Papaya - a world class meat tenderizer, natural digestive aid, prevents ulcers, and also a soft contact lense cleaner.Rosemary
The Tasty Natural Preservative
Family: Labiatae; (includes Mints)
Genus and Species: Rosmarinus Officinalis
Also known as: Rosemarine, Incensier (French)
Parts used: Leaves
Thousands of years before refrigeration, ancient peoples noticed that wrapping meats in crushed rosemary leaves preserved them and imparted a fresh fragrance and pleasing flavor. To this day, the herb remains a favorite in meat dishes, and its preservative ability is the basis for its use in herbal Healing.
Rosemary’s ability to preserve meats led to the belief that it helped preserve memory. Greek students wore rosemary garlands to assist their recall. As the centuries passed, the herb was incorporated into wedding ceremonies as a symbol of spousal fidelity and into funerals to help survivors to remember the dead. In Hamlet, Ophelia gives Hamlet a sprig, saying, “There’s rosemary … for remembrance.”
Symbol of love
During the Middle Ages, rosemary’s association with weddings evolved into its use as a love charm. If a young person tapped another with a rosemary twig containing an open blossom, the couple would supposedly fall in love.
Placed under one’s pillow, the aromatic herb was believed to repel bad dreams. Planted around one’s home, it was reputed to ward off witches.
But by the 16th century, planting rosemary around the home became a bone of contention in England, where the belief developed that it signified a household where the woman ruled. Men were known to rip out rosemary plants as evidence that they-not their wives-ruled the roost.
The ancients used rosemary as they used all aromatic, preservative herbs-for head, respiratory, and gastrointestinal problems. Traditional Chinese physicians mixed it with ginger and used it to treat headache, indigestion, insomnia, and malaria.
Hungary Water
In 1235, Queen Elizabeth of Hungary became paralyzed. According to legend, a hermit soaked a pound of rosemary in a gallon of wine for several days, then rubbed it on her limbs, curing her. Rosemary/wine combinations became known as Queen of Hungary’s Water and were used externally for centuries for gout, dandruff, baldness prevention, and skin problems. (As the centuries passed, pennyroyal and marjoram were incorporated into what became known as Hungary Water.)
The French hung rosemary around sickrooms and in hospitals as a kind of Healing incense, calling it incensier. As recently as World War II, French nurses burned a mixture of rosemary leaves and juniper berries in hospital rooms as an antiseptic.
Little Used in America
Colonists brought rosemary to North America, and an early medical guide, The American New Dispensatory, recommended the herb’s leaves, flowers, and Hungary Water for use “in nervous and menstrual affections, for strokes, paralysis, and dizziness.”
Oddly, those great proponents of botanical medicine, the Eclectics, had little use for rosemary. Their text, King’s American Dispensatory, noted its use as a digestive aid and menstruation promoter but declared it “seldom used except as a perfume.”
Central American folk healers use rosemary oil as an insect repellent and menstruation promoter.
Contemporary herbalists say rosemary stimulates the circulatory, digestive, and nervous systems. They recommend it for headache, indigestion, depression, muscle pain, as a gargle to treat bad breath, externally to prevent premature baldness, and in baths for relaxation.
Rosemary may not guarantee A’s on exams, marital fidelity, or vivid memories of the dear departed, but the ancients were right about its ability to preserve meats.
In culinary amounts, rosemary poses no dangers. But even small amounts of rosemary oil may cause stomach, kidney, and intestinal irritation. Larger doses may cause poisoning.