We live in an artisan age, when handmade, homemade items — food, drinks, crafts, clothes, and everything in between — are all the rage. But is it possible to enhance your existence without spending a small fortune every time you go shopping? The women behind the Lost Skills Workshop, slated for Oct. 17-20 (Soirée & Marketplace Oct. 21) at St. Augustine Amphitheatre, think it is.
Co-organizers Lauren Bethea Murphy, Kristin Adamczyk, Erin Bowers and Mariah Salvat will host four workshops, on Fire Cider & Herbal Vinegars, Bone Broth, Herbal Wellness and Ancient Grains & Sourdough, 6-8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, at $36 per person per class. After that, the Lost Skills Soirée & Marketplace (6-10 p.m. Oct. 21) will cap off the week on Friday with a free gathering featuring (you guessed it) handcrafted food from local cuisine freaks, artisanal libations from St. Augustine Distillery, and even some of the health-conscious substances — fire cider, herbal vinegars, bone broth, sourdough starters and herbal tinctures — produced during the workshops.
“It’s empowering to make your own food or your own medicine,” says Bowers, who brings years of experience with holistic food, natural healthy, and skill share to the table. “It’s a skill that everyone should have — and one that we’re happy to share.”
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Folio Weekly: How did you discover these kinds of skills, Erin, and how did they change your life?
Erin Bowers: I got into natural healing stuff six or seven years ago, when I got really sick from taking antibiotics and not counteracting it with the proper amount of microbials. It was bad — I was covered in hives all the time, and it took a year to restore my gut health. I went to some holistic doctors and they set me up with meal plans and let me know that the way I was eating could change my health.
You and your fellow Lost Skills Workshop teachers have taken it to another level, though, by incorporating Southern traditions. How does that elevate the conversation?
That’s a huge question for me — I was raised in Florida, and Southern cooking is the most important thing in my life. But I don’t consider myself some sort of New Age foodie person. When I was younger, I was really picky about food, and my whole family still does that thing where they’re shocked when I eat anything that they consider weird. But I’m like, “Guys, you were just boiling the hell out of your vegetables or overcooking the meat.” Everything was dry, mushy, or zapped — of course it didn’t taste good, so of course I didn’t want to eat it. Learning how to revive those things I hated growing up has been exciting for me, and it’s given me a fun way to connect with my family. I make traditional dishes and they’ll say, “I haven’t tasted it like that since Grandma made it!” I think that’s when the skills got lost, when women went to work and we saw the rise of TV dinners and fast food. A lot of people don’t have any sort of identity in the kitchen, but for me that’s where I feel myself the most.
We like the way you’re updating traditional art forms without making it too hip or precious or “foodie.”
It’s a fun journey to get to know the kind of food our ancestors would have cooked — and then figure out how to make it healthier and more balanced. I work at The Floridian, which has a menu that really works around people’s food allergies. So my day-to-day is quite inundated with making sure people have a nice, healthy food experience. Between that and planning these workshops with Lauren and Kristin, I’m spending so much time talking to people about what they’re eating and how it’s affecting them. The fact that there’s so much more of an open conversation about this is fantastic. Researchers at the University of West Virginia just found a new part of our bodies that directly correlates gut health and mental health. So knowing your food and cooking holistically can have exponential health benefits. It also might explain why people who’ve been eating so badly for the last 30 to 40 years are getting so sick.
A shot of apple cider vinegar a day can keep the doctor away, right?
I really do believe that. If you have the good “mother” strain, apple cider vinegar is chock full of goodness that your stomach needs. Our bodies really crave anything fermented. So with cider and vinegar, you get all those good bacteria. I mean, you can clean with the stuff, so imagine what it does to your insides when you ingest it. You can also make infused herbal vinegars and so many kinds of medicines. In the workshop Lauren and I teach, we’ll be talking about historical values and folklore, which is my favorite part. Fire cider is a folk home remedy with apple cider vinegar, lemon, pepper, cayenne, turmeric, and horseradish root, which is no joke. We’ll also be talking about four thieves vinegar, which was invented by grave robbers during the Black Plague. They were profiting from the plague, and when they were finally caught and put on trial, they gave up their recipe in exchange for their lives. We’ve made a bunch of those for everybody to try. I take it every day, and everybody I work with has the flu while I’m fine. So it works.
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