[Sca-cooks] Was Moretum, Now Foods that Fight Back

[Kathleen Madsen]

Nettles are used frequently to flavor or wrap cheeses.
   I'm fairly sure it was a period practice but don't
quote me on that because while I've seen the evidence
in documentation I did not make note of it, nor have I
come back across it yet.  Anyway, they are still in
use today, the leaves are boiled before use to break
down or somehow eliminate the chemical that causes the
stinging.

When a child in Germany our backyard fence was
actually two electrified wires to keep the sweet and
docile cows on the otherside from rampaging through
the countryside (i.e., wandering).  They would
carefully crop the grass around the nettles - so we
knew exactly where they were.  Gave us that extra bit
of free time needed to watch out for cow patties.  My
young sister, being both young and naive at the time,
decided that these stands looked so nice and green
that she wanted to sit and play in them.  Bad Idea... 
Poor kid was stung from neck to knee and on both
sides.  It even made it through her shorts.  It took
almost two weeks for her to recover but 25 years later
she can still spot a nettle a mile away.

Eibhlin

***********************************************

While contact dermatitis from rue, as Cordelia gets,
is not typical 
of all people, it is definitely a known problem with
the plant. if 
the rue is cooked, however, it usually no longer
causes this problem.

On the other hand, if i had that kind of reaction, i'd
be hesitant to 
eat rue. It recalls to my mind an experience of some
friends of mine, 
back in the late 60s or early 70s:

They'd heard that if one drank a tea made of poison
ivy, it could 
make one resistant to getting contact dermatitis, the
common rash, 
from it for the season. So the couple made tea of the
leaves and 
drank it. It is true that Native Americans did this -
using the very 
young shoots. My friends, however, used mature leaves.
Nothing like 
contact dermatitis on the inside and around every
orifice...

-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita