Get the #Oven On

Get the #Oven   On
#Tansy  

Originally shared by Jon “the chef” Hole

To make a Plain Tansy
A New and Easy Method of Cookery by Elizabeth Cleland (1755)

TAKE a fine stale Penny Loaf, and cut the Crumb in thin Shaves;
Put it in a Bowl,
Then boil a Mutchkin of Cream and when boiled, pour it over the Bread
Then cover the Bowl with a Plate and let it lay a Quarter of an Hour

Then mix it with eight Eggs well beaten
Two Gills of the Juice of Spinage,
Two Spoonfuls of the Juice of Tansy

Sweeten it with Sugar, Nutmeg, and a little Brandy

Rub your Pan with Butter, and put it in it; then keep it stirring on the Fire till it is pretty thick
Then put it in a buttered Dish ,you may either bake it, or do it in the Dripping-Pan under roasted Meat

Notes on Tansy : The scent is similar to that of camphor with hints of rosemary.
The leaves and flowers are toxic if consumed in large quantities
The volatile oil contains toxic compounds including thujone, which can cause convulsions and liver and brain damage.

Some insects, notably the tansy beetle Chrysolina graminis, have resistance to the toxins and subsist almost exclusively on the plant.

In the 15th century, Christians began serving tansy with Lenten meals to commemorate the bitter herbs eaten by the Israelites.

Tansy was thought to have the added Lenten benefits of controlling flatulence brought on by days of eating fish and pulses and of preventing the intestinal worms believed to be caused by eating fish during Lent.

Henry Dunster, the first president of Harvard University was buried wearing a tansy wreath in a coffin packed with tansy; when “God’s Acre” was moved in 1846 the tansy had maintained its shape and fragrance, helping to identify the president’s remains.

By the 19th century, tansy was used so much at New England funerals that people began to disdain it for its morbid association with death.

During the American colonial period, meat was frequently rubbed with or packed in tansy leaves to repel insects and delay spoilage

Tansy was frequently worn at that time in shoes to prevent malaria and other fevers.

During the Restoration, a "tansy" was a sweet omelette flavoured with tansy juice.

In the BBC documentary "The Supersizers go ... Restoration" 
Allegra McEvedy described the flavour as "fruity, sharpness to it and then there's a sort of explosion of cool heat a bit like peppermint

However, the programme's presenter Sue Perkins experienced tansy toxicity.

According to liquor historian A. J. Baime, in the 19th century Tennessee whiskey magnate Jack Daniel enjoyed drinking his own whiskey with sugar and crushed tansy leaf.

Ps My kind of oven in the picture.

#Tansy