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Come with me here.
It's muggy. The sun is overhead. Full-on summertime. You bend down to pick the juicy flowering tops off of the neon green basil. This gesture releases a breeze of spicy, fresh, almost minty but uniquely basil perfume across the garden. Sweat drips down. We harvest together and the bright herbs contrast with the dark brown of the wooden harvesting basket. Your mouth starts to water in anticipation of the tastiness that's to come.
How familiar and precious is this summer scene? This snapshot of an edible memory that we all know from our {or our grandmother's} garden?
More and more, I'm getting clear on the power of herbs as food as medicine.
As the gardening, harvesting, chopping, smelling, stirring, tasting, and sharing as the medicine.
I read this recently and had chill bumps from head to toe.
Food can "transform into social bonds and memories, connections within families and communities and larger social groups- as well as stark divisions and distinctions, ways of resisting or oppressing, controlling and rebelling. Food- its production, consumption and distribution- shapes and transforms a range of places as well: kitchens and dining tables, fields and forests. Edible memory encompasses ways of talking about the world, but also ways of action on and moving through the world. I found edible memory propelling people into action- to save seeds, to plant gardens, to eat meals, and tell stories."
-Jennifer A. Jordan, Edible Memory
Let's find our way together in the lost art of healing in the garden and the kitchen... the companionship, the service to others, the foods, herbs and the action of preparing it all being the medicine in and of itself.
What is more important?
This week, my Kitchen Herbalism video shows NETTLE BASIL PESTO. Click on the image below to watch and follow along!
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