I really love the way my herbal knowledge in Thailand grows organically - pun intended. Some random person will push a leaf, drink or dish of food my way and say, "สมุนไพร", which means "herbal". They know I have a herbal business and am super interested in and committed to health and healing, and Thai people simply love sharing about their herbs and plants. They have such pride in their healing traditions!
This particular Saturday was no different. My friend, Patty, didn't ask if I wanted a drink but simply shoved it onto my hand. "Herbal".
It took a minute for the Thai people around me to tell me what it was.
Madan. Garcinia schomburgkiana.
"What you call in English?"
"I've never seen this outside of Thailand. I don't think is has another name."
Sure enough, madan is extremely local. It basically grows in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, officially.
It's a small to medium tree which grows up to about 7 meters tall in the mountains and villages and is rarely seen down in the cities. It's one of the many trees that Thai people will pluck young leaves from and serve raw, on the side, next to wickedly spicy fish curry. I've seen it served together with neem leaves.
The tree has small, waxy, pink flowers and the madan fruit rarely grow bigger than a smallish hand.
The fruits can be used to flavour som tam or tom yam. The shade provided by the tree is complete and cooling in the summer months. Finally, although a mature tree, it's not very tall at all. One dish which is not complete without madan is water lily (Nyphaea lotus, or bua sai) stalk cooked in coconut milk with steamed mackerel or pla too. Tamarind is sometimes used to lend it a sour taste... Source
But this given Saturday was the first time I'd seen a drink made from madan. Patty squeezed the juice and added quite a decent amount of honey to offset the serious sourness. And basically I drank an amazing herbal lemonade.
Turns out the madan fruit is crazy high in vitamin A particularly, and vitamin C.
But the fruit is probably the least of madan's "herbal" claim.
The leaves are traditionally used in Thai medicine:
- to treat coughs
- as an expectorant
- to help improve menstrual cycle
- to help regulate diabetes
- as a laxative
What's exciting to me is that these old village "remedy trees" are being studied. In the last 5 years 2 new powerful xanthones have been discovered in the bark of the madan tree.
This article in the Journal of natural medicine shows how these newly discovered xanthones are being studied and shown as powerful anticancer agents. Two New Xanthones and Cytotoxicity From the Bark of Garcinia schomburgkiana
I'm APPRECIATING every day how much I learn when I follow the leads that the people in my day-to-day Thai world give me.
Blissed & Blessed. And looking for a madan tree to get some seeds to start for my own healing food forest of the future.
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