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 : — 
u 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 
