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To Your Health!
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Seeing a group of friends sitting around drinking 'yerba mate' is a very common sight in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. Everyone goes around carrying their 'equipment' - gourd, bombilla and thermos - and it seems to be an essential part of everyday life. Besides being a refreshing and healthy drink, the process of sharing a gourd of mate is very much a social ritual that is ingrained in the culture. You're unlikely to see mate on the menu in a restaurant, and your best chance of sampling the drink is if you are asked to participate by a group of friends. When we first tried it we found it very hot and bitter! Luckily, in some areas it's an accepted practice to add sugar - and in Paraguay in summer it is prepared ice-cold.
Yerba was first noted by the Spanish explorer Domingo Martínez de Irala in1554, and he attributed the good health and vigour of the Guaraní people in present-day southern Brazil to their habit of drinking an infusion from the leaves of a local tree. However, the Catholic Church soon heard of it and banned it as the work of the devil. Of course, this had just the opposite effect, and people sought it out - especially for its reputed aphrodisiac qualities! The leaves come from an evergreen tree - known botanically as Ilex paraguayensis (a member of the holly family) - which resembles Laurel. It is mostly grown in the Misiones and Corrientes provinces of north-eastern Argentina, as well as in south-eastern Paraguay and southern Brazil Originally both the Guaraní people and the Colonists believed that the plant would only reproduce after a complex process involving passage of the seeds through the stomach of a bird that fed on the flowers of the tree. However, in the 18th century the Jesuits investigated the botany of the plant in some detail and after various field trials and agronomic research they found they could easily grow it on plantations.
The drink is reputed to improve your appetite, alleviate the debilitating affects of living in a very hot climate, and counteract both hunger and thirst. Analysis has shown that it is particularly high in potassium, magnesium, calcium, phosphorous, vitamin C and niacin. The gourd that the mate is prepared in can be a simple calabash, or may be very elaborately made from leather, wood or even silver. It is sipped through the bombilla - a straw with a bulbous lower end that incorporates a filter - which also may be simply made from wood or aluminium, or may be an elaborate affair fashioned in silver or gold. The water that is poured over the dried, ground up leaves, is kept in a thermos to maintain the desired temperature of about 80C - and you can easily get your flask replenished at hotels, restaurants and gas stations. If you're interested in giving yerba mate a try, you could give Gerry and George a call at The Herb Garden near Almonte - just outside of Ottawa - as we took a bunch of gourds and bombillas back to them last summer, as well as several kg of the mate leaves.
Well, enough of healthy drinks for hot climates! Tonight we're jumping on the overnight bus down to Buenos Aires and tomorrow evening will be on the plane for Ottawa. It's going to be quite a shock going from the stifling 35 to 40C temperature of mid-summer in north-eastern Argentina to the frigid winter weather of Canada's capital. As many of you know, we are interrupting our trip and returning rather reluctantly for health purposes and are obliged to stay in Ontario for 5 months (153 days to be precise) in order to maintain our provincial health insurance coverage. Don't worry though, we'll be back in July to continue our travelling adventures up into Brazil. Meanwhile, we've been fortunate enough to rent a house on a lake near Ottawa from a fellow TravelPodder, who has just left for a travel stint down under and through Asia (check out David and Veronica's travel blog under "davidsmi"- Round the World in 2006). For anyone who wants to get in touch with us, we'll still be just at the other end of an e-mail (thymeoff@hotmail.com) or you can give us a call at (613) 832-5854.
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