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In 1616, Hernando Arias de Saavedra, the governor of the Spanish province that included Buenos Aires, banned the population from drinking a green herbal drink called yerba mate.

The governor had seen the region's indigenous Guaran people carrying this drink with them everywhere they went. It was a filthy vice, the Spanish had decided. And it was spreading like wildfire among the Spanish colonists — as far away as what is now Bolivia, Chile and Peru.

"All Spaniards, men and women, and all Indians, drink these dusts in hot water," one dismayed Jesuit priest wrote, lamenting, "And when they don't have with what to buy it, they give away their underpants and their blankets ... When they stop drinking it they fade away and say they cannot live."

That passion for mate (unlike the governor) is still very much alive and well today in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile and southern Brazil, where it is known as chimarro (pronounced she-ma-how).

Indeed, in 2013, mate was officially declared a "national infusion" of Argentina, where an estimated 250,000 tons of herb are consumed every year. Paraguay has a National Terer Day (terer is a drink made with yerba mate, but it's drunk cold). The brew is now a common sight in health stores and specialized coffee shops in the U.S.

Technically, mate is not a tea, but rather, an infusion. "Tea" refers to a drink made from the leaves of the evergreen Asian shrub camellia sinensis, whereas the leaves in mate come from Ilex paraguariensis, a shrub with small greenish-white flowers that grew especially abundant in Paraguay.

i

(Left) A bombilla, the metal drinking straw with a strainer at one end that's used to sip yerba mate. (Right) Mate leaves. Ryan Kellman/Meredith Rizzo/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Ryan Kellman/Meredith Rizzo/NPR

(Left) A bombilla, the metal drinking straw with a strainer at one end that's used to sip yerba mate. (Right) Mate leaves.

Ryan Kellman/Meredith Rizzo/NPR

"The Guaran people put mate in small calabashes and drank it as a cold infusion, through hollow straws," historian Luca Glvez recounts in her book De La Tierra Sin Mal Al Paraso: Jesuitas Y Guaranies. "They also chewed on it to have more energy on their walks, a tradition which has disappeared."

I've heard variations on this Guaran legend of how mate came to be: The moon had been told by the sun about all the joys of the jungle that she could not see in the darkness of the night — the birds, the leaves, the flowers. She got very curious, and one day came down to earth in the form of a young woman. She went exploring, and was almost attacked by a yaguaret (a jaguar), but a Guarani hunter saved her. The moon was so grateful, she gave the Guarani people the gift of mate.

So how did this ancient drink go from prohibited brew to beloved South American pastime? Thank the Jesuits.

According to Glvez, the missionaries may have been critical of Ilex paraguariensis, but they also began cultivating it towards the end of the 17th century, believing it was perhaps not only good for health, but also a good substitute for alcoholic drinks.

Turns out, the Jesuits had a green thumb: Mate soon became the most profitable industry on the missions, and it was sold from Buenos Aires to Peru. It even came to be known in certain circles as "the Jesuit tea." In 1747 one Jesuit priest wrote: "it is the herb of Paraguay, which here and in Chile, and in much of Peru, is what chocolate is to Spain, and even more common, for it is used by the rich, the poor and the slaves."

Another Jesuit who loves drinking mate? Pope Francis. "What's that bowl-pipe thing he carries around and frequently takes a hit off?" Gawker wondered aloud a few years ago. "It's a mate cup with a silver straw. And it's how you drink the caffeine-loaded 'national infusion' of Francis' homeland, Argentina."

Pope Francis sips his mate as he arrives for his general audience at St. Peter's Square in December. Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images

Mate is woven into the very fabric of the region's culture. In The Voyage Of The Beagle, Charles Darwin writes about the comfort of a warm sip: "When it was dark, we made a fire beneath a little arbor of bamboos, fried our charqui (or dried slips of beef), took our mate, and were quite comfortable."

One of the first tango-like songs to be penned, in 1857, is called "Tom mate, che" ("Drink mate che), by Spanish musician Santiago Ramos. He sings: "A girl said, when she saw me, this porteo kills me. Drink mate, che, drink mate. Here on the River Plate, we don't do chocolate." (A porteo is a person from Buenos Aires.)

Brazilian poet and musician Jayme Caetano Braun used the drink to describe aging: "V chupando despacito/Que triste matear solito/Quando a velhice nos bate." (Sucking slowly/ how sad to drink mate alone/ when old age hits us.)

There's a whole art to preparing a hot mate. Here's how I was taught. First, you have to get a good container for the brew. Cups made of bone are particularly gorgeous. I love the traditional way of drinking it, in a dried calabash gourd. Otherwise, I go for wooden cups. Plastic or metal cups are no-nos for me — you lose that great aged-wood flavor.

A lot of gourds are passed from generation to generation and have a sentimental value (I have my grandfather's gourd at home). But if you buy a gourd made of wood, calabash or cow bone, you must prep it. I was taught to give it a wash and fill it with wet yerba. Leave the leaves there for a day, then rinse and repeat a few times.

As for the mate itself, I've seen it sold in small packages at trendy health-food chains, but it just won't give you that many servings. Go to a South American specialty store and buy a few pounds for a few bucks, you'll thank me for it.

i

My yerba mate gourd Ryan Kellman/Meredith Rizzo/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Ryan Kellman/Meredith Rizzo/NPR

My yerba mate gourd

Ryan Kellman/Meredith Rizzo/NPR

Now that you have your herb, and you've cured the gourd, you are ready to drink a nice hot mate. Fill the gourd about half way in with the dry tea leaves. Next, cover the gourd with your hand or a piece of paper, and shake it just a little, so that the powdered leaves rise to the top and you don't end up drinking them.

There are a lot of different methods to prep mate, but here's what I was taught: Heat water until it is about to break into a boil. Tilt the gourd and pour in the water so that only half of your leaves get wet.

That wet section is where you are going to stick your bombilla, a metal straw with a strainer at one end. Once the bombilla is in, pour more water into that wet little pouch, then start sucking on the metal straw.

How To Make Yerba Mate

After adding the tea leaves, 1. Cover the gourd with your hand, tilt and lightly shake out the dust. 2. Pour the hot water so only half your mate leaves get wet. 3. Insert the bombilla into damp area. 4. Add water to the depression created by the spoon.

Source: NPR

Credit: Ryan Kellman/Meredith Rizzo

I know a lot of purists who look with disdain upon those who add sugar to the drink. But there are so many great ways to prep and flavor mate. I sometimes toast orange and lemon peels, then add them to the gourd. A friend of my father's used to pour hot milk instead of water. I've heard of people pouring alcohol or coffee into their mate. That's a little much, if you ask me, because mate already has plenty of caffeine.

A lot has been said about the health benefits of mate. My grandpa swore by it, and he lived until almost 100. But he also went dancing every weekend, which probably did more to keep him young.

The drink is popularly used to lose weight, a virtue which is debated. One study found that a mix of mate and other herbs administered to overweight patients helped them feel full faster. And while research suggests mate contains plenty of vitamins, antioxidants and minerals, don't go guzzling it by the gallon. Some studies have also hinted at a link between heavy consumption and an increased risk in oral and lung cancers – especially in smokers.

"When it comes to teas or herbals that might have medicinal properties, it's not a regulated thing," Katherine Zerasky, a registered dietician with the Mayo Clinic, tells The Salt. "[Drink] it in moderation, and within the context of a healthy diet."

And don't forget to keep it social. The beauty of mate is that you share it with friends and family: Pour yourself some hot water, drink until the gourd is dry, then pass it along to the next person.

yerba mate

Tea Tuesdays

mate

foodways

South America

At first glance, it's a typical scene: Two teenage girls lean their heads together engrossed in conversation as they munch on tuna salad on a bagel and fries.

But listen to Memory Banda, 18, from Malawi and 16-year old Achie (whose last name is not provided because of her age) from Ethiopia, and you'll hear an earful about a lot of things you wouldn't expect, They're talking about how tough it is to be young and female in Africa. They're discussing how child marriage and female genital mutilation are just two of the obstacles to girls getting an education. They're commiserating about the challenge of getting health care and of finding jobs that will let them lead a better life.

But they're not just griping. Memory and Achie each push for change in their communities.

The teens came to New York last week to speak on some panels at the United Nations 59th Commission on the Status of Women. They were brought to the conference by Let Girls Lead, a nonprofit group based at the Public Health Institute. (The Gates Foundation is a funder of both the Public Health Institute and NPR.)

I got to join the girls for lunch and conversation. Here is an edited and condensed version of our interview.

The two of you are so comfortable with each other, it's as if you have known each other forever. But you just met last week?

Achie: Yes, we just met last week, and we're best friends on Facebook now! We are about the same age, we're both petite and we share the same goals to help women.

Memory: Also, both of us also like to write in our spare time — she writes essays, I write poetry. I write in both English and in Chichewa, which is my native language at home [which is Chiradzulu in the Southern Region of Malawi]. She won a prize for one of her essays!

What was the prize-winning essay about?

Achie: The topic was what would you see if you envisioned yourself as a satellite, what you saw and what you would like the change in the world. I wrote about how Africans need to stand up together and voice a desire for change and a vision for the future. I write mostly in English. Amharic is the language we speak at home.

What made you want to work for women's rights?

Memory: In my community in southern part of Malawi the tradition is that once a girl reaches puberty, you go to an initiation camp where we are taught how to be a woman — how to satisfy a man. As part of that you go through a sexual initiation with a man.

And did you?

Memory: I did not. This was a hard decision. My family and friends were calling me a stubborn little girl because it felt to them like I was embarrassing the family. But for me it was a life decision. I knew that some girls come back pregnant, they get married, they cannot go to school, and if the men run away from their responsibility the girls are left on their own with the children. That was not for me.

But when my younger sister reached puberty, she went to the camp. She ended up getting pregnant and had to marry to the person who impregnated her. She was 11. This is what I saw and what I wanted to change.

What are you doing to help make change happen?

Memory: I had the idea to put up posters in my neighborhood offering free lessons to the adolescent mothers. And 20 girls joined the class. That led to my working with Let Girls Lead to help create networks for girls and advocating to help stop child marriage..... So if you ask me what is it like to be a teenager here, it was a struggle. You get anxious as adolescence approaches because you know what you're going to go through.

Achie, tell us about your life in Addis Ababa.

Achie: I live in a nice neighborhood, and go to a good school, but this is not the life that many young girls in Ethiopia have.

Early marriage is also a problem in my country. There are traditional views about women, and they are not expected to go to school. There is also female genital mutilation. In my family there is nothing like that, but I would volunteer in organizations [to tutor] and I would talk to girls and hear their stories. Listening, you just have a feeling of how heavy a burden they are carrying and you cannot be quiet about it. When they share with you what they have experienced, you feel part of it and you want to act on it.

How has volunteering changed you?

Achie: I used to be a really shy girl and even if an opportunity was in front of me I would underestimate myself and not do it. That is how I was until I was 14.

At that time, I was working as a summer volunteer tutoring children from ages 5 to 16, and even though I was among the youngest of the volunteers, I was asked to lead one of the programs as a school coordinator. I was afraid, but I said yes, and it was my best decision. I opened up. I became less shy and more outspoken.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Memory: I have the dream of becoming a lawyer. And also journalism.

Achie: I plan on being an engineer, though haven't decided yet what type. And if I/when I get the opportunity to study in the U.S., I would love it. And I'm also planning on doing more work for empowering girls.

Goats and Soda

Meet The 15-Year-Old From Rural Guatemala Who Addressed The U.N.

What do you do in your free time, when you're not studying or working to help women?

Memory: I like to hang out with my friends. I'm an addict of writing, poems about women, and young girls and coping with being a teenager. And my favorite sport at school is lawn tennis. I am the only girl on the team.

Achie: I design dresses. I don't make them, I sketch them for fun. They are modern, but with a traditional Ethiopian sense. I also play basketball, even though I am short. And I have a blue belt in Tae Kwan Do.

malawi

Ethiopia

As scholarly buzzkills have long told us, corned beef isn't really Irish. So what to do if you want a taste of the Emerald Isle on Saint Patrick's Day? Instead of green, maybe look for the yellow — a pat of Irish butter. Although most Americans are familiar with images of Ireland's green rolling hills, few realize that they're the secret to a deliciously buttery empire.

"It goes back to the Emerald Isle," explains Pat O'Keeffe, deputy editor of Irish Farmers Journal. "The green land is our competitive advantage. Those rolling green hills are great for growing grass. You need frequent and regular rainfall, and we've got plenty of that."

The actual Irish cows themselves aren't that different from their American counterparts — in both countries, over 90 percent of milkers are Holstein Friesians, those iconic black-and-whites. What it comes down to is what the cows are eating.

Irish cows graze on those temperate rolling green hills from March to October, and are only milked during those months. (A small number, O'Keeffe estimates 10 percent, are milked year round for drinking, or fluid, milk, but butter's the real business.) Grass-fed milk produces a rich butter, yellow with natural beta-carotene. The polyunsaturated fats in fresh grass also make for pats that are softer than those from hay or grain — all the better for spreading across your scone. Like most European dairy, Irish cream also has a higher butterfat content, creating soft butter with a richer mouthfeel. And the end result?

i

Holstein Fresian dairy cows make their way towards pasture in County Cavan, Ireland. Irish cows graze on the country's rolling green hills from March to October, and most are only milked during those months. Tom Stoddart/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Tom Stoddart/Getty Images

Holstein Fresian dairy cows make their way towards pasture in County Cavan, Ireland. Irish cows graze on the country's rolling green hills from March to October, and most are only milked during those months.

Tom Stoddart/Getty Images

"I have to be careful for an American audience," Pat O'Keeffe hedges for a diplomatic moment, "but we'd say it's [like the difference between] chalk and cheese."

And those feelings of nostalgia (and unabashed superiority) toward Irish butter can run deep, even after leaving Ireland. When Dublin-born Lisa Jacobs' family emigrated to the United States, her parents continued to seek out Irish butter. And when she dropped out of law school to start making cheese in the similarly green-and-rainy Pacific Northwest, her father not-so-gently suggested that Jacobs Creamery make him some good, Irish-style butter. Jacobs even smuggled some grass and wildflower seed to cultivate the cows' fields, seeing if she could capture some of that Irish terroir in her hand-churned product.

But far before this modern evangelism, Irish butter had its fans. Ancient stashes of butter dating back 1,000 years — and up to 3,000 years — are routinely dug out of the Irish peat bogs. Scholars speculate the butter was either a high-value offering, buried ritualistically, or else a foodstuff stored in the bog as a primitive refrigeration technique. (Either way, the phenomenon is given the irresistible term "bog butter.") Although this millennia-old butter isn't quite ready for toast, butter is a long-lived product. Which means it can be shipped — and it was.

i

Butter samples from the first quarter of the 20th Century in Ireland. Cork Butter Museum hide caption

itoggle caption Cork Butter Museum

Butter samples from the first quarter of the 20th Century in Ireland.

Cork Butter Museum

"Cork butter was the first global food brand," explains Peter Foynes, director of the Cork Butter Museum (and yes, there is a butter museum).

The Cork Butter Exchange was established in the late 18th century, and in its day was the largest butter market in the world. Irish butter was tied to British expansion, as buckets made their way onto ships loaded for the sugar routes, or crossed the Atlantic to feed troops fighting to quell the American Revolution. Hundreds of thousands of casks left Ireland every year, heading everywhere from Australia to Brazil, France to the West Indies. Miles of "butter roads" helped even remote rural farmers bring their butter into the global marketplace.

But after this peak — Foynes puts it in the 1870s — Irish butter production began to trail off, due to a number of factors. Colonies had steadily been establishing their own agriculture, rendering Irish exports less important. But the biggest blow came in 1879, with the mechanical separator.

i

Butter is inspected inside a creamery in Dublin, Ireland, during the first quarter of the 20th century. Cork Butter Museum hide caption

itoggle caption Cork Butter Museum

Butter is inspected inside a creamery in Dublin, Ireland, during the first quarter of the 20th century.

Cork Butter Museum

Even as farmers mechanized the butter-churning process, they had long been hampered by separating — patiently waiting for the to-be-churned cream to rise to the top (a process that takes 24-36 hours, depending upon the temperature). With the centrifuge-like mechanical separator, that wait time is eliminated. Unfortunately, Irish farmers were late adopters — by the time they mechanized, the industry was 20 years behind. By the early 20th century, the Cork Butter Market had closed.

But luckily for lovers of good Irish butter, its grass-fed richness has made a comeback. Farms banded together to form the Irish Dairy Board in 1961, which developed popular Kerrygold Irish butter. (The company says it's now the No. 4 butter in the U.S.) And the next decade's E.U. membership brought with it milk subsidies, laying the bedrock for increased dairy production (and even over-production, leading to established quotas). Later fears of saturated fats hit the Irish butter industry, as they did all dairy, but recent data seems to be moving consumers beyond those margarine moments, and back to the full, sunny swipe of butter.

"Some of the science — or alleged science — has changed," notes Irish ag journalist Pat O'Keeffe. But like a good Irishman, he was never swayed. "It was always a good product. Butter today is still as good as it was."

And with the 30-year-old E.U. dairy quotas set to expire on April 1, this product could be on the brink of a new buttery era.

st patrick's day

food history

butter

food science

foodways

Ireland

As scholarly buzzkills have long told us, corned beef isn't really Irish. So what to do if you want a taste of the Emerald Isle on Saint Patrick's Day? Instead of green, maybe look for the yellow — a pat of Irish butter. Although most Americans are familiar with images of Ireland's green rolling hills, few realize that they're the secret to a deliciously buttery empire.

"It goes back to the Emerald Isle," explains Pat O'Keeffe, deputy editor of Irish Farmers Journal. "The green land is our competitive advantage. Those rolling green hills are great for growing grass. You need frequent and regular rainfall, and we've got plenty of that."

The actual Irish cows themselves aren't that different from their American counterparts — in both countries, over 90 percent of milkers are Holstein Friesians, those iconic black-and-whites. What it comes down to is what the cows are eating.

Irish cows graze on those temperate rolling green hills from March to October, and are only milked during those months. (A small number, O'Keeffe estimates 10 percent, are milked year round for drinking, or fluid, milk, but butter's the real business.) Grass-fed milk produces a rich butter, yellow with natural beta-carotene. The polyunsaturated fats in fresh grass also make for pats that are softer than those from hay or grain — all the better for spreading across your scone. Like most European dairy, Irish cream also has a higher butterfat content, creating soft butter with a richer mouthfeel. And the end result?

i

Holstein Fresian dairy cows make their way towards pasture in County Cavan, Ireland. Irish cows graze on the country's rolling green hills from March to October, and most are only milked during those months. Tom Stoddart/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Tom Stoddart/Getty Images

Holstein Fresian dairy cows make their way towards pasture in County Cavan, Ireland. Irish cows graze on the country's rolling green hills from March to October, and most are only milked during those months.

Tom Stoddart/Getty Images

"I have to be careful for an American audience," Pat O'Keeffe hedges for a diplomatic moment, "but we'd say it's [like the difference between] chalk and cheese."

And those feelings of nostalgia (and unabashed superiority) toward Irish butter can run deep, even after leaving Ireland. When Dublin-born Lisa Jacobs' family emigrated to the United States, her parents continued to seek out Irish butter. And when she dropped out of law school to start making cheese in the similarly green-and-rainy Pacific Northwest, her father not-so-gently suggested that Jacobs Creamery make him some good, Irish-style butter. Jacobs even smuggled some grass and wildflower seed to cultivate the cows' fields, seeing if she could capture some of that Irish terroir in her hand-churned product.

But far before this modern evangelism, Irish butter had its fans. Ancient stashes of butter dating back 1,000 years — and up to 3,000 years — are routinely dug out of the Irish peat bogs. Scholars speculate the butter was either a high-value offering, buried ritualistically, or else a foodstuff stored in the bog as a primitive refrigeration technique. (Either way, the phenomenon is given the irresistible term "bog butter.") Although this millennia-old butter isn't quite ready for toast, butter is a long-lived product. Which means it can be shipped — and it was.

i

Butter samples from the first quarter of the 20th Century in Ireland. Cork Butter Museum hide caption

itoggle caption Cork Butter Museum

Butter samples from the first quarter of the 20th Century in Ireland.

Cork Butter Museum

"Cork butter was the first global food brand," explains Peter Foynes, director of the Cork Butter Museum (and yes, there is a butter museum).

The Cork Butter Exchange was established in the late 18th century, and in its day was the largest butter market in the world. Irish butter was tied to British expansion, as buckets made their way onto ships loaded for the sugar routes, or crossed the Atlantic to feed troops fighting to quell the American Revolution. Hundreds of thousands of casks left Ireland every year, heading everywhere from Australia to Brazil, France to the West Indies. Miles of "butter roads" helped even remote rural farmers bring their butter into the global marketplace.

But after this peak — Foynes puts it in the 1870s — Irish butter production began to trail off, due to a number of factors. Colonies had steadily been establishing their own agriculture, rendering Irish exports less important. But the biggest blow came in 1879, with the mechanical separator.

i

Butter is inspected inside a creamery in Dublin, Ireland, during the first quarter of the 20th century. Cork Butter Museum hide caption

itoggle caption Cork Butter Museum

Butter is inspected inside a creamery in Dublin, Ireland, during the first quarter of the 20th century.

Cork Butter Museum

Even as farmers mechanized the butter-churning process, they had long been hampered by separating — patiently waiting for the to-be-churned cream to rise to the top (a process that takes 24-36 hours, depending upon the temperature). With the centrifuge-like mechanical separator, that wait time is eliminated. Unfortunately, Irish farmers were late adopters — by the time they mechanized, the industry was 20 years behind. By the early 20th century, the Cork Butter Market had closed.

But luckily for lovers of good Irish butter, its grass-fed richness has made a comeback. Farms banded together to form the Irish Dairy Board in 1961, which developed popular Kerrygold Irish butter. (The company says it's now the No. 4 butter in the U.S.) And the next decade's E.U. membership brought with it milk subsidies, laying the bedrock for increased dairy production (and even over-production, leading to established quotas). Later fears of saturated fats hit the Irish butter industry, as they did all dairy, but recent data seems to be moving consumers beyond those margarine moments, and back to the full, sunny swipe of butter.

"Some of the science — or alleged science — has changed," notes Irish ag journalist Pat O'Keeffe. But like a good Irishman, he was never swayed. "It was always a good product. Butter today is still as good as it was."

And with the 30-year-old E.U. dairy quotas set to expire on April 1, this product could be on the brink of a new buttery era.

st patrick's day

food history

butter

food science

foodways

Ireland