Lettice & Lovage ephemera
Tansy
Caution: Don't use any herb, especially tansy, without exploring the literature on its side effects. It really does have some! Here is a fine collection of information on tansy, from which the following recipe comes. (I've adapted it in small ways.)
Beat seven small eggs, yolks and whites separately. Add a pint of cream, nearly the same amount of spinach juice, and a little tansy juice obtained by pounding in a stone mortar. Add a quarter of a pound of Naples biscuit, sugar to taste, a glass of white wine, and some nutmeg. Pour the mixture into the top of a double boiler and stir over boiling water until barely thickened; then place in a pie or quiche crust and bake till set.
No, I don't have the faintest idea what Naples biscuit is. Let me know what you used in your tansy and how it came out.
| Update, April 15, 2007: Jacqollyne Keath got the part of Lotte in a production by White Rock Players Club, White Rock, British Columbia, and she graciously contributed this solution to the Naples Biscuit problem: NAPLES BISKETS: Naples biscuits, sponge fingers. In Receipt 162, the compiler refers to 'a role of napell bisket' cut in thin slices. This may imply that 'Naples biscuit' sometimes described the sponge mixture, made into whatever shape was most convenient, rather than the fingers themselves as we now buy or make. Although A Queens Delight suggests that Naples biscuit is the same as macaroon mixture, with the addition of pineapple seeds, there is a recipe in John Nott that may fairly be said to represent the norm: 'take a Pound and half of fine Flour, and as much double-refin'd Sugar, twelve Eggs, three Spoonfuls of Rose-water, and an Ounce and half of Carraway-seeds finely pownded, mix them all well together with Water; then put them into Tin-plates, and bake them in a moderate Oven, dissolve some Sugar in Water, and glaze them over.' See also Receipts 244 and 332 for Evelyn's own recipes. As support for the view of A Queens Delight, however, note the recommendation of Receipt 40, reiterated in Receipt 41, that the cook should 'grate in two or three maqueroons or Naples biscuits without seeds' when preparing a pudding of entrails. (John Evelyn, Cook, C17) Congratulations, Jacqollyne, and thanks especially for the last sentence. That pudding would be dreadful without the sponge fingers! |
| Approved Ben Teague web site |
 |
Production pages