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By Carina Magyar in Herbs —

VI: Tobacco

On the irony of tobacco and independence.

sextidi, the 16th of Messidor, Year CCXXXI
Dried tobacco leaves rolled up in a little piece of paper. Photo by Khai Nguyen / Unsplash

Good morning. Today is sextidi, the 16th of Messidor, Year CCXXXI. We celebrate le tabac, a plant we can't stop lighting on fire.

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While the most commonly cultivated tobacco is so-called Virginia tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum), there's another strain native to the Americas that contains three times as much nicotine known as Nicotiana rustica. Because nicotine is, from the plant's perspective, just an insect repellant, the plant is mainly cultivated as such, with the chemicals of the leaf processed to make insecticides. However, it's smoked in some cultures, and notably took off in Russia during the 19th century. The plant is hardier to cold and could be grown there, unlike Virginia tobacco, so it became a popular backyard garden plant that gave farmers a free supply to smoke. Known as makhorka (маxорка), the extremely addictive plant became an underground industry of its own during the Soviet Union era.

France and the baby United States were very close friends, something that can be hard to remember in these present times when the ties between the US and UK seem to be natural and unbreakable. Obviously, the nation was born (supposedly on this day, but arguments could be made for any number of days between this one and the ratification of the Constitution 13 years later) in conflict with the British crown, a conflict that led to a follow-up war a full two decades later, but it's often overlooked how closely we were allied to France, how much we modeled our government and philosophy on the emerging democratic impulses of her brightest thinkers, and what huge trading partners we were, right down to the simple swap of cash for land that doubled the size of the United States overnight. The USA loved France, and vice versa.

So I don't think it's a coincidence that tobacco is assigned to our Independence Day.

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VII: Currant

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