Our
latest excerpt from MARGARET ROBERTS' book, 'Edible & Medicinal
Flowers', focuses on the healing properties of the chive plant.
THERE
is much speculation today about where this remarkable plant originated,
but Marco Polo found it on his travels to China, where it had
probably been in use for a few thousand years, and brought it
back to the west. Today it is widespread and one of the most popular
culinary plants. A member of the onion family along with garlic,
leeks and spring onions, chives contain sulphur, which accounts
for their pungent smell and flavour.
MEDICINAL
USES
Chives have marvellous medicinal properties and from the earliest
times were used as a treatment for chest ailments, bladder and
kidney infections and to cleanse the blood. Modern research verifies
their age-old uses: chives lower blood pressure and cholesterol,
build up resistance to infection, treat respiratory disorders
and assist the whole digestive tract and urinary system. All the
Allium family contain mild natural antibiotics, and although chives
do not contain as much as garlic, for example, its benefits are
still quite astonishing.
• A strange and pungent recipe that our great grandmothers
made for fighting colds, was to slice an onion and a few chive
leaves and flowers, cover them with brown sugar and leave them
to stand for four to six hours well covered. The juice was strained
off and a teaspoon taken at a time. To soothe a sore throat, lemon
juice was added to the mixture.
• Chives chopped with onions and mixed with a little grated
fresh ginger root, lemon juice and a little chopped parsley, and
spread onto a finger of bread, was given to any child suffering
from a cold, a cough or a dose of flu. All these ingredients fight
coughs and colds and boost resistance. • Chives also ease
and promote digestion and, sprinkled onto food, they stimulate
the appetite. Chopped flowers with grated carrots, celery and
parsley are a favourite health booster salad, and with dandelion
flowers and leaves will fight flu and colds exceptionally well.
A large daily helping of all these superb health-boosting, immune-building
herbs will go a long way to helping us cope with the pressures
of modern living. CULTIVATION
Chives, garlic chives and wild garlic all need well-dug, richly
composted soil in full sun with a deep watering twice a week.
Chives die down in winter and then can be divided into small clumps
and replanted. Wild garlic and garlic chives can be divided at
any time of the year. Plant chives 20 cm apart as a path edging
as they grow only about 20 cm in height. Wild garlic and garlic
chives need 40 to 50 cm between them and they will reach about
50 cm in height with their pretty flowering heads.
Recipes
for Chive Blossom Vinegar, Chive and Garlic Chive Health Salad,
and Creamed Spinach and Chive Flower Supper Dish appear in "Edible
and Medicinal Flowers", which is published and distributed by
Random House Struik.
