Stories from Bad Kleinkirchheim

Author: Verena Schneider

An herbal-hike on the Falkert… 9 “newbies” and National Park herbal-woman Birgit go on a quest to find all things that you can eat or that can heal. At first, each of us gets a small white pouch in which we can save all our found treasuries - to spread on our bread.

The fact that wild-herbs taste good is something I already know – and I even use wild-herb salt for my cooking – but it does make a huge difference whether you buy the herbs or collect them yourself. But collecting them isn’t as simple as all that, seeing as they need to be indentified first. And that’s why we’re here – we’re lacking the practical experience you need, and, more importantly, we’re lacking knowledge about the various possibilities for using of all these alpine plants. We’re surprised how many you can actually find here, 1,900m above sea level. Birgit stops every few meters to show us another plant discovery. Her expertise reaches from “E” for Eyebright, to “T” for Thyme. We learn that Thyme has an expectorant and anti-inflammatory effect, and that Nettle is no weed at all, but actually the Queen of healing plants. We learn that watercress tastes excellent in potato-salad and Houseleek was formerly used as a lightning conductor.

After a short while we’ve circled the Falkertsee-Lake and are continuing up to the alpine dairy, where we get all our cooking equipment – farmhouse bread and fresh curd. Then we walk on to the Zirben-Cottage, which is the point where the content of our pouches has to face the knife, as it were. Our nicely minced herbs, added to some buttermilk, salt and pepper are now ready to be thrown into the pot. The initial skepticism from some people quickly changes into a “mmmmhhh that tastes good!”

And thanks to all the information, my future motto will be “Open your eyes while you’re hiking!”. Some herbs will certainly cross my path.

The fact that wild-herbs taste good is something I already know – and I even use wild-herb salt for my cooking – but it does make a huge difference whether you buy the herbs or collect them yourself. But collecting them isn’t as simple as all that, seeing as they need to be indentified first. And that’s why we’re here – we’re lacking the practical experience you need, and, more importantly, we’re lacking knowledge about the various possibilities for using of all these alpine plants. We’re surprised how many you can actually find here, 1,900m above sea level. Birgit stops every few meters to show us another plant discovery. Her expertise reaches from “E” for Eyebright, to “T” for Thyme. We learn that Thyme has an expectorant and anti-inflammatory effect, and that Nettle is no weed at all, but actually the Queen of healing plants. We learn that watercress tastes excellent in potato-salad and Houseleek was formerly used as a lightning conductor.

After a short while we’ve circled the Falkertsee-Lake and are continuing up to the alpine dairy, where we get all our cooking equipment – farmhouse bread and fresh curd. Then we walk on to the Zirben-Cottage, which is the point where the content of our pouches has to face the knife, as it were. Our nicely minced herbs, added to some buttermilk, salt and pepper are now ready to be thrown into the pot. The initial skepticism from some people quickly changes into a “mmmmhhh that tastes good!”

And thanks to all the information, my future motto will be “Open your eyes while you’re hiking!”. Some herbs will certainly cross my path.

Image and text courtesy of Verena Schneider for the editorial team of the website www.badkleinkirchheim.at