Cow knuckle bone

There is an ancient strand of medicine, which held that natural plants and objects which look or behave like the organ or body part with the ailment, would be useful in its healing. This logic of resemblance is called the doctrine of signatures and has been discredited by western medicine, but the ideas still persist in some traditions. Fennel bulbs must be good for the heart, tree fungus must treat the ears. If we made a bone broth out of this, what could it treat, heart disease? Love sickness? Emotional Cowardliness?

Otherwise known as the astragalus, animal knucklebones were the forerunner of modern dice, in games of chance. This is from a cow’s ankle and was probably more likely to have been left over from dinner preparations.