Passover and Herbs

From The Christian Calendar	Tansies - A Passover Recipe
This is a Mediaeval recipe designed to commemorate the bitter herbs eaten by the Jews during the original Passover period. Taketh: a pint of cream 20 yolks of egg 10 egg whites 2 spoonsful of rosewater orange juice 6 or 8 pippins (apples) shredded Optional: Leaves of Tansy*, Feverfew*, Violets*, Spinach or of Primrose*.	To the exceptionally huge recipe ( for about twenty people) add the leaves sparingly. Adding any amount of spinach is fine- This recipe could take as much as a bag of shredded spinach. If you are adding violet leaves- from empirical experience I am adding the caution: only use fresh, small new violet leaves. Wash these very well. Half a dozen leaves is probably too much - or share a leaf of violet between two or three people in a reduced recipe. Violet leaves are an herbal remedy for the heart- a tonic. Too many of them feel like an uncomfortable overdose of too much internalized soap.That prelude to a stroke feeling. Keep the caution for leaves of feverfew, one flower of which is used as a dose for migraine. Use two feverfew leaves per ten people, as a homeopathic dose which will do them good. We North Americans overdo things, and no doubt, in the fervent, pious Middle Ages, great suffering doses of the bitter herbs were used (lest we forget) in the hope that over-wintering minutiae would get the hint to leave into the Spring outdoors. "Tansies" get their name from the insect repellent- Tansy . * Add two or three leaves at the most, for ten people. (a tiny hint wilt dew.)

Violet Image from: Nature Library Wild Flower; Bob Press, Marion Short;Viscount Books(page 11)

Tansy image by: Brian Furner, Page 270,The Encyclopaedia of Herbs and Herbalism; edited by: Malcolm Stuart, Orbis Publishing, London

Feverfew and Primrose photos by: Pat Brindley,pp:173 and 274, The Encyclopaedia of Herbs and Herbalism

Recipe from The Christian Calendar: W.Cowie and John Selwyn Gummer, Springfield, Mass.:G and C Merriam CO.;1974