Elderberry Rose-Hip Syrup: Embodied Medicine Making

Blue Elderberry

I began searching for elderberry bushes and harvesting their berries when I was 10 years old, in drainage ditches where they grew together along country roads in Council Bluffs, Iowa. My first forays for elderberries were with my father and sisters. By mid to late September, often at the same time as The Jewish New Year, the berries were ripe and ready for harvest. Many of my memories of picking elderberries are of breaking free into the warm autumn sunshine after a long morning of sitting indoors at the synagogue for Rosh Hashanah services. We'd eat a holiday meal at home or with relatives and then eagerly head out to gather berries. My sister's and I and our father would grab some large brown paper grocery bags and garden clippers and drive to a country road in the east hills of Council Bluffs where we found a favorite elderberry patch. We'd fill our bags with large clumps of reddish-purple berries, hanging heavy on bright red stems and bring them home to my mom and also my grandma Sylvia who was often part of our jelly making process. We'd all help clean and de-stem the berries before squishing them through cheese cloth to get all the juice into a large pot for cooking the batch of jelly- adding just the right amount of sugar and pectin for thickening the tart berry juice as it cooked down.

Blue Elderberrie & Rose Hips Cooking

"I loved my mother's delicious elderberry jam, berry pies and earthy tasting sautéed Morels. Though, each time we ate the mushrooms my mom was on high alert; her adrenaline rushing; expecting to rush us to the emergency room-poisoned by the nourishing, heavenly mushrooms she'd just cooked for us.  Mom never ate the wild mushrooms."

At that point in my life I knew nothing about wild crafting herbs nor had I any knowledge of which herbs and foods found in nature might be used to support health and wellness. I did know that I loved foraging close to home for elderberries in the autumn; black raspberries in summer and Morel mushrooms and wild asparagus in the spring.  The Morels and wild asparagus often popped up around May Day each year when we also picked violets for our May baskets. I loved my mother's delicious elderberry jam, berry pies and earthy tasting sautéed Morels. Though, each time we ate the mushrooms my mom was on high alert; her adrenaline rushing; expecting to rush us to the emergency room-poisoned by the nourishing, heavenly mushrooms she'd just cooked for us.  Mom never ate the wild mushrooms.
 
When my sister, Heidi, was old enough to drive and I was a young teen, we went berry picking without our father on a warm autumn afternoon. While driving home with our overflowing bags of elderberries. a huge Wolf Spider popped out of one of the bags of berries onto the back seat, just inches from us. We were screaming as Heidi, pulled the car over and parked. We spilled out of the car in seconds and knocked on the door of a nearby home, asking to use their phone (this was about 30 years before cell phones were in use). One of us made the call and my dad arrived shortly, rescuing us from the spider in the back seat of our tiny Fiat. He shooed the large spider out of the car with part of his Sunday newspaper and off we went, terrified to ever gather elderberries again.

Elderberry, rose hips, ginger, cinnamon & cloves.

It was in Oregon, years later, that my real education in herbs, plant medicine and nutrition began. It was here where  elderberry syrup or tincture became a staple in my herb and supplement cabinet for year round immune support. In Oregon it was extremely easy to find elderberry syrup  in one of the numerous food co-ops or natural food stores, I was content to buy it off the shelf.

Something big changed for me during the early days of The Pandemic-though nature was a huge piece of my world and work, I found myself in the woods more than ever  and at the same time upped my self care practices-every aspect of self care; physical, emotional, nutritional, spiritual and environmental. With the world slowed down, I dropped into slow time and noticed many details around me that I'd overlooked in the past. One day in late September of 2020, on a walk through the neighborhood, I noticed an elderberry bush dripping with ripe berries and the sight of the tree transported me back to my childhood. I knocked on the door of the home where the tree lived and asked the owner if I might harvest some of her berries if she wasn't using them. She told me to take as many as I'd like as she didn't pick them. I returned a little later with my clippers and a bag and was back at it. It had been 50 years since I'd last harvested elderberries and this time, with an intention to make a batch of elderberry syrup. In this part of Southern Oregon, many elderberry varieties are blue instead of the typical black. The blue drought-tolerant variety thrive in our hot and dry climate. Blue  elderberries  (Sambucus cerulea) are similar to black elderberries (Sambucus nigra). I gathered enough berries for a large batch of syrup; thanked the beautiful tree and left a good amount of berries for the birds. As I walked home with my full bag, for just a moment I had an image of the Wolf Spider from my childhood but quickly let it fade away.

Elderberries and rose hips -transformation

I made my first batch of elderberry syrup from a recipe a friend shared with me. The batch was big, tasty and lasted for months. In fact, it lasted so long that it was fermented by the time I got close to finishing it. I used a small amount each day and have had elderberry, well-known as an ant-viral, in my daily regimen every since early 2020.

I found the first batch of syrup and the batch that followed the next season to be tasty but very watery. I desired the thick syrupy texture I had been used to from herbal farms such as Gaia Herbs or Herb Pharm. This past autumn, I once again harvested elderberries from the same tree and shared in the medicine making process with my friend, Johan, who was all in for this project. I harvested the berries and delivered them to Johan to prep and freeze. A common method to de-stem the berries is simply by freezing them in a bag, causing the berries to fall from their stems easily on their own, once frozen. Johan, in his love for small seeds and berries and from his years of experience gathering seeds and propagating conifer trees for The Forest Service, chose to meticulously remove the tiny elderberries from their stems, carefully removing any bit of tree duff or tiny bugs before freezing them.

Blue Elderberries Photo Credit: https://practicalselfreliance.com/foraging-elderberries/

Early on I felt the plant and human synergy as we worked as a team-researching and adapting a recipe to make a concentrated thick syrup. We looked at a recipe shared last fall by our friend, Julia Plevin Oliansky, which inspired us to use rose hips in addition to the elderberries. Julia's recipe used dried elderberries and we were working with fresh frozen berries. The proportions of berries and water change depending on if you use dried, fresh or frozen berries. I found a recipe using fresh frozen elderberries which we then adapted by adding rose hips and tweaking the water content as well as the honey. We initially added too many rose-hips for our batch and quickly discovered the natural pectin in the rose hip skins was a powerful thickening agent, so we decreased the amount in the recipe that follows.  Rose hips are rich in vitamin C  and natural pectin for thickening and it takes very few to get the thickening effect. We gathered the fresh rose hips from my rose bush. They have a sweet and tangy tartness and are full of anti-oxidants.. I scribbled the finished recipe out in my almost illegible printing which Johan proceeded to carefully type out.

Squeezing warm Berry Pulp through a Nut Seed Bag

Next, we chose a day to get together and make the syrup. A perfect project for the dark short days of winter. Johan thawed the berries early in the day and I brought the rose hips; the spices and a large, heavy pot. Our collaboration took me back to all the years I spent as a pastry chef in professional kitchens with the whole crew working together.  Over the years I have been working on my own with the harvested plants as well as doing lots of cooking and baking which I find quite therapeutic, creative and fun. This collaboration with a kitchen partner reminded me of my childhood, making elderberry jelly with a full crew in our family's kitchen, each of us taking part at some level. The collaboration created an exponential sense of connection between human and plant and human-human-plant connection. It reminded me of the magic that happens on a forest therapy walk between the different human participants connecting with one another and all the living nature beings, relating and sharing in unique ways; each time different than the last.

Trading off squeezing Elderberry Rose Hip Pulp

The longer I have related to the natural world, I've found it spilling into all of my life, especially in the form of sensory experience. Making the elderberry syrup was quite an immersion of the senses. The senses of taste, sight, smell, hearing and feeling were all engaged. The smell of the spices and the simmering pot of berries, blended together and created a fragrant forest in the kitchen. The magnificent deep blue berries and red rose hips cooking down and changing color by the moment, transported us into the simmering pot-the plants pulling us into their alchemical mix as they became something new. Through our human-plant collaboration we witnessed nature revealing her power as Earth matter shapeshifting through human-plant relation and intention.

Blending Raw Honey into warm Elderberry Rose Hip Syrup

The berries, steaming and simmering away in the pot were deep in an alchemical dance, melting into a new expression or their former selves. The heat and steam from the fragrant pot drifted over our hands and faces offering a potent sense bath. The longer the berries simmered the more grounded and present we became-no longer simply the cooks, observers and planners but an integral part of a newly formed relationship between nature beings and human beings.

One of 2 jars of Elderberry Rose Hip Syrup

---

When the berry-spice concoction had cooled and the warm pulp was squeezed and strained through the mesh bag, I was really excited to add the honey and do a taste test. By this time, our hands were coated in shining purple juice. When we mixed the raw honey into the warm, thick liquid and tasted the sweet, tart syrup, I felt the whole process settle into my cells. From our original intention to find elderberries to the very first sighting of them on the tree; to the now thick, sweet, purple, jeweled liquid coating on our hands and dripping down our chins, a sense of deep joy was palpable. In that moment in the kitchen, there was simply the experience of nature-relation- elderberries, rose-hips, honey, spices and humans, transformed through intention, connection and creative action. Each time I taste a spoonful of the elderberry-rose hip syrup, I drop right back into the embodied experience of the herbal alchemy created in a warm kitchen on a cold winter afternoon.

Lip Licking-Finger Dripping Elderberry-Rose Hip Syrup
 
Ingredients:
 
6 Cups Fresh or Frozen Black or Blue Elderberries
30 Rose Hips- fresh or semi-dried from the bush
1 Cup Raw Local Honey
2 Cups Water (add extra water as needed/f needed)
2 Heaping Tablespoons Raw Fresh Ginger-grated
1 Teaspoon Whole Cloves
1.5 Teaspoons Powdered Cinnamon
 
Equipment:
 
Large stock pot
Grater
Flat End Wooden Spoon
Fine-holed Potato Masher
Rubber Spatula
Nut Milk Bag or Cheese Cloth
Metal Mesh Wire Strainer
Measuring Cups (Dry and Liquid)
Bowl to squeeze juice through Seed Bag
Glass Storage Jars for about 3 cups of syrup
 
Method:
 
Combine stemmed berries and rose hips with water in stock pot.
 
Stir and bring to a simmer. Adjust heat for mixture to continuously simmer but do not boil. Press your flat ended wooden spoon to the bottom of your pot and measure how high the mixture is on the spoon-such as an inch deep or whatever it measures.
 
Stir in grated ginger, cloves and cinnamon. Continue simmering, stirring the mixture as needed. When mixture thickens, begin to scrape the sides of the pot down with the flat end of your wooden spoon and occasionally gently stir. When the fruit is soft, use your fine holed potato masher to mash the berries in the pot.
 
As the mixture simmers down and the water content lessens, measure again with the wooden spoon. When it has cooked down by half, remove from heat. The simmering process could take anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes or so. Make sure to remove from the heat as soon as the volume of the mixture has gone down by half.
 
Squeezing:
 
When your berry mixture has cooled enough to handle, place your nut milk bag or cheese cloth over the fine meshed sieve, over a medium sized bowl. Scrape warm berries into the mesh bag. Once the bag is filled, squeeze the berry-filled bag, gently, until you have gotten as much juice as you can from the berry pulp. Be careful to not pop the bag, turning it to different sides as you squeeze. Once all the liquid is squeezed into the bowl, measure out your honey and gently whisk into the berry juice. Adjust your honey amount to your personal taste. After licking your fingers and washing your purple stained hands (and face), pour the syrup into your glass jar(s). It is helpful to use a jar you can dip a teaspoon into, to take out a single serving at a time. Refrigerate. It should keep for a good three months or more in the fridge.
 
Yields: approximately 25 oz. of syrup

Staining from Straining Elderberry Syrup