Description of hawthorn as a plant, calorie content and chemical composition of fruits. Useful properties of berries when eaten and contraindications for use. Dish recipes. Interesting facts about hawthorn. The hawthorn is most valued for the normalization of cardiovascular activity and cerebral vessels. It is enough to drink tea infused with hawthorn 5 times a week, and after 2 months you yourself will notice how much memory functions and the ability to perceive information have improved.
Useful properties of hawthorn
For the preparation of medicines, almost all parts of the plant are used, except for the leaves, - bark, young shoots, flowers and fruits. The benefits of hawthorn berries when consumed extend to all organic systems.
The natural remedy has the following effects on the body:
- Eliminates spasms of the coronary vessels and intestines.
- Since it has a diuretic effect, it helps to remove excess fluid from the body and get rid of swelling.
- Prevents the development of atherosclerosis and angina pectoris.
- Normalizes blood pressure, stabilizes heart rate.
- It has an analgesic effect in diseases of the cardiovascular system.
- Calms the nerves, increases emotional stability.
- It has a general tonic effect, increases resistance to infections.
- Stimulates immune functions, inhibits the vital activity of the herpes virus and papillomavirus circulating in the body.
- Regulates blood sugar levels.
- It stabilizes the work of the thyroid gland in particular and the endocrine system in general.
- Has a pronounced choleretic effect, is used in the treatment of dyskinesia and inflammatory liver diseases.
- Helps relieve dizziness and reduce the frequency of migraine attacks.
When entering menopause, the use of berries in various forms restores the ability to fall asleep quickly, relieves the painful symptoms of hot flashes, and reduces the possibility of developing depression and depression.
Hawthorn helps athletes to tune in to victory - this natural stimulant allows you to quickly recover from increased stress.
Harm and contraindications to the use of hawthorn
Healthy people need to use hawthorn with caution, limiting the amount eaten. Too many fruits at a time can provoke a decrease in blood pressure - drowsiness, dizziness, headache, nausea appear …
Contraindications to the use of hawthorn berries are as follows:
- Individual intolerance;
- Bronchial asthma in the acute stage or with frequent attacks;
- Diabetes mellitus with insulin dependence;
- A tendency to constipation and intestinal dysbiosis with the appearance of intestinal spasms.
Relative contraindications to the use of berries or dishes in which they are one of the ingredients:
- Pregnancy. There is a likelihood of developing arrhythmias in the fetus and an increase in the frequency of manifestations of toxicosis - vomiting and dizziness - in the expectant mother.
- Childhood. In pure form, berries or homemade teas infused with them can be given no earlier than 12 years, after the cardiovascular system is fully formed.
After cooking, the properties of hawthorn become less pronounced, but still, if you eat a lot of jam at a time, you can provoke a hypotonic crisis.
Hawthorn berry recipes
Hawthorn fruit is widely used in cooking. They are used to make jams and jams, squeeze juice for cocktails, prepare sauce for meat and various drinks. The berries are dried and crushed to make flour. A small addition gives the baked goods an original taste.
Hawthorn Berry Recipes:
- Puree … Ripe berries are boiled until softened, without dividing them into parts. There should be enough water so that, after crushing the soft fruits, it turns out to reach the consistency of thick sour cream. Sugar is added so that the taste is pleasant, but not sweet. Mashed potatoes are laid out in sterilized jars and rolled up.
- Pancake or porridge sauce … The hawthorn puree prepared according to the previous recipe is mixed with honey and a little cinnamon is added.
- Paste … Hawthorn puree is made a little thicker than usual, sugar is added to make it sweet, cinnamon, cumin. You can add a handful of rolled poppy seeds to improve the taste. The "dough" is mixed, laid out in a thin layer on trays and dried in the oven at a temperature of 60 ° C.
- Hawthorn cookies … Dried hawthorn berries are ground into flour using a coffee grinder or mortar - the finer the flour, the easier it will be to prepare the product. The proportions of flour from the fruits of hawthorn and ordinary wheat - 1 to 3. The number of products is calculated for 1, 5 glasses of flour. Ghee - about 100 g - grind with half a glass of sugar with a wooden spoon, add salt, add lemon zest from one citrus, 2 eggs and bring everything to a homogeneous structure. It is more convenient to beat the eggs with a little sugar beforehand. Combine both portions of flour, add the oil mixture, knead the thick dough. In the future, figures will have to be cut out of it, so you need to achieve an absolutely uniform consistency and no stickiness. The oven is heated to 200-210 ° C, the dough is rolled out on a wooden sheet sprinkled with flour, figures are cut out of it. These figurines can be sprinkled with poppy seeds, coarse granulated sugar, crushed nuts. Then the sheet with the blanks is placed in a cold place for 15 minutes. Cookies are baked for about 10 minutes - you can check the readiness with a toothpick.
- Candies … Hawthorn puree is used as a semi-finished product for making sweets. Ingredient proportions: 1 part starch, 4 parts sugar, 10 parts puree. All ingredients are thoroughly mixed, sprinkled with powdered sugar on a wooden or plastic tray. Spread the candy mixture in a thick layer - 2-3 cm, again generously sprinkle with powdered sugar. Air-dried. The taste of sweets can be improved with any additive - poppy, cinnamon, grated cloves. Very tasty sweets are obtained if fresh juicy berries are placed in the middle of each - 1-2 currants or cranberries. Berries are added to sweets if it was planned to eat them right away. If you are going to feast on later, you will have to give up the juicy filling. To preserve sweets, they are laid out in clean, sterilized dry jars and rolled up with lids. Shelf life - up to 2 months.
- Jam … Boil whole berries in water until softened: for 1 kg of berries - 2 glasses of water. The cooled fruits are ground in mashed potatoes, sugar is added and put to boil. The proportions of puree and sugar by weight - 1 to 1. Boil until the amount of berry mixture is reduced by a quarter. Just before connecting, add lemon juice and mix thoroughly.
- Royal Hawthorn Jam … Cooking it is quite difficult and dreary - all the seeds have to be removed from the berries. If you are not ready for such a "feat", then you can be content with jam. Hawthorn - 400 g - sorted out, boiled in a glass of water, thrown on a sieve - the water is not drained. Now the seeds are removed from the berries, the pulp is mixed with sugar - 500 g, brought to a boil and a little citric acid is added to taste.
- Filling for pies … If you take care of the vitamin ingredient in the fall, you won't have to suffer from anemia in winter. The fruits are air-dried and crushed to flour. Flour is mixed with honey - 2 tablespoons per glass of flour, mix. Can be placed in sterilized jars or used immediately.
To take advantage of the beneficial properties of fruits to the maximum after culinary processing, the choice of "semi-finished product" should be approached responsibly. The color of the berries should be bright orange or red, the surface is smooth. If you buy dried fruits, you need to make sure that they do not stick together and bounce elastically when dropped on a hard surface. The appearance of mold or small specks on the peel is unacceptable - this is also evidence of decay. Freezing fresh berries will make them sweeter after thawing.
Interesting facts about hawthorn
There are many legends about the origin of the hawthorn. In the eastern legend, Allah created a plant at the request of a weak bird, which was not allowed to make a nest by larger birds. The bush's needles have become reliable protection for birds.
In the legend of Ancient Russia, a good lady was turned into a hawthorn bush by a sorceress, so that the stream of good deeds that the lady was engaged in during her lifetime did not dry out. That is why the plant helps to cure many diseases.
Hawthorn has different popular names. Among the ancient Slavs it was swallowing, during the times of Kievan Rus - boyarka, in Azerbaijan the bush is called emishan, in Kyrgyzstan - bazaarsha, in Moldova - paduchel, in Armenia - crptkin, in Georgia - kuneli, in Kalmykia - tolon.
In ancient Greece, virgins who dreamed of getting married as soon as possible made wreaths from the branches of a flowering bush, decorated their hair with them, and then gave them to Hymen, the god of family and marriage. At the same time, the doctor Dioscorides described the properties of the plant and listed all the diseases in which the condition can be alleviated with the help of hawthorn medicines.
In the 14th century, the hawthorn almost fell into disgrace. They tried to treat infectious diseases, toothaches and eliminate problems during a difficult pregnancy. Fortunately, the healers realized in time that the useful properties were limited, and did not ruthlessly destroy the growth. Similar attempts to heal all diseases were made by ancient Roman doctors 200-300 years before our era, but then medicine was in an even more primitive state.
And already in the 17th century, Peter the Great conferred on the hawthorn the official title of a medicinal plant, ordered the selection of bushes with larger fruits and the most pronounced amount of healing properties to begin. Such varieties were grown in royal gardens, crossing the most successful combinations - bushes with larger and juicy berries, with a pronounced aroma, with berries in which there are few seeds … They were used to make medicines for the nobility and used the fruits in the preparation of desserts. The common people collected the berries of a wild plant for the same purposes.
Hawthorn, which grows like a tree, has a particularly durable wood that can be used to make furniture and souvenirs. And the bushes of bright red hawthorn have strong long sharp thorns, which make it possible to use plantings as a living fence. Such a picket fence reliably protects from uninvited guests and performs a decorative function.
Watch a video about hawthorn:
If the hedge is properly formed and carefully looked after, it will not be necessary to replant the bushes for 200-250 years! All this time, you can not be afraid of thieves entering your site and collect a rich harvest of delicious and healing berries every year.
