Surviving My Mexican Mother’s Herbal, Homemade Remedies

I hated being sick when I was a kid — but my mom hated it worse. She would always have these homemade remedies that only made sense in her mind. I would be her guinea pig. And although most of the time they worked, I think it had to do more with the fact that I willed myself back to good health to avoid facing another of her crazy teas. The messed up part was that we were not allowed to miss school, we had to have something in our bodies falling off or coming out in order for my mom to consider it. This was made even funnier considering the only time were allowed to miss school was when she had a doctor’s appointment and needed a translator.

When it came to coming up with potions, rubs and ointments, there was no one that could beat my mom. She would be out there with a kitchen knife cutting the right plants because she did not expect us to know the difference between cilantro and aloe vera. For earaches and stomachaches, she would use the same plant – something called “ruda.” She would brew a tea for stomachaches, but when it came to earaches, she would wrap it around in a ball and put it inside the ailing ear. Toothaches would be soothed away with “yerba buena.” People often tell me that “yerba buena is nothing but spearmint,” but believe you me, this herb tasted nothing like spearmint. I remember leaving the herb in my mouth until it completely numbed me.

Coughs and colds were handled differently. First, I would drink a tall glass of Jell-O gelatin, she would boil water and drop the powder inside. Then she would take it off the burner allow it to cool – but not inside of the refrigerator. For some reason, the mixture would lose its medicinal purposes if it was allowed to be inside the refrigerator, let alone the freezer. I would then drink it down and take a nap. Step two would involve swallowing handfuls of “vaporú,” or Vapor Rub. The thinking being that if it worked that well outside your body — imagine the medical miracles it would perform inside of it.

My mother would usually treat my fevers by crushing aspirin and smearing my feet with Vapor Rub. She would then take the crushed aspirin and spread it on top of the Vapor Rub. Then she would add an additional pair of socks in order to sweat the fever out of my body.

Now as much as I hate the taste of vaporú, there is one tradition I dislike even more, and that would be the suppository. The suppository is by far the cruelest of all medical traditions. It’s the 21st century. You would think they have found a way to compact the medicine into something smaller. The ones my mother would use looked like silver bullets. They would have stopped a werewolf in his tracks.

I remember it was a scene right out of the “Exorcist” when it came time to apply that sort of medicine. I would start sweating and begin to curse out everyone inside the room. You had to call in a doctor, a couple of nurses and maybe even a priest so that they could convince me to accept my fate. Now, I am not comparing my mother’s methods to those of Doctor House, but they did the trick. I would not apply them to my own children simply because I would be afraid of poisoning them. I do not think I could apply the proper doses – although I do know the difference between aloe vera and cilantro.

Follow Oscar Barajas on Twitter @Oscarcoatl