Tea at Trianon: Herbs in Tudor Cooking & Medicine

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, January 8, 2022

Herbs in Tudor Cooking & Medicine

From The Tudor Travel Guide:

Rosemary was generally used in the kitchen for flavouring pottages and also featured as an ingredient in cordials. In the ‘Castel of Health’ (1539), Sir Thomas Elyot says, that ‘Rosemary has many virtues including helping a cough if taken with pepper and honey’. John Partridge advises in ‘The Treasurie of commodious Conceipts’ (1573), that its flowers should be gathered in May. Indeed, he writes about its health benefits (virtues) and praises this herb much more than any others. He recommends putting the leaves into a wine vessel to prevent them from going off. Andrew Boorde praises rosemary for its use in treating ‘fallynge syckenes and for the cowghe, and good against colde’.

According to John Gerard, thyme was hot and dry in the third degree and boiled in water, and drunk with honey could be used to treat a cough: ‘Time boyled in Mede’ cleans the lungs and kills parasitic worms in the bowel. He also tells us that thyme is good against sciatica, and Andrew Boorde thought that thyme could help with breaking up kidney or bladder stones. (Read more.)