Physic for Florentina

Some of my readers will be aware my mother has suffered from numerous small strokes and is now bedridden. She is practically blind and unable to communicate most of the time. Two carers visit my parents’ home four times a day to keep her comfortable. My father feeds her and is her constant companion.

Her main carer is Florentina,  who comes from Eastern Europe, as do most of her fellow workers. The majority are competent, kind and compassionate and have built up a good rapport with my father, who soon discovers their life story and special interests.

When Chris and I were staying at the farm a few weeks ago, Florentina had gone down with a nasty cold. The Saturday was a workshop day, so while others were busy digging roots and making willow wands, I picked a bowlful of elderberries to make Florentina a cordial.

The fruits were simmering on the cooker when the carers came at five o’clock. They are used to me cooking when they come into the kitchen to log in and log out on the telephone. Sometimes they ask what I’m preparing and once how I made the cheese sauce for macaroni cheese. They usually say it smells good and I know their access to home cooked meals of any kind is rare as they are on the road from 6am to 10pm travelling the length and breadth of the North Cotswolds dealing with clients.

By their final visit at 7.30pm, the cordial was bottled and labelled. Both carers tasted it and were pleasantly surprised, especially Lucas, the young 6’2” Slovakian who was very unsure about tasting anything homemade labelled medicine! They took a bottle for Florentina and thought they might be able to get it to her the following day via a new worker who lived in her house and who would be observing with one of them.

The next morning Lucas told me Florentina was surprised and delighted with her gift. He said he had “taken five minutes” to drive to Florentina’s house and deliver it personally so she could have it straight away – a kindness which really touched me.

Thanks to the cordial, Florentina was able to return to work the next day and was full of praise for the cordial. Apparently everyone in her shared house had tried it and she had told all her clients about it. One of the clients asked for the recipe, so when we were down at the farm last Thursday I took the recipe with me.

It’s strange how you make something and when you look at the recipes you possess, you realise they bare little relation to the ingredients and methods you used. I’ve posted several recipes for elderberry cordial in the past but here is another one.

Elderberry Syrup

Gather a large bowl full of ripe elderberries and remove the small berries from the stems with a fork. Place the berries in a large, heavy bottomed saucepan with a large handful of ripe rosehips and some blackberries if you have them. Add one inch of root ginger (grated), half a nutmeg (grated), sliced orange or lemon peel and one cinnamon quill broken up or some cassia bark. Cover with three pints of water (1.5 litres) and simmer for thirty minutes with a lid on the saucepan. (If the rosehips are not cooked, simmer for longer until they are soft.)

Mash everything in the saucepan with a potato mashed then strain the liquid into a large bowl or jug, using a wooden spoon to get as much of the pulp of the fruit as you can. Alternatively you can strain through a piece of muslin and squeeze the muslin firmly.

Wash the saucepan. Measure the liquid you have strained and then put it back in the saucepan.  Find the glass bottles you are going to store the cordial in and sterilise them in the oven for ten minutes on 100 degrees Centigrade. Sterilise the bottle caps by boiling in water for 10 minutes if they are metal. For every pint (0.5L) of liquid, add 1 lb (0.45Kg) of sugar to the saucepan. Bring to the boil, stirring continuously until all the sugar has dissolved. If you want a thick syrup, evaporate the liquid until it reaches a syrupy consistency. (This is not essential.)  Pour into sterilised bottles and cap immediately. Label and date. This should keep unopened in a cool dark place for over a year. Store in the fridge once opened.

Dose: 1 tablespoon three times a day for an adult. I dessertspoon three times a day for a child. Use for any kind of virus, especially influenza. Alternatively, take 1tsp every day during the cold season to build immunity.

As a cordial: Use 1-2 tablespoons in a mug of boiling water with freshly squeezed lemon juice and enjoy.

The fruit harvest this year has been bountiful; a welcome change from the dearth last year. I’ve made redcurrant and apple jelly, raspberry jam, plum jam, damson jam, damson, apple and blackberry jelly and jam, crabapple jelly and a plethora of quince jelly. The freezer is full of various berries and apple sauce yet the tree is still laden with huge red cooking apples. I’ve never seen them quite so large or so red.

Today I have turned a basketful of windfalls into sugarless applesauce to make muffins and several bottles of spiced apple cordial. I’ve used the same method as for apple jelly and it produces a very pleasant hot drink or could be poured over ice cream.

Spiced apple cordial

Enough windfalls to fill a 5pt saucepan ¾ full once washed and quartered (Don’t peel or core)

Diced fresh orange peel from 1 orange

A small handful of cassia bark or 1 cinnamon quill

1/5 a nutmeg grated

8-10 cloves

3 pints of water

1” root ginger either diced or grated (I meant to add this but forgot!)

Place everything in the saucepan and simmer for about half an hour until the apples are completely soft. Strain through a jelly bag or muslin, squeezing to release as much apple as you feel like adding to the juice. (You might want to leave everything to cool before you start squeezing the bag otherwise you could burn yourself!) Clean the saucepan. Measure the liquid and add 1lb of sugar for every pint of liquid. Bring to the boil then pour into sterilised bottles. Seal when hot, label and date.

Lament for a missed Indian Summer

September is usually a beautiful, busy month. While the sun shines with diminishing warmth I am usually to be found scurrying around hedgerows and my garden, harvesting the last of flowers, fruits and seeds.

This year feels different. After a dry summer which has caused the ground in the Sanctuary to crack and the two minor springs to stop running entirely, the rain has now come to ease our water problems but temperatures have plummeted. Although I’m grateful, this now brings an added worry of whether the tomatoes will ripen or will I lose my significant crop to rot? As it is, I’m now picking every day or alternate days and using any damaged tomatoes in soup.  

Two nettle roots growing next to the tomatoes are constantly sending up new shoots, so these are my autumn bounty for green minerals.

Spiced Tomato and Basil soup

1lb tomatoes (or an amount you have to use)

2 medium potatoes

2 carrots

A large handful of ripped basil leaves

One medium onion

1 red chilli (adding the seeds will produce a fiery soup!)

Peel, dice and sweat the onion with the chopped chill until soft. Peel and slice the potato and carrots and chop the tomatoes. Add vegetables to the cooked onions and cover with 3 pints of cold water. Bring to the boil, adding seasoning and basil (or any other favourite herbs). Simmer for half an hour with the saucepan lid on until everything is cooked. Blend or liquidise, then strain through a sieve to remove tomato skins.

Nettle, sweet potato and tomato soup

1 colander full of fresh young nettles

1 large sweet potato

1lb tomatoes (or any amount you have to use)

2 carrots

4 cloves of garlic

8” length of lovage stem

1 medium onion

1” fresh root ginger

Peel and crush the garlic and leave for fifteen minutes before cooking. Peel and dice the onion and root ginger and sweat in a large saucepan with the crushed garlic for five minutes in your oil of choice.  Peel and slice the sweet potato and carrots. Slice or chop the tomatoes. Wash the nettles if necessary. Add everything to the saucepan and cover with 3 pints cold water. Bring to the boil adding the chopped lovage and seasoning. Simmer for half an hour until everything is cooked. Blend and sieve to remove tomato skins and any stringy bits from the nettles.

September is also the time of year to think about storing anti-virals and vitamin C ready for the winter. My favourite method is elderberry elixir or cordial and gathering as many rosehips as I can find and store.

Fire cider vinegar is another staple in my household. You can follow Rosemary Gladstar’s original recipe of equal parts of fresh garlic, root ginger and horseradish root but add in whatever spice you fancy. I always add rosehips for vitamin C but if you have any fresh chillis they are good to complement the turmeric powder. If you wanted to increase the mineral content of the vinegar you could add nettle seed or fresh young nettle leaves or shoots if you have any.

Don’t forget another autumn harvest, honey. Many beekeepers are collecting their golden treasure this month, so if you have any near you, it is worth asking if they will sell you a few pounds of fresh honey to last you over the winter.

Think what you might want to add to this honey. Elderberries taste divine but make sure you infuse it in the fridge if you don’t want purple overflow everywhere from fermenting berries. Rosehip honey is another favourite but does involve hours of cutting and scooping out the stones and hairs before blending the flesh with the honey. It is worth waiting until after the first frost when the hips become soft so you can squeeze out the centre without ending up with itching thumbs.

Don’t forget your honeyed roots. Angelica and elecampane are two roots which produce an interestingly flavoured infused honey which may be more palatable in this form rather than in tea. You may want to experiment with sweet calamas root in the same way if you have some to harvest. Don’t be surprised if your infused honey is thinner than the original runny honey. This is the result of osmosis whereby the honey pulls liquid from the fresh roots. It should store for several years but keep an eye on it.

It looks as if this year will be another good apple year. Windfalls from my tree are producing many boxes of frozen applesauce and there are new jars of apple and red currant jelly on the larder shelves. If you are looking for something different to add to your complement of bitters, try rowan/mountain ash or crampbark/Guelder rose berry and apple jelly. They will complement any rich meat but also get your digestive juices flowing. Bitter jellies are an acquired taste, so less is more when you try it for the first time.

One of the most exciting things I heard at our festival was Fred Gillam talking about his comfrey bath bombs for serious bruising following accidents and the news that a London herbalist is experimenting with Crampbark flower and berry tinctures to treat muscle cramps on different energetic levels.

Guess what I’m going to be experimenting with this autumn!