ISSUE 49, GOOD FOR YOU, Part 2: Pennyroyal Tea
Pennyroyal Tea
It was a country cure, a tonic. Hedeoma Pulegiodes was among the home teas most welcome to ailing children, free of the acrid bitterness of, say, boneset tea, or hop tea, or the sour tang of rose hip. None of the old teas was sweetened with sugar in the 19th century. The natural chemistry had to be unadulterated. But pennyroyal with its mentholated kiss, its mint-like cleansing stimulation didn’t need sweetening. It was fine in its simplicity.
It was a seasonal brew. Frost would wither the tiny leaves, so those who depended upon its blessings gathered it in autumn, dried it down, and hung it in the rafters. Its fragrance made the storage places seem precincts of health and cleanliness. In the old manuals of home cures, pennyroyal was recommended to treat cramps, colic, and the common cold. My grandfather, Emmett Shields (1893-1987) was administered it regularly in his boyhood home, and said while it was the best of the things he had to drink when sick, but never cured anything. He indicated the most effective thing he consumed was tea made from wild cherry roots—“that broke fevers, cleaned out your stomach, and cleared the fog from your brain.“
American pennyroyal grows in the eastern part of North America—from Nova Scotia south to Georgia and as far west as Minnesota and Arkansas. Besides its uses in folk medicine it was found to repel fleas, so was spread about places where fleas tended to congregate. It was also the liquid used with soap as a shampoo for afflicted dogs.
Because of its ubiquitous presence growing wild in open woods or in disturbed ground on the margins of fields and along fence rows it was not a common herb garden plant. It grew up to 18 inches tall, was easily recognized with its small leaves and pale blue flowers, and was foraged by most users. In some parts of the Midwest it became a “secret smoke,” an herb boys used as a substitute for tobacco. It would be dried out and rolled into cigarettes. I suppose the sensation was like that of a menthol cigarette.