I love the title of today's cookbook, Food 'N Folklore. Really when you think about it, it's not just the food that's important in our family histories but also the stories about the food.
As I was looking through this cookbook, I came to a section on home remedies. In an era before increased access to physicians, women's abilities to heal their families was vital. Most women had recipes for different types of tonics and salves that could help their family with whatever ailed them.
One of the recipes for a home remedy in this book reminded me of a remedy my own maternal grandmother had.
You see, when I was a child we would go and visit my grandmother every year at her home in the mountains of Arizona. We would stay a week and enjoy the cooler weather, slower paced life, and family gatherings. One year, my grandmother decided that my brother had worms.
Yes, worms.
Not the kind of worm that has burrowed in your skin but like a worm that was inside his stomach causing him to be be too skinny, in her estimation.
I will preface the rest of this story by letting you know that I personally have never suffered such an ailment. So I was never in any danger of having to consume this remedy.
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| (c) 2013 Gena Philibert-Ortega |
So my grandmother told my mother that she must feed my brother a dosage of salt. Yes, salt. Like take a spoonful of salt, or more, to get rid of his "worms."
Now, my brother owes my mother big time because she refused to give him salt for his "worms." I on the other hand was begging my mother to listen and honor her mother by feeding my younger brother salt. I was about middle school aged at this point and it sounded like a good way to torture my younger brother.
So imagine my surprise to see this cure for children's worms.
Makes taking a spoonful of salt seem not so bad.
