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Mucz, Michael. Baba’s Kitchen Medicines: Folk Remedies of 
Ukrainian Settlers in Western Canada. Edmonton, AB, Canada: 
The University of Alberta Press, 2012. Illustrations, Maps, 
Appendices, Selected Readings, Index. xxv+265 pp. $34.95 
(paper). ISBN-13: 978-0-88864-514-2. 
 

Although the folklife of Ukrainians in Canada has been the 
topic of a number of valuable studies, some traditions or memories 
of traditions were passed on only orally until now. Michael Mucz, 
a professor of biology with interests in ethnobotany and herbal 
medicine who teaches in the University of Alberta system, offers a 
well-rounded and fascinating study of the folk healing practices of 
Ukrainian communities in Canada in Baba’s Kitchen Medicines: 
Folk Remedies of Ukrainian Settlers in Western Canada. Mucz 
briefly but effectively outlines the historical context of Ukrainian 
settlements in Canada, noting that compact settlements in isolated 
areas meant both a need for mutual aid and a greater likelihood of 
preserving traditions, whereas consulting scientific medicine and 
trained doctors involved both distance (difficulty) and expense. A 
chapter on ancient healing practices reaches back to Classical 
Greece, while another outlines the specialized kinds of healers who 
could be found in the Ukrainian communities: bonesetters, mostly 
men who had learned the skill while serving in the Austro-
Hungarian Army; midwives who helped women in childbirth; 
herbalists, found much less often than the bearers of “kitchen” 
herbal medicine; and spiritual healers, who would crack eggs into 
water or use other folk methods to advance psychological well-
being. Mucz’s informants come from a variety of religions and 
places of origin, but the data is based on extensive interviews with 
children and grandchildren of the original settlers. (There is also 
just a glimpse of aboriginal healing practices, as picked up by the 
Ukrainian communities.) The best part of the book offers tables 
with lists of medicinal preparations, often providing quotations 
from individual informants and other kinds of context for the 
healing practices cited. 

The book is richly illustrated with maps and black-and-
white photographs, which include both historical photographs of 



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Ukrainian settlers and contemporary pictures of some of the plants 
mentioned in the text. There are no photographs of actual healing 
in practice, which underlines the private and domestic, 
occasionally even secretive, nature of many of the treatments. 
Besides these pictures, Mucz offers a treasure trove of data: tables 
with information about his informants and the lists of remedies 
reported used for a variety of ailments, mentioned above. One 
chart conveys almost 4000 “individual healing situations” (38); 
others break the information down into smaller categories. Tables 
of results indicate the “treatment value” of the home remedies, 
depending on how many informants reported use of a certain 
remedy. 

The text asserts several times that later generations of 
Ukrainian Canadians rejected traditional healing practices not 
because they were ineffective, but because they considered them 
old-fashioned and embarrassing, a reaction not unusual for 
assimilating second-generation immigrants (18, 46 and elsewhere). 
Thus the book makes two arguments: first, that these traditional 
ways of healing are part of the heritage of Ukrainian Canadians;  
and second, that these healing practices have many virtues, not 
least their reported effectiveness. Mucz otherwise offers no 
judgments, which will make this book friendly to anyone who 
might want to use the information for actual healing practice, as 
well as for ethnographers and other scholars. The conclusion of the 
one-page disclaimer that opens the book makes clear that this is 
intended: “Know your limits and recognize that good sense and 
health not only go together but are also life’s greatest blessings. 
Make your personal health a valued and lifelong task” (vii). The 
book is interesting for comparative work as well, since many of the 
healing practices or substances are widely accepted in other 
cultures as well (a preparation of  
blueberries for diarrhea; cranberries for urinary problems), as well 
as possible ancestry for or insight into many alternative therapies 
today (11). 

Mucz is a somewhat diffident authorial presence but both 
likable and efficient. Many readers will find his clear language and 
avoidance of jargon appealing. (An understandable exception is 



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when he draws on the vocabulary of botany or medicine, as when 
explaining why weeds may contain useful chemicals (“secondary 
metabolites” (60-61).) Other readers might regret that he has not 
pursued the fascinating material in this book in theoretical 
directions, especially since the book’s title makes clear the 
importance of age and gender in the realm of folk healing. At one 
point, Mucz notes, “Women, being generally more sensitive and 
caring in nature, were typically the family’s health care providers” 
(15). One might ask whether this is Mucz’s own opinion or that of 
his informants. Indeed, an informant is cited shortly thereafter, 
noting the predominance of woman as healers in a much more 
neutral way (16). One other possible criticism is that several small 
sections of the book are repeated verbatim in various places—
though that means that a reader who dips in rather than reading 
through the whole is more likely to see those ideas. 

Elsewhere in the book, Mucz is more careful to clarify his 
sources for statements on gender traits or the gendered nature of 
certain kinds of healing, and this enhances the book’s value for 
readers interested in that aspect of history and traditional culture. 
He notes that some of his data was limited too: “Female concerns 
were seldom openly discussed, because cultural and gender 
boundaries made it difficult for informants to address such topics 
comfortably with a man, let alone a stranger” (39). It is regrettable 
that he could not have invited a female colleague to collaborate on 
this part of his research. 

These few objections do not obscure the importance of 
Mucz’s thoughtful work. The book is a tribute both to Ukrainian 
heritage in Canada and to Michael Mucz’s patience and 
imagination in gathering the information over many years, and 
Baba’s Kitchen Medicines is recommended to every one of the 
several audiences to which it will appeal. 
 
Sibelan Forrester 
Swarthmore College 
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, USA