Honey

“Colds, cough, sore throat. Food level: roasted sour orange with honey or salt, pimento for congestion, garlic. Bush: fever grass, rice bitters, leaf of life, cerasee, guinea hen weed (all three out in pregnancy and for young children), vervain. Doctor: cough beyond 5 days, flu beyond 7, fever beyond 2, and a medical check first for asthma or suspected pneumonia.”

“Tradition: the main cold remedy in Kingston and Windsor Forest. The fruit is roasted in the fire, the juice taken with 2 teaspoons of honey or with salt, the roasted flesh eaten with sugar, or a leaf tea drawn. Roasted fruit eaten or used to bathe for fever and "to keep cool". TRAMIL recommends it for colic, cough, diarrhoea, fever, flatulence, flu and headache.”

“Sore throat. Warm drinks, honey over 1, daikon ame: the old comforts.”

“Miel con limón: a spoon of honey with a squeeze of lemon in warm water, the first thing every abuela reached for. Never under one year, it can make babies very ill (if asked why: infant botulism, RIVM and Voedingscentrum). Not in tea, not on a dummy, not a lick from a spoon. The sugar counts for diabetics.”

“Miel (honey). The cough spoon from 12 months. Never under one year. Sugar for diabetics.”

“Honey (med). In the syrup, the sage tea, on burns. Never under one year, not in tea, not on a dummy: infant botulism. On a wound the kitchen jar is not sterile.”

“Sage (žalfija) tea with honey stirred in afterwards, drunk or gargled, recorded for tonsillitis. Thujone: two weeks at most, never in pregnancy or breastfeeding, not under 12.”

“One line: rock sugar is sugar, so go easy with diabetes. Honey in pear soups and teas, never under one year. Bitter apricot kernel stays out of home soups.”

“Sweet belongs to the spleen. Sweet nourishes and soothes, rice, red dates, pear, honey. Too much sweetness is said to create damp.”

“One line. It is sugar: with diabetes small and rare. Made with honey, never for babies under one year.”

“In the kitchen. Warm drinks, warm soup, sekanjabin diluted in warm water. Honey in warm water for anyone over one year.”

“Honey and vayambu. It was long customary to give newborns a little honey with vayambu, sweet flag root, ground on the urakallu, the home medicine stone, and at the start of learning in the Navaratri season elders still write on a child's tongue with a gold ring dipped in honey and vayambu. Sweet flag holds asarone, which the European medicines agency wants kept to a minimum. "We stopped the vayambu. A clean gold ring and a blessing are enough."”

“Gold and honey. In many parts of Kerala, across communities, gold rubbed on a stone and mixed with honey or mother's milk was given to a newborn minutes after birth. Doctors oppose any feed before the breast, and honey is never for a baby under one. Many families now simply press a gold ring, cross or chain to the baby's lips as a blessing. "That is what I do now. The gold touches, the honey waits a year."”

“In the house. Honey in tea, honey with lemon for a cold, honey on bread. Linden honey from the taiga, buckwheat honey dark and strong. "A spoon of honey in the tea, and stop talking. That is my grandmother's whole medicine for a cough."”

“Black radish with honey. A black radish hollowed out, honey poured in, left overnight, and the sweet juice taken by the spoon for a cough. One of the best-known Russian grandmother remedies.”

“Honey in the house. On bread, in tea, a spoon for a scratchy throat in a grown-up, on small washed burns and cuts in her grandmother's hands (the kemet skill set, honey on wounds). "The papyri and my grandmother agree on honey. That does not happen often."”

“The honey in the tombs. A famous story says archaeologists found 3,000-year-old honey in an Egyptian tomb and it was still edible. The chemistry is real: honey resists spoiling because it holds little water, it is acidic, and bees add a substance that makes hydrogen peroxide. But nobody has firmly identified the archaeologist, the jar or the tasting. The jars in Tutankhamun's tomb labelled honey held only tiny residues. "A beautiful story with no address. I tell it as that."”

“Fresh raw honey is acceptable in small amounts - natural energy, antimicrobial, enzyme-rich. Not a sugar equivalent.”