Lard based salve

[Guest guest]

In the book Tom Brown's Field Guide to Wild Edible and Medicinal

plants I found an interesting reference. Tom's mentor, Grandfather

Stalking Wolf, had a salve making technique of making a tea (I think

in the book he used acorns) then mixing it with tallow to make a

salve. I read that and thought, " Wait a moment, fat and water aren't

going to mix very well. I wonder if he boils the water off the

fat... "

Thus an experiment was born. First I boiled for 30 minutes a

strong decoction of alder bark and comfrey root. The plant matter

was then strained out and a block of lard (didn't have tallow) thrown

in. Then I let it cook until the water was gone, in effect

transfering the medicine to the fat. I kept checking the mix to see

how much water was left but the mix let me know, the sound changed

from boiling to sizzling. At that point the heat was turned off and

I added some beeswax. When it was cool added some tea tree essential

oil.

The finished product had a nice consistancy. Gave some to a

friend who was dealing with a bleeding butt issue (surface stuff,

like inflammation and bleeding/soreness while wiping, not internal).

He said it worked very nice and everything was kosher in the

morning. Started feeling it again 2 days later so he reapplied and

hadn't used it since. I told him it wasn't too kosher, with the

lard, and not to use it too much or he'ld end up a lard a##.

So, the question is, why go through the interum step of cooking

it in the water first then adding the tallow? Usually I see quick

salve making techniques involving heat the plant stuff is heated

directly in the fat. I've got two theories, one is the water

decoction first method would have a lower temperature thus preserve

more of the medicinal properties and keep the fat from being less

nasty. The other is Grandfather was a purist and was teaching stuff

to use in the wilderness: so the technique was for hot rock cooking

in bark or wooden containers rather than a metal pot. As such the

water boiling would have been easier to do than keeping fat cooking

for the same length of time. Not sure which.

Anyway, it's something that others might be interested in or

have some insight on.