“Health is not valued til
sickness comes.”
-Thomas Fuller
With the peak pestilence of the cold and flu season upon us, it might behoove us to prepare. It is no fun to be sick. Recently I stumbled upon an ancient preventative, said to boost the immune system and give your body a superhuman protective shield. And the story behind it is too compelling not to share. Here it is…
During the mid-14th century, Europe experienced perhaps the worst pandemic in human history. Over 50 million people perished from the bubonic plague, or the Black Death as it is often called. The plague was one of the most significant events in human history.
During this time, in the French port city of Marseilles, four friends who worked the shipyards there had an idea. They launched a diabolical, yet profitable criminal enterprise after noticing something strange.
During the day these friends labored within the bowels of a seaside warehouse that processed herbs and spices from abroad. Every evening, they stumbled home from work covered in spice dust. And, as the plague-ridden dead bodies of their fellow townspeople were stacked like firewood, with many more sick and dying all around them, they remained healthy. They didn’t get sick. The dreaded Black Death didn’t seem to affect them at all. The four friends realized that covered in herbs and spices, they were apparently protected from sickness. And this provided them with a profitable criminal opportunity too tempting to pass up.
These friends went into business looting the infected homes of the dead. When a family succumbed to the plague, they promptly showed up at the empty residence to steal what they could. Either fearless or foolish, they worked ignoring the danger and never got sick. At some point, it is believed they began also making a tonic with their herbs and spices and ingesting it. The friends, covered in spice dust and drinking their spicy herbal concoction, looted and lived.
All good things must come to an end (or in this case, bad things), and the friends, now thieves were arrested for their crimes and faced death by hanging. The judge in their case, aware of their apparent immunity to the disease around them, made the thieves an offer they couldn’t refuse. In exchange for their secret plague-protection recipe, their lives would be spared. The thieves quickly coughed up their secret, were released, and went on to live honorable and upright lives, we assume.
The four thieves’ recipe, sometimes called Fire Cider, has been passed down for generations. The recipe does vary some, depending on your source. But essentially it is apple cider vinegar infused with various toe-curling extracts, spices, and anti-microbial herbs.
The 20th century French physician and world-renowned aromatherapist Jean Valnet is thought to have most closely re-created the original Four Thieves’ recipe. It includes some interesting ingredients like wormwood, meadowsweet, marjoram, angelica, horehound, and camphor. The recipe below may be the Texas version. It omits some of the more exotic ingredients but includes jalapeno peppers. Most of what is listed can be found at your local supermarket. I think it is okay to pick and choose the ingredients you can best tolerate. And when drinking a shot of this stuff every day to stay healthy, you might want to keep an ice-cold Dr. Pepper handy to use as a chaser. This stuff can’t taste good.
FIRE CIDER INGREDIENTS:
5 jalapeno peppers (or other hot chilis)
2 chopped onions (red or white or both)
4 cloves garlic – halved
½ cup fresh ginger – chopped
½ cup fresh turmeric root – chopped
2 – 3 lemons – cut into chunks
¼ cup rosemary sprigs – chopped
¼ cup thyme – chopped
¼ cup peppermint – chopped
¼ cup lemon balm – chopped
1 tbsp. cinnamon (use Ceylon cinnamon)
3 pods of star anise
3 – 6 cloves (or more)
1 tbsp. peppercorns – black
3 tbsp. elderberries – dried (optional)
6 cups raw apple cider vinegar
Maple syrup to sweeten (use real maple syrup – not fake breakfast or pancake syrup)
Add dry ingredients to a large sealable jar and cover with apple cider vinegar.
Store jar in a cool dark place for 3-4 weeks, shaking every few days to agitate.
After steeping period, strain through mesh or cheesecloth into a sterilized container. If your concoction is too strong, add maple syrup to taste (start with a tablespoon and adjust from there).
If you store your cider in the fridge it will last for several months. Take one to two tablespoons daily. Mix with water (or try carbonated mineral water). Drink up – stay healthy!
