The cupboard
Kitchen herbs & spices
Filter by element or search a plant. Traditional kitchen and folk use — four tastes, not a clinic monograph.
Water· saltSalt is cooling and barely a taste. These plants dry first, then move fluid — and water follows. They are mineral salts, not table salt: building, coating to sensitive membranes, thinning stuck mucous, supporting kidneys and the kreb-cycle minerals of muscle and nerve.
8 plants
Nettle
Urtica dioica
A green salt — the mineral broth of the hedgerow.
Stiff joints · Hollow energy · Irritable skin
Mineralize, soothe, and restore fluid
Parsley
Petroselinum crispum
The garnish that was once a draining green.
Puffiness · Indigestion
Mineralize, soothe, and restore fluid
Celery seed
Apium graveolens
A salty seed for a waterlogged, creaky body.
Puffiness · Stiff joints
Mineralize, soothe, and restore fluid
Kelp
Laminaria spp.
The sea’s salt — a pinch in broth, not a bowl of tea.
Hollow energy · Puffiness
Mineralize, soothe, and restore fluid
Alfalfa
Medicago sativa
A deep-rooted green salt — minerals from the clay, up into the leaf.
Hollow energy · Stiff joints · Puffiness
Mineralize, soothe, and restore fluid
Cleavers
Galium aparine
The sticky bedstraw — water’s lymph mover of the spring hedge.
Puffiness · Irritable skin · Hollow energy
Mineralize, soothe, and restore fluid
Corn silk
Zea mays
The pale threads from the ear — a gentle water for a complaining bladder.
Puffiness
Mineralize, soothe, and restore fluid
Horsetail
Equisetum arvense
A silica salt — the joint-and-tooth mineral of the ditch bank.
Stiff joints · Puffiness · Irritable skin
Mineralize, soothe, and restore fluid