Michael Mucz offers a huge disclaimer to anyone who reads his new book, Baba's Kitchen Medicines, or intends to attend his visit to St. Albert Place to hear him talk this afternoon. When he talks about some of the archaic Eastern European health practices that many people claim are effective, it's entirely up to the person's own discretion.
"These are not true and tried," he offered, making sure to mention that there will be no demonstrations during his presentation.
The 65-year-old botany and ecology professor at the University of Alberta began the project after a colleague suggested that he use his sabbatical time to research how Ukrainian settlers used plants in their everyday lives. He developed a questionnaire and started visiting people – he calls them 'informants' – in seniors' homes. To him, it was a goldmine of information, aided especially because he understands the language. He also comes from the community.
"My parents were both slave labourers from Germany. We came here in 1949 as displaced persons, DPs they called them. We went to Manitoba and lived in the north part of Winnipeg, that was the ethnic part. I had a good sense of the ethnic community because that's where the Ukrainians, the Jewish people and so forth settled. It was interesting times to grow up in that milieu."
He added that it actually took him about two decades to finish the book. Some people just need extra time for their worthwhile projects, Mucz explained.
"I felt really bad until I recognized that Charles Darwin took 20 years. The reason he did that was very simple: he never felt that he had all of the information he needed. That was my kind of logic as well."
Some of the personal anecdotes that he discovered during his research were as fabulous as they were folksy. One person claimed that his brother had frozen his hands as a young boy. They became badly infected and the doctor was anxious to amputate.
"Mother would not agree to this and said she would heal them herself," the unnamed person is quoted as saying. "She had a supply of large dry leaves that had a fuzzy white bottom. She wet these, wrapped them around his fingers, and changed the bandages each morning and evening. She did this for a number of months and saved all his fingers, which he has to this day."
Of course, Mucz's own childhood contained some fine examples of kitchen medicine.
"My mother would use the old scarf technique around the throat if it was sore. You slept in it overnight. You would use hot milk and butter for a sore throat. If you had a cough and cold – a lot of garlic."
Other school-aged remedies included kerosene applied to hair to get rid of lice, urinating on hands and feet to cure chapped skin, and a spoonful of cow manure as a poultice for infections.
"It's just a bunch of plant material with fungi and bacteria thrown in. When you go buy antibiotics, where do you think they discovered those?"
To him and his 'informants', this is much more than just a recipe book for home cures; it's a piece of history preserved for future generations to learn from.
"I promised each one of my informants … that I will get [their stories] back to your children, your grandchildren so that they can understand what you went through, what you had to deal with and how you dealt with it. This is why I wrote the book that I did. I wanted to write it from the heart, not from the head."
The tie-in to the Slavic St. Albert exhibit
Public services manager Heather Dolman is excited about the author visit and the synchronicity of the collaboration with the other cultural institution located within St. Albert Place.
"We are really pleased to be working with the museum on this event," she stated. "Everything just seemed to fall into place with the Slavic exhibition running and it being Canada Health Day."
She added that it's the first time that the library is hosting an author presentation so late on a Saturday afternoon.
"We hope that people will enjoy a relaxing and informative session after they have finished their usual routines. Michael's book is a great read and I am sure the audience will recognize from their grandmother's tales many of the remedies he talks about."
Baba's Kitchen Medicines <br />with Michael Mucz
Reception at 3:30 p.m. at the Musée Héritage Museum, followed by the author talk at 4 p.m. in Forsyth Hall at the St. Albert Public Library. Guests are welcome at either or both of these events. Please RSVP to 780-459-1682 or visit the information desk on the second floor of the library.
