of beeswax. Heat the bowl over a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally, until the wax is completely dissolved. Then it’s like making mayonnaise. Pour in 250ml warm water in a thin, steady stream, while whisking vigorously. Whisk for about 5 minutes, scraping the sides of the bowl if necessary, until the mixture forms an emulsion. Take the pan off the heat and keep whisking while the cream cools and thickens, to stop the oil and water separating. You can whisk in a few drops of an essential oil while the cream is cooling, to add medicinal qualities and scent. Essential oils even act as a natural preservative, because of their anti-microbial properties. Then spoon the cream into a sterile wide-mouthed jar and seal. (For very simple instructions on how to sterilize jars, see below.)
Storage Creams last for up to 2 months in the refrigerator.
Getting creams right… These guidelines will help your creams come out successfully:
Sterilizing bottles and jars
Before you use any glass bottles and jars for storing your remedies, quickly sterilize them. I always put them through the hottest spin of the dishwasher and leave them to dry in the steam. But you can also wash them in very hot soapy water, then stand them upside down on some newspaper, and place in the oven at a low setting (about 70°C) for about 20 minutes. Then they’re ready for filling.
3 THE REMEDIES: TOP TO TOE CARE FOR A HEALTHY BODY
Herbal remedies can have a reputation for being rather ominous, dark brews, laboriously boiled for hours and knocked back in a single traumatic gulp, with your fingers firmly pinched over your nose.
Despite my best efforts to avoid the issue, I must confess that for many old-school traditional remedies this reputation is well deserved. I was subjected to a fair few acrid concoctions when growing up, and can personally confirm their powerful pre-emptive placebo effect. Nothing can make a sick child’s symptoms miraculously disappear as fast as being presented with a murky bowl of soup scattered with unidentified roots and twigs. Sorry, Mum.
Luckily, not all natural medicines have to be this way, and I am a passionate believer (almost evangelical, in fact) that the vast majority are unbelievably easy to make and can look and taste truly wonderful.
What I find incredibly exciting from a culinary perspective is that herbal remedies can open up a whole range of truly amazing flavours to which we would otherwise be oblivious. Meadowsweet blossoms, traditionally used to relieve pain, have a fizzy, sweet flavour of rich marzipan and elderflowers, while echinacea has an almost electric, metallic tingle, provided by alkylamides (the group of chemicals that give the plant its immune-enhancing effects). I know how geeky this sounds, but I am convinced that the weird and wonderful flavours of many medicinal plants are perfect for chefs and mixologists. You just wait, it won’t be long before feverfew martinis are on the menus of swanky cocktail bars everywhere. But I digress.
Experimenting in my kitchen at home with all sorts of medicinal ingredients for this book, I have created a collection of entirely new recipes. These are my modern twist on age-old remedies and are as easy to make as they are delicious to drink, wonderful to smell and soothing to apply. The intensely bitter, drying taste of willow bark tea (one of the substances from which aspirin was first derived) has been turned into a smoky, sweet willow and lime granita, a modern (and, frankly, far more palatable) take on the original, which nevertheless does just as good a job. True, my experiments don’t always work out right, and some recipes have undergone over a dozen reformulations before I finally got them spot on, but I think that’s half the fun. There are fewer hard and fast rules with herbal remedies than you might imagine; as long as you pick the right plant and prepare it in a broadly similar way to its traditional use and dosage, there is plenty of room to mix and match and play around.
I suppose the useful thing is that most of the laborious trial-and-error work has been done by me, leaving you with a collection of tried-and-tested modern home remedies. They are presented here more or less according to the part of the body they are used to treat, to give you a top-to-toe guide to natural medicines that can easily be prepared at home. All you have to do now is get stuck in!
Aloe Vera and Marigold Frozen Gel Cubes for Burns
Aloe vera is without doubt the ultimate instant skin soother. You can simply snap off one of its squidgy gel-packed leaves, which work like living first-aid sachets, and apply it directly to the skin – no fuss necessary. But nature can be improved upon. These ice-cold aloe and marigold gel cubes are especially cooling for sunburned skin, helping to prevent scarring, inflammation and infection and to promote healing – though they can be used on any kind of burn.
2 mature fresh aloe vera leaves
4 fresh marigold flower heads (Calendula officinalis)
16 drops lavender essential oil (1 drop per ice cube)
1 Peel the fresh aloe leaves (see Tip) to give you a gooey mass of gel.
2 Put into a blender with the marigold flowers and whizz until smooth.
3 Pour the gel into ice-cube trays, adding a drop of lavender essential oil into each individual cube. Freeze until solid.
USE Apply a cube directly to the affected area as needed. The ice cubes melt quickly to produce masses of fragrant soothing gel. Don’t forget to have a paper towel or cloth handy to mop up the melted gel; the goo has a habit of going everywhere!
STORAGE Will keep in the freezer for up to 6 months.