Ethnobotanical Journey to Jamaica

Jamaican Sustainable Farm Enterprise Program at the Source Farm Sponsored by Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance (VEGA). Florida Association for Voluntary Action in the Caribbean and the Americas (FAVCA) & US AID I was tickled recently to be accepted into a development program in Jamaica partly facilitated by friends and mentors Chuck Marsh and Tony Kleese. Both of these … Read more

Pearl Harbor Porter

By PHI Board Member Turtle

When Frank Cook passed on back in 2009, he left us with several boxes worth of treasures.  Several books, some finished, some unfinished, from illustrated children’s books, to his “Plants and Healers Series” i.e. (Peru and Ecuador and India and Nepal). There is a stack of journals full of notes, scribbles, poems, shopping lists and itineraries.  He also left footprints; places to go places to see!  6 continents and over 25 countries.  He led trips of 7 or 8 lucky travelers to Costa Rica, Peru, India and Africa (a tradition that PHI is beginning to offer! See the following link for more information on a trip to Costa Rica coming in March 2016 with ones to Asheville, NC and Peru coming later in the year.

Last but not least is the cache of meads, beers and medicines he created, but never consumed!  How many of us have a treasured bottle or two in our collection that Frank gifted us?  Perhaps it is a Sam’s Knob Blueberry Mead (careful when you open those! After it sprays everywhere, you are likely to only have half-a-bottle left!!). Or maybe it is a Chaga-Reishi, or one of the ones he made with bread yeast (how do you say yuck with emoticons?)!  Out here in Nevada City, California, I have been fortunate enough to stumble upon one of his primary brewing locations, the homestead of PHI board members Paul Harton and Jill Mahanna. This is one of the few places that any substantial quantity of Frank’s medicinal brews reside. These three friends used to brew beer and mead back in North Carolina and carried their love for the art out to Northern California, where they would fill vessels with medicinal roots and herbs, a jug of honey and some yeast (wild, bread or otherwise!) and let it ferment into something delicious and nutritious!  For those of us that have had the joy of poking around Frank’s old mead stash, one of the things we see the most of is labeled, “The Pearl Harbor Porter.”

Label of Frank Cook's Pearl Harbor Porter
Bottle of Frank Cook’s Pearl Harbor Porter 2006

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