Herbs
are natures’ gift to us – they are the ultimate healer, delightful food and in complete
harmony with our body’s needs. They are perfectly balanced and practical, in
every way. A herb knows what to do within your body, and your body knows how to
use the herb what ever the needs may be….
Of
course there are so many to choose from….but really, we only need to be
familiar with a few that grow locally around us during the various seasons and
we can work with these to our hearts delight for healing and many wonderful seasonal eats.
Right
now we are nearing the end of the elder flowers….many of these mythical trees
have bloomed already and are well on their way to become the berries I look
forward to each year. But, I love the blossoms too and look forward to them like nothing else.
The
energy of the elder is quite something – it’s is different from anything else
in the forest with a quality unlike other energy forms. An elder tree is a guardian,
rooted and standing in place – willing to anchor and connect mortal time to
eternity.
With
this in mind (yikes!) each summer I pick a few elder blossoms to make our
cordial and of course to dry for my herbal teas. In years past, I have tried making
cordial without using sugar, replacing it with honey or apple concentrate to
varying results.
But
this year, with my newly 'healed and sealed' gut (after doing the mother of all
cleanses/fasts/detoxes for the last 2 or 3 years) – I decided to try making my
cordial with sugar, this time around, using a very traditional recipe…..
Basically,
I took about 30 heads of elder flowers (a large bunch) washed them off under
gently running water to get any bugs. In the meantime I boiled about 3 liters
of well water and grated 4 organic lemons to get the zest, then I sliced them
thinly.
Once
the water was hot, I poured in about 2kg of sugar and stirred until it was dissolved and
allowed this to sit about 10 minutes or so. Then I added the lemon zest and the
thinly sliced lemons – it was smelling lovely already!
Last
– the magic ingredient, all of those elder flower heads went into the big pot –
this was stirred very gently and left loosely covered overnight. These old
recipes often have varying lengths of time for leaving this concoction to
steep, but I like longer time if possible. So I leave it for at least 24 hours
or so.
Then,
the liquid is strained off through a muslin cloth and placed into clean bottles….in
a couple of weeks I will taste each of my batches….but I do remember from my
childhood that we were still drinking elder cordial well up into Easter the
following year!
This
makes a thickish syrup which is great diluted with fizzy water, wine or fruit
juice. Nothing else smells like summer to me, then when the house is full of
elder flowers (right now I have cordials brewing and flowers drying as well)!
So
far, so good - bring on summer!
April
