Every country boasts traditional Easter recipes, but if some dishes have resisted the passage of time by continuing to be handed down from generation to generation, this was not the case for the “tansy”, the Easter pancake of medieval English cuisine which ended up being completely forgotten.
It is a green herbal dessert, similar in some ways to a pancake or an omelette, whose name derives from the perennial herbaceous plant tansy (tanacetum vulgare)slightly toxic and spread spontaneously throughout the UK.
In the past, the leaves and young shoots of tansy were often used to flavor puddings and omelettes and the plant was also used to prepare teas used as tonics and against intestinal worms.
The recipe involved cooking a batter flavored with green tansy juice, in other 16th century recipes parsley and violets were added, and sometimes spinach juice.
Another 18th-century recipe from The Compleat Housewife sweetened fried tansy with gooseberries and a topping of crushed sugar.
According to some 19th century authors, the tradition of eating tansy with a sweet/bitter flavor was connected to the Jewish tradition of eating sweets made from bitter herbs. And it is likely that it originally had a medicinal purpose as tansy was believed to be able to heal various ailments and was good for the stomach and intestines.
Because the tansy has disappeared from the tables
The disappearance of the tansy did not happen by chance, but was probably the result of several converging factors. With the progress of botanical knowledge between the 17th and 18th centuries, the toxicity of tansy became increasingly known and documented: the plant contains thuione, a compound which in high doses can be harmful to the nervous system, and this was enough to make it increasingly difficult to justify its use in food. But toxicity alone doesn’t explain everything. European taste was changing: the bitter and pungent flavor that had characterized much of medieval cuisine began to give way to sweeter and more delicate preparations, also favored by the greater availability of sugar. Tansy thus found itself both suspect and out of fashion, a difficult combination for any traditional dish to survive.
He wasn’t the only one to disappear
Tansy is in good company among European Easter dishes that have slipped into oblivion. In France, for example, a spring soup based on wild herbs was widespread, served on Easter day as a purifying ritual after Lent, but was gradually abandoned with the emergence of more elaborate tables. In Germany, some preparations based on dried fish and spices, typical of the medieval Easter period, disappeared with the changing trade routes and local tastes. What these lost dishes have in common is often the same story: born in a precise symbolic and medicinal context, they lost meaning when that context dissolved.
The attempt to bring him back to life
In recent years, historical cuisine has experienced a real rebirth, driven by enthusiasts, researchers and digital creators who dedicate time and resources to the faithful reconstruction of ancient recipes. Tansy was no exception: some Anglo-Saxon communities specializing in medieval and Tudor cuisine attempted to propose updated versions, replacing the tansy juice with less risky herbs such as mint or parsley, to preserve its green color and aromatic character without the risks associated with toxicity. The result is a dish that will never be identical to the original, but which at least allows you to get closer to a gastronomic experience that would otherwise be lost forever.
SOURCES: Oxford Reference/lostcookbook/wikipedia
