Gatherings in the Woods

Appalachian greens and roots to shake off winter's blues

In many parts of the country, this has not been a pleasing spring. In the Northeast, it’s cold and cloudy when it’s not raining. The middle part of the country is beset with biblical storms and tornados. And early fire season is breaking out in the West.

On the brighter side, the vernal equinox two months ago insists it is, indeed, spring, the season of rejuvenation. So let’s move forward and prepare our bodies for a better summer. A bracing tonic is what’s needed, something fresh and strong to shake off the kinks in our winter bones and pull the boiled wool stuffing from our clogged brains.

There are all kinds of modern health tonics out there, whirled into juices and smoothies enhanced with vegetables you never would consider drinkable. Packets of powders filled with mysterious minerals and overloaded with vitamins you really don’t need carry the promise that after just a couple of doses every part of your body will just jump up and somersault down the street.

This is not about them. We are going to the Appalachian woods of West Virginia where people with ancestral knowledge have long relied on greens and herbs to refresh their bodies after hard beatings. There are four main plants that make up the bulk of spring tonics. Most are steeped into teas or brewed down into elixirs. Others are mixed into ointments for aching joints and one, with a taste one needs to acquire, is served in a heap all by itself.

Ginseng carpets Appalachia’s woods and fields. The custom is to brew it to drink right away or bottle it to keep throughout the year. Either way ginseng reduces stress, heightens your alertness and sense of well-being. These days it’s available in many forms from health food stores to gas stations, but homemade extract is vastly purer and simple to make.

Joe Williams digging a ginseng root with his "seng" hoe. He’s carefully digging to get as complete a root as possible as he lifts it gently from the dirt. (Photo credit: Library of Congress Photography Collection)

To prepare ginseng: First you have to go out into the woods and dig some up then bring them home and scrub the roots really well. Then place in a glass jar or crockpot. Mix together an equal amount of water and glycerin and pour the liquid over the root. Cover with a lid and store in a cool place for four to six weeks. Strain the liquid into a bowl using a fine sieve. Press down on the softened roots with the back of a spoon to make sure you get all the juice from them. Pour the juice into a container or individual bottles and store in a cool dark place. You can use it right away, but it also keeps for at least a year if it remains in the cool darkness. A recommended dosage is one-third to half a teaspoon three times a day, diluted in cold or hot water, or spike a glass of juice or smoothy with it.

Ramps are eaten as much as possible from mid-April when they first unfurl in the forest until the natural supply peters out. Some claim their flavor is putrid and they put out an objectionable smell, but everyone eats a mess of them because ramps purify the blood like nothing else. They are so beloved in the region that they have their own festival in Richwood, West Virginia. The 82nd Annual Feast of the Ramson Ramp is happening right now, so if you’re anywhere within, oh, let’s say 200 or so miles from the town, you should get on over there. Make a day of eating nothing but ramps.

What to do with ramps once you brought them home is a personal choice, depending on your tolerance for a singularly strong green. Use the white ends in place of garlic—sautéed as you would garlic in olive oil to dress spaghetti is a personal favorite. The greens go well in a soup or prepare them in a straight up traditional way by frying a couple of strips of bacon until crisp, then quickly stirring the greens into the fat until they begin to wilt. Spoon out onto a serving plate, sprinkle the bacon over it, and serve immediately.

Another blood purifier is sassafras, but it’s more difficult to harvest and prepare and you have to be very careful to be sure you’ve removed any trace of safrole, a chemical compound that is highly toxic and illegal because it’s used to make ecstasy. If you still want to to go ahead, tramp into the forest, find a suitable sassafras tree, and begin to dig around it until you find some of its roots. Hack off a bunch.

The distillation process is pretty much the same as for ginseng. This video gives good instructions, but perhaps it’s safer to buy sassafras from a very reputable manufacturer.

Spiceberry is used just as much in cooking as it is in medicine. The dried berries give an interesting culinary kick: Substitute fresh berries for pepper; ground dried berries is an alternative to allspice. North American Indian tribes and, learning from them, early settlers prized the berries’ hot flavor to treat all kinds of digestion ailments and to reduce fevers. To make it into a tonic, steep a few twigs in a pot of hot water to your preferred strength. Drink a little of it every day, either hot or cold. A very nice way to enjoy spiceberries is to draw a hot bath and add a healthy bunch of pulverized twigs. You may feel like you’re a floating log but the twigs will soften and brush gently around you, giving off a sweet aroma as you soak the bloody bad weather out of your body.

Spiceberry bush in the woods.

The Library of Congress’ American Folklife Center’s Folklife Project has a terrific collection of interviews conducted from from 1992 to 1999 with people living in the Coal River Valley in West Virginia. One interviewee, Elsie Rich, talks about why ramps and sassafras are so good for you in the spring. The two-minute snippet of audio is like being in a crowded kitchen with a bunch of other women talking over Elsie and adding their two cents on the subject. Crank up the volume and pretend you’re with them. After that, you may find yourself out foraging on your own (in nature or the supermarket) to make a good-size plate of ramps, a cup of sassafras or spiceberry tea, and a tiny bottle of fine ginseng potion.