Show 239: Wintergreen, Wisteria, Yucca and Huckleberry

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The name down to the clan, the clan to the.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Hey, y'all, welcome this week's show. I will actually pick
up a little bit where we left off last week.
Last week I told you about the medicinal properties of
winter green, and it also of course has some edible properties.
And from the Spring Foraging Cookbook. Yeah, I just have
a very brief entry on winter green. We'll talk about

(01:53):
winter green. I also have a brief entry on wisteria
and a very brief entry on Okay, this will wrap
up the Spring Forging Cookbook. So I mean, consider that
this one book, we've discussed probably two to three plants
per week for an entire year, and we're now drawing

(02:18):
to the end of spring. I suppose it's have we
reached the first day of summer yet? I'm not sure.
They always say labor days like or no, I'm sorry,
Memorial days the unofficial beginning of summer. I don't know.
I don't pay attention to calendars that much. But it's
taken a full year to work our way through this book.
So considering that, you know, my books are a pretty

(02:42):
good deal if you want to buy a good book, Hey,
how about keeping me in mind? Because they really are
packed full. I mean you can take it from Herbal
Medicine for preppers, homesters, and permaculture people, which is like
probably yeah, I won't toot my I won't say it's
the best introduction herbal medicine, but it's incredibly practical and

(03:04):
incredibly useful. It's like a full herb course in one book,
and then you've got like the Growing your Herb Garden book,
you get herbal use and Gardening. My Encyclopedia Medicinal Bitter
Herbs is over six hundred pages. The Spring Forage and

(03:26):
Cookbook was only two hundred and some pages, but we
spent an entire year going through it. And if you're
making use of this information, well, hopefully you have significantly
expanded the number of foods you eat and learn to
interact with your environment in a very different way than
perhaps you did before. And the medicinal uses as well,

(03:50):
because nearly every plant in the Spring Forge and Cookbook
also has medicinal use. I am working on, well, I'll
published what sixteen books so far written and published. I'm
actually working on an herb book for a major publisher
right now, and they've asked that I not work on

(04:12):
other projects while working on their book. I understand that
that's kind of tying me up a little bit. I
had planned to have the Summer Foraging cookbook out by
this time. It looks like that's gonna be postponed by
six months or so. Also, about three quarters the way
through another book on the wild plants that are often

(04:36):
you know, overlooked, like my book the Medicinal Herbs and
Weeds or the Medicinal Trees Medicinal Firms. You know, it's
pretty comprehensive. Actually with this one, I'm not going to
give you the title right now, but as soon as
I can finish up the one for the publisher, I
don't know, three four months, i'll knock the rest of

(04:56):
that one out and it should be available. And then
I've been requested by another publisher to write another cookbook,
and I also want to get that Spring Forging i mean,
Summer Foraging cookbook done. So there's gonna be a lot
more books coming. And you know, if you sign up
for my newsletter justin Carroll Master Herbalist at Substack, you

(05:21):
get all this information. I mean, every week I sent
out articles that plus the podcasts and the books I
don't think you're ever going to find more free or
low cost information anywhere. I mean not from an experienced
verbalist and forager. You may, you know, certainly you could

(05:44):
just pull information off of Wikipedia or something, but it's
not always accurate. And you know, there's some disagreement among
foragers and herbalists over well, especially plants that I'll give
you a good example. Someone took me to task a
little earlier. They wanted to complain that I recommend our

(06:09):
native wild honeysuckle medicinally, and I don't have a problem
with that. I've used it all my life. Actually, I've
been eating honeysuckle flowers since i was probably five years old,
so I mean, I've got well over forty years experience
with this plant. And lots of people, especially in the mountains,
but more traditional people in the South and the eastern
United States make syrups and wines or even include honeysuckle

(06:34):
in with grains to make a very floral, flavorful whiskey.
Lots of use. I know this plant very well, and
they're like, well, all honeysuckles can be toxic in large amounts.
I'm okay, I guess you read that in a book
somewhere because yeah, yeah, there are a few. There's this

(07:00):
is a lot of Serra family. I think it's a
lot of cereas simpervivans. I can't remember that. I think
that maybe our native There's also Caprifolia, very commonly used.
The leaves, especially of the Japanese honeysuckle, which is an
invasive species, contains sapnans. Sapanans are a soap like substance

(07:25):
that are toxic to fish. Now could a human being
technically do themselves some harm by eating a very large
amount of honeysuckle leaves, Yes, yes they could. How many
of you like to eat soap? I don't Just because

(07:45):
there's a foraging guide or some you know, botanical website
that says, you know, potentially toxic doesn't mean it's actually
in practicality toxic. And of course I use and discuss
with you some plants that do have a level of toxicity.

(08:05):
Poke weed Phytolachia. Absolutely, the young tender green leaves have
very small amounts of the toxins and if cooked properly
well generations from I mean going back thousands of years
with Native American tradition, well through the settlers really up
into the nineteen sixties. I mean, in the nineteen eighties

(08:27):
you could steal buy poke shoots and it can't. I mean,
like you go and buy a can of Campbell soup, right,
you could also get poke weed shoots. That was considered
sort of a delicacy, and people really liked it. There's
a safe way to eat it, and there's a very
unsafe way to eat it. Don't eat raw poke, even
though I've mentioned several times I do. I don't get

(08:50):
all worked up about a lot as things people do,
you know, and I'm interesting small amounts of the very fresh,
tender spring green leaves that have very little trace of
the toxin whatsoever. Yes, I eat raw I enjoy that
as a spring snack. I look forward to it every year.
Any book will tell you not to do that. Any
expert will tell you not to do that. How to

(09:12):
land every show. I say, you make your own choices
and make your own decision. The berries of poke weed
have long been a remedy for arthritis. That was a
Cherokee use. It was passing on to early settlers making
a wine and taking it just like by the spoonful,
and it's actually quite good for arthritis, has some anti

(09:34):
cancer properties, has some lymph cleansing properties. I'm not telling
you to go eat a handful of poke berries. You'll puke.
It's probably about the worst thing that's going to happen
to you. There's actually no documented evidence of anyone actually
poisoning themselves to death biting poke berries, but it will
make you quite sick. The root has the strongest amount

(09:55):
of toxin, and a tincture a concentrat extract of that
route could certainly be deadly. Okay, but that's true of
so many plants. I mean, the so called experts say
that sassafras is toxic. Well, the scientists doing those studies
gets like fifty gallons of sassafras tea concentrated down to

(10:19):
little lab mice once a day. No human beings actually
going to do that. I don't worry about such things.
The same is true of comfrey, especially American company calamus,
especially American calamus. Yeah, well, the company is European comfrey.
You have the Russian company since it seems to have

(10:41):
more carcinogen than the other types of comfrey that were
brought here by European immigrants to be used as food
in medicine and animal feed and all that. There's STI
a lot of plants. Look, if you do anything to
an extreme, you're gonna hurt yourself. You know. Back when
I was taking classes from the late orblist Michael Moore,

(11:05):
he told the story of a lady who calls herself
a great deal of harm using raspberry leaf. Now, just
about every natural health oriented women's magazine or book will
tell expectant mothers to have a cup of raspberry leaf
tea a day. Tonifies the uterus, helps prevent premature contractions,

(11:29):
and helps with delivery and a lot of things. Well,
this young lady was apparently quite obsessive, and she took
it to the extreme first time mother and drank more
than a gallon of raspberry leaf tea a day and
induced a miscarriage. How are you supposed to say, use

(11:54):
common sense, if you drink more than a gallon of
water a day, you could induce some mistreage raspberry leaf
or not. You can kill yourself by drinking too much water.
A lot of times when you hear about some awful
story from a fraternity hazing routine, they made somebody drink
a lot of water and they died. You can kill

(12:15):
yourself by drinking too much water. Okay, you can kill
yourself by drinking too much alcohol. You can kill yourself
by misusing just about any herb the mint family, whether
it's mint or it could be basil. I would also
throw in there, you know a couple of odd ball
I mean, not necessarily mints, like a you know, Rosemary

(12:37):
and time. I guess Rosemary is in the met family,
but times not. I think I got that right. Certainly sages,
but any of the mint family, lemon, balm, skull cap,
there are a lot of them, actually be bomb. There's
a ton of mints, right, There's a ton in the
sage family. And there's a little kind of a little
crossover and confusion there. This age is a little more

(13:01):
closely related to the artemesia's, which certainly have a certainly
level a certain level of toxicity. Wormwood, mug wart and
such do have a certain level of toxicity. Any of
those taken in large amounts medicinal doses, we might say,
could induce some miscarriage. The only in modern times in

(13:23):
America documented use documented death caused by herbal medicine that
was well, I guess it was about nineteen ten or so.
A woman wanted to induce an abortion, and she took
penny royal, a very very strong member of the Met family.

(13:45):
Wee the three most stronger of course, peppermint, penny royal,
and water mint. But she used the essential oil, and
not only did she induce an abortion, she bled to
death out of every orifice of her body. That would
probably be the case with the essential oil of every
member of the Met family. It certainly would have happened
with the sages and the artimisias, and I could go

(14:08):
on and on and on. The essential oil is not
really a natural form of the herb. It's very very potent.
Always warning gainst taking herbs internally, I mean essential oils,
of course, internally. Use a lot of herbs internally. I
use them as teas, I use them as tinctures, I
use them as decoctions. I eat them raw, I eat

(14:29):
them cooked. But essential oil is a different thing. The
bottom line is most every medicinal herb has some level
of toxicity at some level of dosage and some level
of concentration. So you know somebody's going to say, well,

(14:51):
that plant can be poisonous. I'm like, well, yeah, I've
eaten it for forty years. I ain't dead yet, and
they don't want to take my word for it. And
it's like, you know what, dude, just to your own research.
But I think in my work here, I'm giving you
such a very common sense way of using and exploring

(15:11):
the plants all around us. I mean, you literally have
a medicine cabin in your backyard, and that's true just
about anywhere you live, even an apartment. You can have
a little garden on a balcony. You've probably got a
park nearby. Of course, you want to be careful about
what's being sprayed, what chemicals and such. But that's why
I started my first book was The Medicinal Trees, because

(15:33):
everybody's got trees, you know. I mean maybe some desert environment,
but even there you're gonna have a few. But you've
got pine trees and oak trees and birch trees and
dogwoods and so many trees that have medicinal value, and
so many trees that have edible value. And you know, anyway,
that's just sort of my reflection on wrapping up the

(15:53):
Spring Foraging Guide. It's a lot more information than even
I realized. I mean, I write the book, I read
it through two or three times. It gets edited and
proof read, not always perfectly. As many people like to
point out. Sorry, I'm dyslexic, and if the editor doesn't

(16:14):
catch it, I'm not going to see it. Sorry. I
can't help that. I do the best I can in
that precard. But you know, most every mistake I've made,
you can kind of figure out what the word was
supposed to be. It's just the letters are inverted. I
read something funny the other day this, Remember, dyslexics are

(16:35):
teepel pooh, And that's right. We are teepel Pooh, and
we make many, many mistakes. But I do think it's
a valuable book. If I had had the Spring Foraging Guide,
the Spring Forging Cookbook, along with maybe Peterson Guide and
Medicillin eble Plants of the Eastern United States, there's two books.
And I've got a shelf full of a field guides,

(17:00):
I spring Forge and cookbook, and one decent feel guide.
When I was starting out forging and at the age
of twelve, my word, I mean, I would have been
just like in the woods all the time, eating wild food,
and I would be light years beyond where I am now,

(17:20):
so hopefully, hopefully I have been able to pass that
on to you, whether through the books, whether through the
articles or the podcast. I don't hold back on any information.
There's not a single thing I do that's published under
you know, by me, as opposed to a major publishing

(17:42):
company they have control. I mean, I'm not gonna be
able to take excerpts of the next book that comes
out and publish it for free, but I do that
with all my own work, and I just don't think
you're going to find certainly not this volume of information
anywhere else for free or low cost. And the live experience,

(18:08):
I mean it's like someone says, well, the book says
this could do you know, and I'm like, well, dude,
I actually eat it, and you know, you know, maybe
come out with me sometime and we'll just experiment, and
you know, if I get violently ill, you can film
me and I will make a public apology. But otherwise
I'm not just you know, making it up as I

(18:31):
go or anything. I've really been doing this for forty
years now. In some cases, I'm about turn forty eight,
and literally I was eating honeysuckle blossoms and wild strawberries
and blackberries, and many many wild plants, dandelions and such.
When I was a small child, sometimes learn through trial

(18:52):
and error. My mother said she had to keep up
a bottle of epicec at all times because I would
eat toxic plants. I'd eat African violets and philodendrons and such,
and she would have to give me something to make
me throw up. A lot of things I have learned
through the experience, which I do think is the best teacher,
if not always the most kind teacher. But when there's

(19:16):
a plant that's truly toxic, I mean, wolf spain, Jimson weed,
anything in that family, you know, the belladonna and all that. Well,
you know, bittersweet has some edibility. I won't loup that one.
In About poison hemlock, water hemlock, I tell you straight up,

(19:38):
this thing can kill you, or it can give you
hallucinations to make you insane, or you know mandrake. Had
a horrible experience with mandrake one time, and that a book.
A book advised me to take mandrake root internally, and
it wrecked my stomach for months. It was so I think,

(20:01):
just very alkaline. Maybe I don't know, just no not
an alkaline caustic. I guess it just about ruined my
stomach and I just had a small sip of it. It
was horrible. I told you before. Another something I got
out of a book was an herb book written in
the sixties, I guess early seventies that recommended nutmeg nutmeg

(20:24):
for pain. And you know, I had a severe back
injury and took the recommended dose of nutmeg, very common
spice and everybody's cabinet, and it was horrible. It was
one of the most horrible experiences of my life. My
lungs were on fire. I had a migraine, headache, somewhat hallucinations,

(20:48):
not really more just like I don't know trails, if
you know what I mean. You moved your hand, you
kind of see the trail moved behind it. Nothing very
exciting and no help with the pain whatsoever. Had I
not had some benadryl, probably could have died. So there's
one thing to be said for book learning, as they

(21:09):
call it. You know, my grandfather used to talk about
pointy headed intellectuals. There's a lot more to be said
from experience, actual hands on lived experience, and that's you know,
I don't give you a lot of scientific studies. In
my book, I don't really trust the scientists, especially after COVID. Sorry,

(21:31):
I do give you a lot of historical information. And
then this is my experience. This is my practical, lived experience,
and you know, hopefully you can find it useful. It's
the best I can do. I'm never going to be
a guy in a white coat, and I'm never going
to just say trust the experts. The experts are very
often wrong. Now sometimes they're right, and we don't have

(21:54):
to experiment with known deadly things like wolf spain or
poison hemlock. That said, both of those plants do have
medicinal use very limited. You have to be very careful
with them and probably should be left to the experts,
especially topically. The other day, and just I guess it

(22:14):
was yesterday, I'm communicating with someone who was talking about
the difference between edible bitter sweetberries and poisonous bitter sweetberries.
Basically some are purple and some are red, or some
are really more like black and the others are red.
And staying, you know the ones that are toxic, you
don't even want to have them on your property. I'm like, well,

(22:35):
you know, I get what you're saying. And if you
have kids, certainly, I definitely get that, maybe teach them
about the plant. But if they're just so dumb, they're
gonna do like I did as a kid and stick
everything in my mouth and eat it. I mean, I
did that. Actually, you might want to eradicate it from
your property. I get that totally. Meanwhile, the vines make

(22:56):
beautiful baskets, so, I mean, they're very useful but sweet.
Being in the same family as the other night shades,
the deadly night shades as they call them, which also
night shade family includes potatoes and tomatoes, and I think
what eggplant, Yeah, I think even eggplant. You know, you

(23:17):
can't just say all the night shades are bad. Now,
some of them are poisonous, some of them can cause hallucinations.
Several of them that we even consider toxic are very
useful externally with external use for muscle nerve and joint
pain and mange and poison ivy and such. Horse needal

(23:40):
great example. You never eat a horse needle poisonous. Okay,
horse needals are real good. Make a basically a decoction
out of it as a soak for nerve pain and
the feet or Cherokee use it for mange, you know.
So I guess if I do a video on horse netal,
someone's gonna come up and say that's a toxic You

(24:01):
really can't shouldn't be Well, I'm just I'm telling you
don't eat it, but there is legitimate use for it.
And if something tastes like soap, don't swallow it, and
you're probably gonna be all right. Now, there is one
variety of honeysuckle I've never encountered, and I found conflicting

(24:23):
documentation various books and websites and journals. Some said the
fruit of it was potentially toxic, and they said potentially
the other said it was non toxic. So I have
actually no documented evidence that accept in very large amounts,
any member of the Latissera family of honeysuckle is toxic. Now,

(24:47):
someone can set me right on that if I'm wrong.
But like I said, anything can be toxic in large amounts.
Most you're probably in the same book that told you
that honeysuckle was toxic, will recommend yucca flowers. We'll get
to yuki here in a minute. Yuka flowers are white. Now,
this is not the yucca or why you see a

(25:11):
that you've probably had in South American restaurants, spried up
like potatoes, Absolutely delicious. That's actually, I think, if I'm
not mistaken, in the cassava family, this is the North
American yucca plant or what Spanish band net plant has
long bronze well, I don't know. Long leaves that are
pointed in with a spike often make cordage out of them.

(25:34):
I made some beautiful cordage out of them. I think
I've shared that with you before. The flowers are edible,
but they are soapy. If I am, I'm gonna eat one,
two or three. But they had the sappinings that people
were warning against in the honeysuckle. So you know, the
same book that would tell you honeysuckle is potentially toxic
would probably tell you the yucca flowers were perfectly safe. Actually,

(25:57):
I think there's probably more sappenings in the yukafa hours,
depending on variety. Now, like I said, the Japanese honeysuckle
seems to have more sappen and content, but they are
toxic certainly to fish.

Speaker 3 (26:11):
But I'm not a fish anyway. Let's get onto the
edible use of winter green. We discussed the medicinal use
last week. And you know, winter green is not really
a spring plant. Actually, I think of it more of
a winter plant because it has edible berries that are
available all winter, and.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
They're quite tasty. Small, not overly flavorful, but they're nice.
You know, when you like out hiking on a winter
day and you see those little red berries peeking up
out of the snow. I mean, they just bring a
smile to your face. Really nice. Right now where I live,
we have a decent amount of winter green, not a ton.

(26:54):
I mean, I'm not gonna like go out and fill
up a cup with winter green berries. I'm just gonna
grab a little pinch here, half a handful there. Very nutritional,
very good for you. Apparently up north northeast north New England,
I should say, and well over into like Wisconsin and
you know the Midwest and all that up around you

(27:15):
great Lakes Canaan border that area. They grow abundantly enough
that people can make pies. Now, I mean I may
actually you know, I have a bias against travel. I
do not fly. I refuse to fly. I actually really
love flying. My great uncle taught me to fly beginning
when I was like I don't know, seven years old,

(27:37):
but hm, my great uncle was sort of you remember
Uncle Ci on Duck Dynasty. And yes, I should mention
that Phil passed away last week, you know, may rest
in peace. I really loved the old Duck Dynasty show
before politics kind of ruined everything. I mean, you know,

(27:58):
they are who they are and liberals and like them,
and it changed a lot. But you know, Phil wasn't
going to change, and basically the show got taken off air.
They were canceled. When they came back, they weren't anywhere
near as interesting or funny or real. They were you know,
either being very heavily edited or self censoring or I

(28:18):
don't even know. But yeah, I always identified with them
and miss those old episodes. And yeah, I mean Phil
and I would not have agreed on a lot in
terms of religion and being very Protestant, me being very Catholic,
but on social issues and politics we would have been
like right in line, you know. But I could have

(28:39):
hung up with those guys anytime, you know, go hunting
and fishing and cook up something and just have a
good time. I mean that's kind of my culture, actually,
I mean, that's very much my culture. Playing jokes on
each other and given everybody a hard time. I mean,
I've told you before, if if you're in the South,
and if actually if you mean an older man, maybe

(29:03):
your father's age or your grandfather's age, if he has
a picking on you and giving you a hard time,
he doesn't respect you or like you actually in the South,
and it's true of people your own age as well,
but especially true of older men. If they're not just
like giving you hell, they don't like you. So you know,
if you watch Doug Dynacy, you know what I'm talking about.

(29:25):
But anyway, you remember Uncle Si. He was like the
crazy Vietnam vet. Well that was my uncle Joe, great
uncle who taught me to fly. And he was wild
and crazy and volatile and bipolar and fairly dangerous. And
so the way he taught me to fly was basically,
go up, take me up in the air, starting at
a young age, turn it to co pilot, hand me

(29:47):
the controls, take his hands off, and maybe take a nap.
He's like, it's all on you. If you crash, we're dead.
That's it. I'm not saving us. Yeah, I mean he
was not. He was nuts, but he was a likable
really great guy, and he taught me to fly, and
so you know, by the time I was ten twelve

(30:08):
years old, I could fly a plane, take off, land,
you know, a game. In my teens. He took me
up a bunch of times. And I'm a good pilot.
Actually I don't have a pilot's license. And I'm sure
Uncle Joe probably broke every law in the book teaching
me how to fly. But he's passed away now, so
what do you get to You can't get him now,

(30:30):
can you. But he was He was crazy and volatile
and hot tempered and a really good guy. Liked him
a lot, and that's how I wanted to fly. So
I actually love to fly. I do not love to
fly commercial. I do not love it at all, especially

(30:51):
since nine to eleven and all the TSA and all
the regulations and this real id crap. No, that's like
being put on a flying greyhound bus or Amtrak and
just hoping it doesn't fall out of the sky because
the aircraft controllers are, you know, more interested in being
transvestites and landing a plane or something. I don't know

(31:13):
what's going on up there, but yeah, I don't fly anymore.
It means I'm not leaving the United States unless I
can go by boat. I actually prefer to go by
boat anywhere. I love to sail. I love to be
at a boat. I don't care if it's a canoe
or a cabin cruiser. I mean, give me a boat.
I love the water absolutely, always have really a lot

(31:38):
of times beyond. A boat's not that different from flying.
I mean, especially like well, I mean sail boats and such.
But I mean it's you're just out there on your own,
and you know, love that. I dislike driving, but I
will drive if I have to. I love trains, but
I don't like like Amtrak or something like that. I mean,

(31:58):
you know again, and that's like public transportation. It's dirty,
it's dangerous, it's nasty, it's overregulated. If we can bring
back the old fashioned passenger trains, I'd go by train
anywhere in the two continents without a doubt. I mean,
you want me a Winnipeg, put me on a train, right,
I'd love it, absolutely love it. But yeah, I would

(32:19):
actually drive up north to try a winter green pie.
I mean I'm thinking that would be worth the effort.
I mean, especially like me, I don't know Upper Peninsula.
You know the upers up there, I mean, yeah, man,
if they do that kind of stuff. Or Maine. Oh,

(32:39):
I could love Maine, I mean very much. It's yeah,
but I would actually drive for that, especially if I could,
you know, catch a few cod or whitefish or salmon,
depending on where you are up north. We don't get
those fish in the South. I'd love to do that.
I'd love to go moose hunting once in my life.
That would be pretty awesome. We used to. North Carolina

(33:02):
was once actually famous for its elk population just I
don't know. Fifteen miles from me is a town called
Banner Elk. It was named for the elk. There's Elk Creek,
There's Elk Park. They're pretty much haunted to near extinction
in the early nineteen hundreds. You know, it was a
major food source. We didn't have a lot of deer
really until recently either. The deer have made an incredible comeback,

(33:26):
with deer now more like a pess or geese, tons
of bear. We still have very few elk. They have
introduced some into the national parks. They're saying the population
is starting to get up where they might do like
a lottery. I think they actually are already doing a
lottery where you can buy a ticket, and you know,

(33:46):
you be like one out of ten thousand people that
may be drawn to get one shot at killing an elk.
That's not my style. I'm sorry, that's just not my
style at all. So I guess if you know, if
I went up north, I'd love to go moose hunting,
elk hunting, salmon fishing, fishing on the Great Lakes. It'd

(34:10):
be great anything around Maine. Lobster I mean, you know,
our lobsters in North Carolina don't have claws. We have
what's called spiny lobster that comes from basically they basically
begin in North Carolina and go all the way to
the Caribbean. They're wonderful, delicious lobsters don't have claws. I'd
love to go lobstering. I know that's heavily regulated. Probably
wouldn't even get a chance to. You know, I could

(34:31):
think of a few things i'd want to do, you know,
maybe on the West coast, gooey ducks and what Jonah
crabs and I mean, yeah, rock crabs, and I mean
I could really get into that obviously, But yeah, I'm
not fine. I can't take a boat from here to Seattle.
Unless they bring the trains back, that's a long drive.

(34:53):
That is an incredibly long drive. I'd love to go
to Alaska someday, but I'm not seeing it unless I
get an RV or something. You know, they've ruined flying. They've
absolutely ruined flying. And it was something. I mean, even
when I was a kid and we get on a
commercial flight, I loved it. Now I wouldn't. I think

(35:17):
it was James Gregory, the Southern comedian. He was talking
about there was a recent plane crash from a Delta plane,
Delta Airlines airplane. I guess that would be the way
to say it. And he said, y'all know what Delta
stands for. Don't you don't even leave the airport. I mean,
I'm telling you, and they are. They're just dropping out

(35:38):
of the sky. I mean, we seem to have the
most incompetent people building the planes, running things. It's become
the DMV and the sky and I'm no, not interested.
But anyway, where were we We were talking about what
you can do with winter green in the spring, the leaves,

(36:01):
we're really a really important part of early American trade.
You can get winter green oil from them. And you
may remember winter green from chewing gum doesn't actually come
from the winter green plant anymore. For a while, it's
made from birch. I think most of it's synthetic. Now
the birch is similar both in flavor and medicinally in

(36:23):
winter green. They can both help lower fever, they can
both help relax muscles, and they're tasty. But you can
also in the spring and summer make a nice tea
out of it. So long way of saying, yeah, it's
just a tea plant, so there you go, but it
is quite good for you, and we did go over
the medicinal use of it last week. Now, withsteria, some

(36:47):
people enjoy dipping clusters of Wisteria flowers in batter and
frying them as you would elder or black locust flowers. Unfortunately,
I can't enjoy it. I am so extremely allergic to wassteria.
It's a shame because the smell is fantastic. So other
parts of wisterias, such as the seed pods, are toxic. Well,

(37:07):
that brings us back to our prior subject. If you
look in a book, it may say withsteria toxic, well,
don't eat the seed pods. Yes, it's a laguminas plant.
It's in the same family as peas of beans. The
Lagun family contains I believe there are fifty thousand different

(37:27):
plants that in variety sub varieties within you know, larger
like you may have green beans and you've got like
five thousand varieties of green beans or something. I mean,
they've been bred like crazy, you know. I mean, there's
so many varieties of beans and peas it's ridiculous. But actually,
only a small portion of the Lagun family, like I
don't know, ten to fifteen percent of all the many

(37:50):
plants are really edible because again, lot them contains sapnine.
Some of them contained some other chemicals as well. So
I might look at a book and it says lagoon
family is toxic, and then meanwhile they're eating you know,
sweet and garden peas or some garbonzo beans, some hummus
or whatever, I don't know for supper, and they never

(38:14):
connect those dots. Yeah, if you want to try frying,
battering and frying up some cereal flowers, that's your decision.
I'm not going to tell you to do it or not.
I'm allergic to them, but I sure do love me
some peas and beans. I mean, I'm a lagoon fanatic.
Actually peanuts, and of course some people have peanut allergies.

(38:34):
That doesn't mean that all peanuts are toxic, does it. Well? Anyway,
now we'll get to yukka, and I did I've already
pretty much gone through this one. You know, Yuka fibers
excellent for corridge and baskets. It's also edible. Not my favorite.
It's the flowers and really the tender stems when they're
still pink. It's the flowering stalk that can be used. It.

(38:57):
To me, it tastes soapy. I would consider it a
survival food. I may throw a few in a salad.
I just don't really like it love it as a
useful plant. And the yuka from South America or yuca,
why U see a as opposed to why you see
c A is absolutely delicious, Like I says in the

(39:18):
Cassava family, you fried up like a potato, get some
chimmy churry and some roast pork and go town. It's
just fantastic. But that's not our American yuka. Do not
confuse it to because the root of the American yuka
does contain large amounts of sapin. It's enough to use
as a fish poison and could probably be fairly dangerous

(39:38):
if eaten. But the human body doesn't really process a
lot of those sapinings. They just pretty much pass through.
I'm not aware of a sappin and poisoning happening, at
least in modern times, being documented, not from the natural source.
If there is, somebody send me the link, you know,
that'd be interesting. But basically, we don't like to eat soap,

(40:03):
so we normally don't eat things that taste like soap.
So now for the medicinal of the week, it's a
it's a no brainer, yeh. Gailasakia. That's a rather odd word.
That is the Latin for huckleberry. Now huckleberries. You may

(40:25):
haven't encountered huckleberries before. I thought they were kind of blueberry. Yeah,
a lot of them can look like that. Some look
a little different. We got black huckleberry. This is all
native to my region. I mean just native to my region,
black huckleberry, northern dwarf huckleberry, box huckleberry, dwarf huckleberry, dangleberry, huckleberry.

(40:49):
You know, you think about Doc Holiday, he said, I'm
your huckleberry. What if you said, I'm your dangleberry. That
wasn't sounded very good? Would it dwarf dangleberry even worse?
I think, uh, blue ridge bog huckleberry very common. Find
that one a lot where I live. But there are
others who grow in the swamps. There's bear huckleberry and
Harry Dangleberry. There you go, best name of any plant,

(41:15):
Harry Dangleberry. That might actually be what was oh, Anthony Wiener?
You remember the Democrat politician, pervert, pedophile, Anthony Wiener. He
called himself on lime when he was flirting with teenage girls,
Carlos Danger, Carlos Danger. I think he a better name

(41:37):
would have been Harry Dangleberry Anthony Willianer aka Harry Dangleberry.
I like that. I like that a lot actually same.
He didn't go for that, you know, I'm just he
never used that nom de plume. If you would, it
would have been hilarious atty. I remember what was it

(42:02):
Charles Crowdhammer years ago when all those nude pictures of
him came out that he had been sending to teenage girls.
He really liked to show off his genitalia, and his name,
of course being Anthony Wiener. Charles crowd Hammer said, well,
at least his name wasn't Anthony Anis, And I agree.

(42:24):
I agree with that quite a bit. So the Lumbee
used a version of Huckleberry. Now, the Lumbee tribe, I
grew up with him right in eastern North Carolina. Let
me tribe in North Carolina is a combination of tribes,
mostly Catawbin tribes, the Chiquora, the santeesa Walcamaws of some

(42:46):
of these, just a lot of these small tribes kind
of were dispersed and joined together as a Lumbee somewhere
by around eighteen I'm gonna say around eighteen high. You know,
there was when the white settlers came in. They brought
in viruses that the Indians didn't have. You know, the

(43:07):
Indians had viruses the whites didn't have. They made each
other sick, and a lot of Indians died. There were
a lot of wars and battles between them. Mostly though
in east North Carolina folks got along same. It's true
in eastern South Carolina and Virginia, most of the tribes
when the white settlers came in saw them as hey,

(43:28):
new people trade with and you know, we're going to
form alliances, and usually it was to form alliances against
another tribe. And I mean most of these tribes were
at war all the time, so most of them didn't
see white settlers as invaders. They saw them as potential
allies against their rivals that were, you know, fifty miles
to the west or something. But the diseases were certainly

(43:52):
a major issue. The Lumbees are a combination of at
least five tribes, and I've seen numbers as high as
fifteen remnants of tribes, mostly in southeastern North Carolina, east
of Charlotte in the Pembroke region that's where the tribal
headquarters is, but well down towards Georgetown, South Carolina, where

(44:13):
the Chiquoras are, and up toward Walkama, And there are
lots of in Maryland, tons of Lumbies in Maryland for
some reason, a lot of interaction between them and the
Iroquois and you know, different northern tribes. They have a
really interesting herbal medicine, but in this case it's a
huckleberry that would have been native to the swamps of
eastern North Carolina. But if you want to check out

(44:35):
their medicine, I've written a lot about it. But it's
called Herbs of the Lumbey Indians, or maybe meet Herbal
Medicine of the Lumby Indians. Yeah, that's right, Urbal Medicine
Lumby Indians. It's available through unc Pembroke, their press. Very
very good book. And in this one I think quote
mister Vernon Cooper, who is a Lumbee healer. I believe

(44:59):
in the seventies and eighties, I was aware of Vernon
Cooper even as a child. He said that the leaves
of the fruit of the he huckleberry they called it,
was made into a tonic to treat the early stage
of diabetes. They're bitter, they have an effect on the liver.
The tops were gathered in May in September and the

(45:19):
roots the remainder of the year. The tea was recommended
for the treatment of diabetes, also for the blood and
the kidneys. It is a diuretic effect, says mister Vernon
believed that diabetes of the kidneys caused a lot of
fluid build up in various parts of the body. So
you're looking at the diabetes is more liver than kidney's.

(45:41):
But the bitter tonic and the diuretic effect. And I
mean people used to talk about mister Vernon all the time.
I think I even met him a few times. You know,
I was a kid left Lumberton. I lived in Lumberton
for the age of five, almost five, four and a
half we'll say, to the age of about fifteen, and

(46:03):
then went back for a few years and actually worked
there even just a few years ago. Been in and out.
They were all my life. And I grew up with
tons of Lumbee folks, got family in the Lumbee tribe.
Actually it's a distant cousin who's the chief of the
Chiquora tribe down in South Carolina. Very very closely related

(46:23):
between the Lumbees and the Chicquoras and the walk the
Malls and the Holleu, Sapodi and the Catabas and all.
You know, a lot of Indians tribes in North Carolina
or Native America, what do you want to call it.
But yeah, so maybe probably one of the big reasons
why herbal medicine was never foreign to me, you know,
growing up from the mountains where the Appalachian folks practiced it,

(46:44):
to the coast where the Native American folks practiced it.
So did a lot of the older black folks, So
did a lot of the older white folks, you know,
in my family and then around and yeah, I mean
it just never seemed foreign to me. I just always
had an interested even from a very young age, plants
for future states of black huckleberry and infusion of the

(47:07):
leaves or bark has been used in the treatment of dysentery,
and infusion of the leaves has been used to the
treatment of Bright's disease. Now, huckleberry leaves very much like
blueberry leaves, very much like BlackBerry raspberry leaves. They're a stringent.
Remember what I told you about the woman who took
way too much raspberry leaf. Be careful with this one

(47:27):
as well. I mean, it's probably extremely safe, but you
have to use common sense. Yeah, I think we're gonna
wrap it up there. Huckleberries are great. They make fantastic pies,
and we don't have to drive up north for that.
There are huckleberries all around. And if you can't get huckleberries,

(47:48):
get blueberries. They are actually very similar. Most people wouldn't
even know the difference. There are a lot of berries
you can kind of throw together when you find in
the woods. You know. Of course worse, they're toxic berries
that can look very much alike. So, as I always say,
get a good field guide, get a good plant app

(48:08):
on your phone, learn from somebody who has been foraging
for a long time, and they can tell you what's
safe or not. I don't pretend to be the expert
on every plant, and anybody who does, I don't have
a lot of faith in. Everybody has their area of expertise,

(48:29):
and anybody who claims to be like some guru who
just knows everything, probably better avoid that person. Really. I mean,
I've literally talked with herbalists that will recommend the use
of you berries and yeah, they're gonna kill somebody. I mean,
that's one that anybody knows is toxic. Now, yes, there's

(48:51):
a way to use them medicinally, but people put out
statements like, you know you berries for cancer, cancure cancer,
Well you berries can also kill you dead. You got
to know what you're doing and check the fruit on
the vine, as they say. I mean, I've written a
lot of books. I've done well over seven hundred podcasts

(49:13):
between my three podcasts put together, probably getting close to
one thousand. I've done weekly articles for like five years now.
You know, I think I think I put enough out
there about enough plants, so that do you know that
I'm at least experienced in this field. But remember, when

(49:36):
you pick up a book by somebody, or you go
to their website, or you go to their Instagram page
or something, they could be telling you anything. As my
grandmother used to say, they could be absolutely lying. At
least I even if I feel like I'm expert on something.
At the end of the show, what I tell you

(49:58):
you do your own research. You may your own judgments.
Don't even believe me. Do your own research because everybody
is different and what works for me may not work
for you. And you're gonna hear that in just a second.
So anyway, y'all have a good one and I'll talk
to you next time. The information this podcast is not

(50:18):
intended to diagnose or treat any disease or condition. Nothing
I say or write has been evaluated or approved by
the FDA. I'm not a doctor. The US government does
not recognize the practice of verbal medicine, and there is
no governing body regulating herblens. Therefore, I'm really just a
guy who says, IRBs, I'm not offering any advice. I
won't even claim that anything I write or say is

(50:39):
accurate or true. I can tell you what Earth has
been traditionally used for. I can tell you my own experience,
and if I believe in herb has helped me, I cannot,
nor would I tell you to do the same. If
you use an herb anyone recommends you are treating yourself,
you take full responsibility for your health. Humans are individuals,
and no two are identical. What works for me may

(51:00):
not work for you. You may have an allergy of
sensitivity and underlying condition that no one else even shares
and you don't even know about. Be careful with your health.
By continuing to listen to my podcast or read my blog,
you agree to be responsible for yourself, to your own research,
make your own choices, and not to blame me for
anything ever.

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Show 239: Wintergreen, Wisteria, Yucca and Huckleberry

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