Food as Medicine

These bath bombs are made from ingredients from my kitchen larder. Everything in them, apart from a few drops of essential oil to make them smell nice, is edible.

Then, drop a little sphere into a warm bath and it fizzles in circles, like air coming out of a balloon. Watch, and a whole lot of things start to happen, none of which I really understand. But it's something to do with the baking soda reacting with the citric acid and the salt releasing its rich store of elements. Whatever causes it - the result is velvety bath water that your skin seems to ingest. Assembling ingredients for this purpose certainly gives a whole new meaning to the art of cooking.

Food as medicine, food as cosmetic. When did it happen that our larder became disconnected from our medicine chest? In an age where science has taken away our confidence and given us back the great confidence trick of nutraceuticals, we need to remember that for many ordinary ailments, and to prevent more sinister health problems, the cook practitioner can go a long way with ingredients like yogurt, herbs, salt, vinegar, seaweed, lemon juice and baking soda.

Bathbombs

200g baking soda
100g citric acid
100g corn starch
100g fine sea salt
scant tablespoon water
about 60 drops of camomile oil
2.5 tablespoons oil (I used organic sesame oil)
yellow food colouring

Mix the dry ingredients together with your hands, squeezing out all the lumps. Mix the wet ingredients in a jar, put the lid on and shake to form something of an emulsion. Slowly pour the contents of the jar into the dry ingredients mixing all the while. You should end up with something that has the consistency of wet sand, and will hold together if you squeeze into a ball.

Press the bombs into a mold. You can use anything really, including simple cup cake containers. I used those plastic circles that are used to hang photographs on Christmas trees. Press everything together tightly.

The bomb, technically will last for a few months, but I can’t imaging ever keeping them that long. This made enough for four large molds.