OF SUNDRY HERBS 129 



through a straining bag, put it in a cool place and give it to 

 drink. From The Receipt Book of Vincent la Chapelle, 

 Chief Cook to the Prince of Orange, 1744. 



TANSY 



" I have heard that if maids will take wild Tansy and lay 

 it to soake in Buttermilk for the space of nine days and 

 wash their faces therewith, it will make them look very 

 faire." The Virtuose Boke of Distyllacion, by Master Jherom 

 Brunswyke, 1527. 



Our garden tansy was originally the wild tansy, but all 

 the old herbalists say that the latter has far more virtue 

 both in its leaves and flowers. The name tansy is derived 

 from Athanasia (immortality), and the plant is dedicated 

 to St. Athanasius. A tansy was a favourite dish in the 

 eighteenth century, and was as inseparable from a bill of 

 fare for Easter as roast goose at Michaelmas, or a gooseberry 

 tart at Whitsun. Before mint became recognised as the 

 proper accompaniment to roast lamb, tansy was used in the 

 same way. Tansy puddings and tansy cakes were com- 

 monly eaten during spring, and tansy tea was a recognised 

 cure for colds and rheumatism. 



TANSY TEA. Dry bunches of tansy (leaves and flowers) 

 in the summer. On one ounce of the dried tansy pour a 

 pint of boiling water. 



How TO MAKE A TANSY IN LENT.- Take all maner of 

 hearbes and the spawn of a Pike or of any other fish and 

 blanched almond and a few crums of bread and a little faire 

 water and a pinte of Rose-water and mingle altogether and 

 make it not too thin and frie it in oyl and so serve it in. 

 The Good Housewife's Handmaid, 1588. 



How TO MAKE A TANSY. Take a little tansy, featherfew, 

 parsley and violets, and stampe them altogether and straine 

 them with the yolkes of eight or tenne eggs, and three or 

 foure whites, and some vinegar and put thereto sugar or 

 salt and frie it. Ibid. 



