Mama's Home Remedies: Discover Time-Tested Secrets of Good Health and the Pleasures of Natural Living (26 page)

“real” food. Even children can turn up their noses at this meal, and they will do it again and again until they acquire a taste for it and begin to understand its superior nutritional value.

Kasha is “the original mother of bread” and it has been known and used widely throughout the world for more than a thousand years. Try it and make a delightful breakfast, lunch, or dinner. You will be giving your body the gift of rich nourishment and the key to energy, health, and longevity. Here are eight delicious recipes:

r 14. Buckwheat friable kasha. Lightly roast one cup of whole grain buckwheat in a pan in the oven for about three minutes. Put buckwheat into two cups of boiling water. Add a pinch of salt. Return to a boil, then reduce heat and cook until the water is gone and the buckwheat is soft and ready to eat, approximately 20 minutes. Mix in two teaspoons of butter or olive oil and cover. Serve kasha with sour cream, salsa, or milk. If you decide to use only milk, add a teaspoon of honey. It makes a healthy breakfast, which can be a nutritious part of your diet. You can add friable buckwheat kasha as an easy-to-make, light nutritional side dish, complimenting meat, fish, or chicken for lunch or dinner.

r 15. “Downy” kasha for children. Rinse one cup buckwheat whole grains in a sieve. Mix in a bowl with one egg and place the mixture on the griddle or dry it in an oven on a pan about three minutes at 375°. Boil two cups milk and add one tablespoon of butter, a pinch of salt, and the dried buckwheat. Reduce heat and continue to cook. Kasha wil be ready to eat in 15-20 minutes. Serve it with a sweet milk sauce over it: Dissolve one teaspoon starch in one tablespoon of cold milk or water. Add one cup milk and bring to a boil. Add one teaspoon sugar or honey and bring again to a boil for two to three minutes. Add 1/4 teaspoon
vanil a or vanil a sugar.
The sweet milk sauce wil bring a tender taste to a “downy” kasha. I can assure you the children wil love it. 180 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

r 16. Buckwheat kasha with cheese. Wash and pass ½ cup buckwheat whole grains through a sieve. Pour one cup water into a pot. Add a pinch of salt and bring to a boil. Then add buckwheat to the boiling water and cook until thickened, approximately 20

minutes. Reduce heat. Add one teaspoon of butter when kasha is almost ready. Mix wel and cover. Place the pot with buckwheat in a bigger pan with hot water and continue to cook in this water bath for 15 minutes more. Loosen kasha with a fork and mound it on a plate. Pour on melted butter. Strew three to four ounces of friable Farmers cheese or any other cheese like an authentic Greek feta cheese, Mozzarel a, or baby cheese on top. Sprinkle with chopped dil or parsley and garnish with ¼ sliced tomato. r 17. Sailor’s kasha. Cook a friable buckwheat kasha (as in #14), using two cups buckwheat whole grains and four cups water. Cut one pound veal in smal pieces, wash it wel , then grind it. Fry two to three shredded onions in a frying pan with olive oil. Boil two eggs. Let them cool, then shred them. Mix ground veal, fried onions, a dash of
black pepper,
and shredded eggs to the kasha. Then oil a three-quart
pan and place prepared mixture inside. Let it stew in a 350° oven until ready, about 25 minutes. Sailor’s kasha is one of the best nutritious meals, served hot for lunch or dinner. r 18. “Shrimp” kasha. Cook friable kasha (as in #14), using two cups buckwheat whole grains and four cups water. Add two tablespoons butter, pinch of salt, two teaspoons
minced garlic, one tablespoon
dil or parsley, and four ounces cooked popcorn shrimp. This makes a healthy dinner for four to six people. r 19. Kasha Soufflé. Wash two cups buckwheat grains and place into a pot with four cups boiling water. Cook until softened, approximately 15-20 minutes. Then rub kasha through a sieve. Add one teaspoon honey or sugar, a pinch of salt, and ½ cup milk. Cook an additional two to three minutes, mixing constantly. Remove from stove and add ½ teaspoon butter, mixing wel . It is excel ent as a breakfast, lunch, or light dinner.

When Your Head Is Swimming @ 181

Buckwheat has been so well respected in Europe for centuries that Hans Christian Andersen also became interested in this plant. Writing a story about buckwheat, he confessed, “This is the story told me by the sparrows one evening when I begged them to relate some tale to me.”

V

“

ery often after a violent thunderstorm, a field

of buckwheat appears blackened and singed,

as if a flame of fire passed over it. The country people say that this appearance is caused by lightning; but I will tell you what the sparrow says, and the sparrow heard it from an old willow-tree which grew near a field of buckwheat, and is there still. It is a large venerable tree, though a little crippled by age. The trunk has been split, and out of the crevice grass and brambles grow. The tree bends forward slightly, and the branches hang quite down to the ground just like green hair. Corn grows in the surrounding fields, not only rye and barley, but oats—pretty oats that, when ripe, look like a number of little golden canary birds, sitting on a bough. The corn has a smiling look and the heaviest and richest ears bend their heads low as if in pious humility. Once there was also a field of buckwheat, and this field was exactly opposite the old willow-tree. The buckwheat did not bend like the other grain, but erected its head proudly and stiffly on the stem.

“‘I am as valuable as any other corn,’ said he, ‘and I am much handsomer; my flowers are as beautiful as the bloom of the apple blossom, and it is a pleasure to look at us. Do you know of anything prettier than we are, you old willow-tree?’

And the willow-tree nodded his head, as if he would say, ‘Indeed I do.’

But the buckwheat spread itself out with pride, and said, ‘Stupid tree; he is so old that grass grows out of his body.”

There arose a very terrible storm. All the field flowers folded their leaves together, or bowed their little heads, while the storm passed over them, but the buckwheat stood erect in its pride. ‘Bend your head as we do,’ said the flowers.

182 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

“‘I have no occasion to do so,’ replied the buckwheat.

“‘Bend your head as we do,’ cried the ears of corn. ‘The angel of the storm is coming; his wings spread from the sky above the earth beneath. He will stroke you down before you can cry for mercy.’

“‘But I will not bend my head,’ said the buckwheat.

“‘Close your flowers and bend your leaves,’ said the old willow-tree.

‘Do not look at the lightning when the cloud bursts; even men cannot do that. In a flash of lightning heaven opens, and we can look in; but the sight will strike even human beings blind. What then must happen to us, who only grow out of the earth, and are so inferior to them, if we venture to do so?’

“‘Inferior, indeed!’ said the buckwheat. ‘Now I intend to have a peep into heaven.’ Proudly and boldly he looked up, while the lightning flashed across the sky as if the whole world were in flames.

“When the dreadful storm passed, the flowers and the corn

raised their drooping heads in the pure still air, refreshed by the rain, but the buckwheat lay like a weed in the field, burnt to blackness by the lightning. The branches of the old willow-tree rustled in the wind, and large water-drops fell from his green leaves as if the old willow were weeping. Then the sparrows asked why he was weeping, when all around him seemed so cheerful. ‘See,’ they said, ‘how the sun shines, and the clouds float in the blue sky. Do you not smell the sweet perfume from flower or bush? Wherefore do you weep, old willow-tree?’

“Then the willow tree told them of the haughty pride

of the buckwheat, and of the punishment which followed in consequence.”

So you see, the buckwheat can be unreasonable sometimes, but it always brings people its best nutritious values. And you can count on him without reservation, he will not disappoint you.

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When Your Head Is Swimming @ 183

Before you trust a man, eat a peck of salt with him.

—Russian proverb

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One should eat to live—not live to eat.

—Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), American statesman, printer, and inventor
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Unquiet meals make ill digestion.

—Shakespeare,
The Comedy of Errors

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The belly will not listen to advice.

—Seneca,
Epistulae ad Lucilium

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Nothing in excess. Nihil nimis.

—Latin saying

184 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

Don’t Be Afraid of Good Stress

It is not enough only to wish; you must also act.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), German poet and novelist
FACTS:

Stress is both additive and cumulative in its negative effects on individuals, organizations, and societies. Workplace stress continues to grow. In the United States experts at the Centers of Disease Control and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Healthcare are dedicated to studying stress. They found that $300 billion, or $7,500 per employee, is spent annually in the United States on stress-related compensation claims, reduced productivity, absenteeism, health insurance costs, direct medical expenses (nearly 50

percent or higher for workers who report stress), and employee turnover. Stress affects physical and mental health, and is linked to a decreased willingness to take on new and creative endeavors, and job burnout, which is experienced by 25–40 percent of U. S. workers. More than ever before, employee stress is being recognized as a major drain on corporate productivity and competitiveness.

Statistics from a recent global stress research study show that increased stress is felt worldwide, and stress affects women differently than men. Women who work full-time and have children under age 13 report the greatest stress. Nearly one in four mothers who work full-time and have children under age 13 feel stress. Globally 23 percent of women executives and professionals say they feel “super-stressed.”32

Don’t Be Afraid of Good Stress @ 185

On spring break from Moscow State University I came home

exhausted. I had undergone a grueling winter session of many exams, which would determine my eligibility to remain in classes for the second half of the school year.

When I arrived at the airport, Mama took a look at me and shook her head in disapproval. I couldn’t blame her. I felt as if all my energy was spent, and as I listened to my body, it sometimes seemed to me that my blood had difficulty circulating through my veins and blood vessels.

“Oh, oh!” I thought while grinning at Mama. “Our family doctor (Mama) has found herself a new patient.” Mama always worried about me and she was always overprotective.

I knew intuitively that I was due for a course of Mama’s vitamin therapy. She frowned at me and said, “Are you running out of energy? I can tell without testing that your hemoglobin level is very low. You need a special course of vitamins.”

“Didn’t I read her thoughts?” I asked myself.

Milk with rose hips jam or rose hips preserves was an “urgent remedy” in Mama’s list of natural treatments. And the manufacturer of those tasty natural remedies was Grandma. Each year Grandma made delicious preserves, jams, and other natural delights from rose hips as well as grapes, plums, strawberries, raspberries, black and red currants, cranberries, cherries, gooseberries, peaches, small “paradise apples,” pears, apricots, green nuts, oranges, and quinces. She cooked exotic preserves from green tomatoes,

green beans, watermelon rind, and pumpkin cooked in

a grape mousse. My favorite, and the most prescribed

by Mama, was rose hips and black currant preserves.

Black currants are an important ingredient in

vitamin therapy. We cal ed these berries
Ribes
from the Latin,
Ribes Nigrum
or
Chernaya Smorodina.
Grandma grew this shrub in her garden. A mediumsized shrub with yel ow-brown shoots, five-lobed leaves, and green-white flowers, this bush bore many berry clusters annual y. This berry is less common in the United States because it can host pine blister rust (
Cronartium
Ribicola
), which can devastate forests. It is more readily 186 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

available now because of recent commercial breeding.

Grandma used large, plump berries in her delicious black currant preserves. She combined 32 ounces of honey or two pounds of sugar, 16 ounces of water, and two pounds of black currants. Then she cooked the mixture until it thickened, periodically removing the froth that formed during cooking. It was a tasty preserve that complemented our black or green teas. I always tasted these preserves as soon as she finished preparing them. Just imagine tasting a spoonful of this 100-percent natural, indigo mixture thick with tiny grains of rubbed berries and following it with a sip of hot, aromatic Ceylon tea. It is so delicious!