Central West Virginia's Guide To Life

Granny's Front Porch
By Susanna Holstein

April 2009 - Spring Tonics

Have you had your cup of sassafras tea yet?

It's the time of year for spring tonics, and sassafras is one of the most popular cures for winter drabness. Old-timers will tell you that sassafras "thins the blood," which was believed to help handle hot weather with less discomfort. Many people no longer drink sassafras tea because several creditable government reports warned that sassafras is carcinogenic. I am one of those living dangerously, imbibing sassafras tea eagerly as soon as the ground is thawed enough to dig the roots.

If you heed the government warnings and shy away from sassafras, fear not. Spring greens are the ultimate tonic for the winter weary. And if your lawn is like mine, you have a salad garden right at hand. Violet leaves, daylily shoots, young plantain leaves, wild lettuce, sourweed, and many other old favorites are ready for the picking in the yard or along fencerows. Guidebooks can help identify the early greens, but an even better guide is an elderly neighbor who can pass on cooking tips and stories of the old days when everyone sought the wild "creasey greens," one of the earliest and most delicious of the early greens. Also known as wild mustard and wild cress, this plant is abundant in abandoned fields, often creating a sea of yellow when it goes to bloom.

The variety of names given to some wild plants, like creasey greens, is astounding. I remember once telling a neighbor about my favorite wild green, lambsquarters. She said, "I've never heard tell of that."

"Why, it grows all over the place," I said. "I can't believe you've never seen it or eaten it."

"Can't say as I have," she said. "What's it look like?"

I began describing the plant that liked to grow in rich soil and was covered with silvery leaves that had a grainy feel. She shook her head. "Nope. Never seen anything like that."

Later we walked out to her garden. There, growing along the garden fence was a lush patch of lambsquarters. "There!" I said. "You've got loads of lambsquarters!"

"Oh, that? Why that's silvey. That's a real good green for cooking. I didn't never hear of it being called what you called it, though." That’s the difference, you see, between learning the plants from books, and learning from someone who has a long and familiar acquaintance with the natural world around them.

My favorite spring tonic is one that I don't drink or eat. It's a song, lovely and lonely, sung in the deep of springtime woods when the air is soft and the night is young. It's the whippoorwill, calling out a song of love and hope. That is, without a doubt, the very best medicine of all, for when the whippoorwill sings, the cold of winter is well and truly behind us.