Memories of Black NightShade Makeoli

A Black Nightshade not quite ready for picking.

In America, "all" Nightshades are taboo as a food. Some species are poisonous, so the risks of poisoning amatuers are too high to be recommended by cautious forraging guides. However, on Jeju Island, Nightshades are recognized as being healthy, when picked ripe. I've eaten cups of a time at the berries and I haven't gotten sick.

Mulme Healing Farm is experimenting with herbal rice wine as a way to incorporate the tonic properties of plants. Tonic herbalism has been used by traditional cultures.

Herbalism has been denigrated as some kind of hippie culture. However, degrading it as something New Age or Hippie disrespects the long history of herbalism in ever culture.

Some distinctions need to be made. Herbalism is not homeopathy, a Western Creation in the 19 century with a faith based belief in ultra-low doses of plants.  Herbalism is it's purest definition is the use of plants for a a medicinal effect. Methods  use of teas, decoction(long boils), extractions in alcohol or dried herbs put into capsules or the infusion of plants in beer or wines.

Tonic Herbalism is the use of wild foods and teas to strengthen the bodies systems. I am no expert on the plant chemicals or what are called phytochemicals in the foods, but I understand that there are anti-cancer properties of nightshade berries. And it's fun to make Makeoli.

Take cups of the mashed berries and soaking them in 20 liters of organic makeoli. Two weeks later my farmer friend and I filtered out the berries and tried the concoction. It tasted delicious. It was a more complex taste then blueberries combined with the sweetness and tartness of makeoli. The makeoli made for us was made with a dry taste.

One week later the berries had fermented. The second tasting resulting in a something like unfiltered hooch. It had for too long. We had tasted it at its peak and its worst so we new how long the drink would last.