Chaga the King

 

If you are a forager of either wild edibles or wild medicinals, winter months can be a hard time of the year for you.  Your imagination dances around the idea of the leaves of the first wild leeks poking their way out of the swamp, or the curled fiddleheads of ostrich fern sizzling in you pan.  Actually, as I write this I can almost taste that wonderful flavor.  When will the flowers bloom so I can make a new St. Johns Wort tincture or gather a few spring beauty bulbs?  Oh, for some bloodroot black salve on the shelves and wild ginger for candying with maple syrup.   I can almost feel leaves instead of snow crunching under my feet.

But sometimes we have to remember the moment.  Winter, when the leaves are off the trees, is a good time to go looking for certain wild medicinals.  When the trees are dark lines against the snow, standing as vertical testimonies to the energy of the sun.  They reach high, waiting for the lengthening of days so they can once again send out leaves to feed from Ol' Sol's light.   When black, gray and white (oh so much white) are the main colors, silhouettes stand out in vivid contrast to what is behind them.

The lovely white birch tree can look like a postcard image when standing out in a Wisconsin winter woodlot.  A male downy woodpecker shuffling up it's truck gives it the tiny shock of red that draws your eye like a beacon.  Part way up the downy moves to the side and sidles around a protrusion on the tree before he continues his climb looking for dormant bugs in the bark.  That protrusion, that is so visible with no leaves on the tree, is what we are here for.  It is Chaga.

Chaga is a fungus, a parasite of birch and other trees.  He often looks like a lump of coal jammed into the bark.  He grows all over the world...in fact the name Chaga is a Russian word.  I had to learn it once I started working with others because that is the name most people call him.  We use to just called him birch conk.  A lot of people call him tinder fungus because he takes a coal so well if you are trying to start a fire with flint and steal.  Now, if you're thinking soft little mushroom when you think of chaga, think again.  He has a hard head, almost as hard as the tree he grows on.  In fact, often when you are cutting him from the tree, it is the wood from the tree that gives first and you have to carve that unwanted fiber out of your prize. Chaga is harvested with an ax and some good muscles.

In Russia chaga is seen as a gift from heaven.  In Japan he was considered to be the jewel of the forest.  And the Chinese call chaga 'The King of the Mushrooms'.  With their long history of working with medicine this could be saying a great deal.  Because chaga lives in these cold climates, it adapts by making phytochemicals, including sterols, phenols, and enzymes.  These chaga uses to keep the tree it is feeding on alive in this cold, harsh climate.  We can use these chemicals the same way too.

Medical studies have shown it to be an affective treatment to many cancers including breast, liver, uterine and gastric cancers.  In fact new studies in China are showing it to be almost as affective as chemotherapy but without the side effects. 

Chaga tincture

 

What I use it for medicinally is for those who suffer from high blood pressure.  Working with chaga, diet, and a few life style changes, I have seen many people heal enough to get off of pharmaceuticals and deal with their blood pressure naturally.  I also have seen it used with other herbs and exercise to help with diabetes.  Medicinally, chaga is a wonderful companion.

Some of our extreme athletes are now taking chaga to help boost their strength and endurance.  This is because with the fall of the Soviet Union many of Russian athlete's secrets were revealed to the world.  Some of the Soviets top medal winners in the Olympics were reported to consume large amounts of chaga to build muscles and stay fit.

Not enough to call him king?  New studies are showing that chaga is one of the mushrooms that have amazing immune system boosting properties.  Chaga and shitake mushrooms are used by the poor in China when they are sick with colds or flu...much like our mothers use chicken soup.  Broth soups are made from them and this folklore food is now being looked into by the medical community and the results are looking good.  Chaga is the most potent plant adaptogen studied to date.  This means he helps the human body handle stress, including the stress of illness and of aging better than any other plant studied. 

Okay, so I listed so many different uses for chaga that it seems just a little too far fetched for you.  I'll give you that.  I tend to be a skeptic from time to time as well, especially when he seems almost too good to be true.  Only you can be the judge of the evidence that is out there.  So why then should we trudge through the deep snow for a medicinal you might not believe in?  How about...because it tastes good!  I love the flavor of chaga and would eat it even if I was told he was bad for me.  Okay, I might eat a little less of it, but I would still sneak a bit for my guilty pleasure.

Chaga tea is delicious.  I have a cup of it sitting by my left hand as I type this.  It is earthy, like mushrooms tend to be, but it also has this hint of vanilla to it, which happens to be one of my favorite flavors.  Yes, you can call me vanilla and I won't be insulted.  Mixed with chai spices and cream, chaga becomes an almost perfect winter brew.  Grind up roasted dandelion or chicory root and mix with chaga powder and you have a spicy, coffee like mug without the caffeine.  Speaking of coffee, adding him to coffee helps cut the bitterness, much like sugar and/or cream does.  I mix him into oatmeal or malt meal to give my breakfast even more body.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  To prepare chaga you should let him dry a bit.  The lighter color insides of the fungus is the part you want.  If you are going to store him I would dry him well and leave as whole as possible.  If you are going to use him then you need to get the grater out.  Despite his being so hard in the field, he actually grates up quite easily once dry.  Once he is a powder you can mix him into many things from soups and stews, to breakfast cereals, to many hot drinks, to sprinkling him over homemade yogurt, to baking in breads, to mixing into butter spreads. I even turn him into an ice "coffee" in the summertime after a long day in the hot sun. His uses are endless in the culinary world.  His simply chai tea would be enough for me though.

So winter may not be as bad as we humans like to think it is.  Yes, we have to wear a few extra pounds of clothing to stay warm.  And yes, that wonderful garden dirt is still not visible through the thick blanket of snow.  And yes, I love the color green just as much as the next hiker does.  But without those bitterly cold nights, and without that blanket of snow, and without all that blinding white, we would not have this amazing healer.  The boots seem a little less heavy as I go home with my treasure in tow and the little downy flittering from tree to tree behind me.