up very early in the spring, pretty much the first thing that comes up. That’s when I generally gather it. All it takes is two or three little ol’ roots as long as your finger to cure you usually. I’ve got up in the morning, especially when I was working in the woods in the forestry business, and I’d be sick with dysentery. I’d just say, ‘Well, I just ain’t gonna get to work today. That’s all there is to it!’ While my wife was getting breakfast, I’d go out and dig up some of them herbs and make a cupful of tea and drink it. Then I’d eat a pretty good breakfast and go right on to work, and that was the end of my sickness.
PLATE 63 Alumroot
“Now, my granddaughter up here calls alumro
ot pig medicine because we used to use it for the pigs. Pigs is bad to take dysentery. If you feed ’em too much, they’ll get sick. And calves too! Even the old cattle. In the spring of the year when grass shoots come up, gets so pretty and green, and then comes a freeze and that grass freezes, if you turn your cattle out right then and let them eat a bit of that frozen grass, it’ll just nearly kill ’em. I come in one evening from work, and one of the cows was just the awfullest mess of sick you ever seen from eating that ol’ frozen grass. At that time, I had a big bunch of alumroot from working in the woods and finding it, just digging along as I passed by it. I made about a quart of tea and put it in a five-gallon bucket. Then I put the cow in the barn. She didn’t like it, but since that was all the water she got, she’d come to it and drink it. The next day, she was well.”
Balm-of-Gilead (Populus candicans) can be found on roadsides and small waterways. The trunk of this tree can reach six and a half feet in diameter and a height of one hundred feet. Young branches are resinous and hairy with pleasantly scented buds. Leaves can be up to six inches long, are hairy when young, and are dark green on the top side and lighter green on the underside. This tree is sought for its buds.
As a remedy for erysipelas, a feverish infectious disease characterized by deep red, spreading inflammation of the skin, make a salve of “bamagilion” buds fried in mutton tallow. Add petroleum jelly if you wish.
As an all-Purpose salve, boil the buds of the “bamagilion” in water and skim the wax from the buds off the top. Mix this wax with pine resin and good mutton tallow. Keep in a container for use whenever needed. Some people like to make a large amount of the salve each year and store it in small tins to have on hand.
“I used to go to the mountains and dig up herbs,” Numerous Marcus explained. “We would get roots and plants and make herb medicines out of them. There are a lot of herbs in the woods if a feller knowed what they was. We used to get heart leaves [wild ginger] and Balm-of-Gilead buds and some hog lard and put all this together. We’d melt it down and make a salve out of it. It’s good for sores. Rub it on them and it would clear them right up. It was good for cuts too.”
Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) is well known to everyone. With yellow flower heads and a black center, it is a biennial that grows to a height of one to three feet and blooms in summer. It was used to treat skin infections and does contain antibodies. Native Americans used its root for tea for worms and colds.
PLATE 64 Black-eyed Susan
Black Walnut (fuglans nigra) is often a signature tree of the Southern Appalachian homeplace; a black walnut cake is a regional favorite. Charles Thurmond thought that “the black walnut is good to eat, and the bark is good for dye and rubbing on the skin for any kind of skin ailment or disease. The juice from the husk of the black walnut was very good for ringworm.” (See Foxfire 3, page 345.)
PLATE 65 Black walnut tree
PLATE 66 Black walnut hull and bark off the tree
Bloodroot (Sanguinaria) can be found in rich soil. It has a white flower that shows itself in early spring. One leaf with five to nine lobes and one flower are produced for each root. The leaves grow from approximately four inches to as much as twelve inches wide after the flowering period. The roots of this plant are collected in the fall and dried before using.
PLATE 67 Bloodroot
Marie Meilinger wrote, “Blood-root is possibly the most common of the sang-sign plants, [plants that grow in the same area as ginseng], still found growing in many areas where ginseng, golden seal, and ladyslippers have been eradicated. This pretty springling has white, star-like blossoms before the scalloped leaves appear. The stems and roots contain an orange juice. This is the ‘red-coonroot’ of the mountains, and juice on a lump of sugar was a cough drop. Known as ‘tetterwort’ or ‘sweet slumber’ or ‘she-roots,’ the dried rootstocks were ground and used in an infusion to relieve pains of burns, or for coughs and colds and chest ailments. As ‘she-roots,’ bloodroot was a remedy for female complaints.”
Charles Thurmond offered this wisdom: “Bloodroot is a neat little plant that grows in the woods. When you first break the roots, they look like they are bleeding blood-red. It is very, very bitter. If you know someone who’s got asthma, you might want to give them bloodroot. If you break those roots and touch that juice to your tongue, it opens your sinus areas. It can be fixed in teas or other fluids. It can be used on the skin sometimes. Bloodroot can also be used for bronchial problems and stimulating your circulation and appetite. [It causes] you to sweat.”
Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum) grows to be one to three feet tall and is generally found in rich, loamy soil in the shade of the woods. Marie Meilinger told us, “Blue cohosh is often found growing with ginseng and goldenseal. This plant stands stiffly erect, with many small scalloped leaves. The leaves and stems have a frosted appearance, and the yellow flowers are followed by dark blue berries. The stocky roots are collected in autumn and have some market value. The plant is sometimes collected as ‘blueberry root’ or ‘blue ginseng’ or ‘yellow ginseng’ In home medicine, the mountain healers used the roots as medicine for lung troubles, or to stop the flow of blood. The roots contain an alkaloid, methylcytisine.”
PLATE 68 Blue Cohosh
Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) is usually found in wet ground near swamps or streams. The unusual leaf configuration makes this plant an easy one to spot. The leaves grow on a rough, hairy stem of one to five feet in height. They are joined at the base and sit opposite one another along the stem. Small white summer flowers are produced at the heads of each stem. Boneset is gathered in the summer for the flowers and leaves, which are stripped from the stalk. The flowers turn grayish white in late summer. This plant is closely related to the joe-pye weed and grows to about four feet tall. It was used to poultice broken bones.
As a remedy for colds, make a tea from the leaves of boneset. Boil three or four leaves in a CUD of water, strain, and sweeten. Drink the tea when it has cooled because it will make you sick if taken hot. Leaves of this plant may also be cured and saved for use in teas during the winter months.
Varina Ritchie recalled, “Mother doctored with boneset tea and castor oil and turpentine. You’d drink a glass of boneset tea if you had a cold before you went to bed. It would help you to sleep. We raised it in our garden. It would grow to about two and one-half or three feet. Mother always had a patch of it in her garden. It was kinda like a weed that growed. You could take it, and even when it dried it would make good tea.”
Mrs. Laura Patton remembered that boneset was a popular plant for making remedies. She’d put pieces of the plant in a cup and pour boiling water over them and let them steep. Then she’d strain the tea into another cup, let it cool, and then use it. She said it was especially good for flu and colds. In fact, in the winter of 1976 when the drugstore medicine wasn’t helping one of her grown sons who had the flu, he used boneset instead and claims that it helped. He went to bed right after he took it, and it made him rest all night. In the morning, he was well.
One of Charles Thurmond’s memories of his grandmother involved boneset. “My grandma had numerous cures for everything, usually two or three. One of her favorites was boneset. Boneset plants grow around waterways, swamps, creeks, lakes, and whatever. It is good for fevers. It cures about twenty-five different illnesses, but it’s a natural quinine. Quinine is a medicine made from a tree in South America that kills fevers from malaria. During the Civil War, the South didn’t have quinine because of the Northern blockade, so they used boneset. It works quite well. Boneset will kill a fever in ten to twenty minutes. This year I had a cold and a fever. I took some boneset, which killed the fever immediately. I had quite a bit of it left over, and I didn’t want to waste it, so I drank it. Well, in half an hour my feet were cold and wouldn’t get warm!”
Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) is a variety of milkweed that grows well in dry, sandy, or rocky soil. It is found in the open, in open forest, or near the banks of streams. It has hairy st
ems and rough leaves with a large, white, meaty root and blooms in the summer. Butterfly weed is gathered in the fall for the roots. This plant is a perennial that grows to a height of one to two feet. Its bright orange flowers make it easy to identify. Early settlers thought the root cured pleurisy and called it pleurisy root. The plant attracts several types of butterflies. It can be toxic in large quantities. Monarch butterflies get their protective poison from this plant.
Of butterfly weed, Charles Thurmond said, “Some people call it chiggerweed. It has little orange blooms on the top of it, and butterflies go berserk over them. It has a root called the pleurisy root, which is good for anything to do with your chest or aching muscles. You must chip this root up to make it into a tea.”
Catnip (Nepeta cataria) is strongly scented, grows in height to two or three feet, and has fine white hairs on the stems, giving it a white appearance. The almost heart-shaped leaves are also covered with fine white hairs on the underside and are about two inches long. Summer brings flowering spikes of white flowers that are dotted with purple. (For a photo and a drawing of catnip, see Foxfire 3, page 334.)
Catnip is gathered during the spring and summer for the leaves and flowered tops. This common plant is not native to the region but was introduced here by colonists. It grows well in dry soil.
One of Mrs. Laura Patton’s favorite home remedies was catnip tea (made from the leaves), which she used when her children had the flu or were teething. She said it was good for helping them sleep.
Numerous Marcus told us, “Catnip tea is good for breaking up colds. It’ll break out the hives too. You don’t need to take but just a teacup at a time. I use the leaves on catnip. I don’t use the root. I’d take the leaves and put them in a pot, then pour boiling water over them and let them set for a few minutes. Take the leaves out and pour the tea in your cup, sweeten it with sugar or honey, either one. Little fellers would smack their mouths on that. To keep catnip up through the winter, I gather the leaves, dry them out, and put them in a container where they can get a lot of air. They’ll keep a long time.”
Foxfire 11: Wild Plant Uses, Gardening, Wit, Wisdom, Recipes, Beekeeping, Toolmaking, Fishing, and More Affairs of Plain Living Page 15