The Herb Garden 127 



mon beaten fine, and a penny white loaf grated also, mix 

 them all together with a little salt, then stamp some 

 green wheat with some tansie herbs, strain it into the 

 cream and eggs and stir all together ; then take a clean 

 frying-pan, and a quarter of a pound of butter, melt it, and 

 put in the tansie, and stir it continually over the fire with 

 a slice, ladle, or saucer, chop it, and break it as it thickens, 

 and being well incorporated put it out of the pan into a 

 dish, and chop it very fine ; then make the frying-pan very 

 clean, and put in some more butter, melt it, and fry it 

 whole or in spoonfuls ; being finely fried on both sides, 

 dish it up and sprinkle it with rose-vinegar, grape-verjuyce, 

 elder-vinegar, cowslip-vinegar, or the juyce of three or 

 four oranges, and strow on a good store of fine sugar." 



To all of this we can say that it would certainly 

 be a very good dish — without the Tansv. An- 

 other mediaeval recipe was of Tansy, Feverfew, 

 Parsley, and Violets mixed with eggs, fried in butter, 

 and sprinkled with sugar. 



The Minnow-Tansie of old Izaak Walton, a 

 "Tanzie for Lent," was made thus: — 



" Being well washed with salt and cleaned, and their 

 heads and tails cut ofF, and not washed after, they prove ex- 

 cellent for that use ; that is being fried with the yolks of 

 eggs, the flowers of cowslips and of primroses, and a little 

 tansy, thus used they make a dainty dish." 



The name Tansy was given afterward to a rich 

 fruit cake which had no Tansy in it. It was appar- 

 ently a favorite dish of Pepys. A certain derivative 

 custom obtained in some New England towns — 

 certainly in Hartford and vicinity. Tansy was used 



