"French Roots"

This story has been in the works for awhile hiding in "the caverns of my mind" so to speak.

When we were spending our last few days in France this past June in a beautiful place on the Atlantic coast in Basque Country...we made our home base in Bidart.

We checked out the Saturday Market in the square....

On this day there were the usual vendors with food goods, fresh farm produce, specialty items, clothing and loads of touristy items.

We came across an elderly gentleman sitting in a chair with a bag of what looked like fresh dug roots/ tubers...we weren't sure what they were.

There was an information sheet and I made sure I got a photo, so I could check it out later...

He caught Monsieur Honey's eye and asked him to try this magic medicine...claimed to provide relief of arthritic pain.

The gentleman took his knife, scraped the skin from the root, and rubbed the oil/juice from the root into Monsieur Honey's hand ... and amazingly he did feel an easing of the pain within a few minutes.

Unfortunately, we could not buy any of these roots to bring back in our suitcases to Canada...they were covered in fresh dirt.

The roots of this tree in a local park (pictured below) reminded me of this encounter and I did some research about the Tamus root.

Tamus (Discorea communis) Black Bryony ...is a flowering plant in the yam family, now that I know this ... the roots did look like yams, really dirty ones!

The plant is poisonous and not to be used internally but is used as a poultice for bruises and inflamed joints...thus the relief Monsieur Honey felt after his hand was massaged with the oils/ juices of the root.

So, maybe I should check out the local Health Food Store to see if there is a naturopathic product derived from Tamus that would provide this relief for my Honey.

 

    Arthritis has a crippling effect on the joints ...