Plants and Culture

Lately, for a variety of reasons, I have been struck by the malleability and diversity of plant knowledge. I say malleability because it seems that we humans are always shifting and changing our interaction with the plant world. Think of recipes. I thought that I had the best pizza dough recipe (which, interestingly, I copied from a newspaper article posted in a chain pizza restaurant), until I tasted a pizza crust at a pot luck. I had been usurped! What I did next was, of course, search for the “owner” to demand (ask?) for the recipe. My cuisine and related cooking skills needed updating. I also see this behavior in the medicinal plant world. I have been honored to meet people from many different countries now living in Madison, Wisconsin, and who believe in and use plants for healing on a regular basis. Some botanical “friends” have come out my meetings and interviews, including chamomile/manzanilla (Matricaria recutita), and garlic/ajo (Allium sativa), but I have been pleasantly surprised with tricks and pearls in the use and ingestion of these plants. I have noticed some nuances relevant to the way that people use plants, and this use seems to vary country-by-country. Most fascinating are the lively inter-country discussions about the correct way to prepare a plant, when to use it during a particular illness, and the freshest, most effective source. I have good friends of Italian heritage, and the medicinal plant debates sound a lot like the Italian feuds over whose sauce, wine, soccer team, etc is the best. People form strong opinions about plants, herbs, food, healing, and for good reason: our livelihood, literally and figuratively, depends on an optimal, and I would argue, mutual plant-people interaction. I love learning about plant-use diversity for its own sake, and because it helps me add to my plant knowledge, that is, improve in the way plants are a part of my life.