Tansy was highly esteemed in England as a medicine, a cosmetic, and a flavoring and ingredient in cooking. It was rubbed over raw meat to keep the flies away and prevent decay, for in those days of no refrigerators there had to be strong measures taken for the preservation of all perishable food. Its strong scent and taste would be deemed intolerable to us, who can scarce endure even the milder Sage in any large quantity. A good folk name for it is "Bitter Buttons." Gerarde wrote of Tansy, "In the spring time, are made with the leaves hereof newly sprung up, and with Eggs, cakes or Tansies, which be pleasant in Taste and goode for the Stomach." [Illustration: Sage.] "To Make a Tansie the Best Way," I learn from _The Accomplisht Cook_, was thus:-- "Take twenty Eggs, and take away five whites, strain them with a quart of good sweet thick Cream, and put to it a grated nutmeg, a race of ginger grated, as much cinnamon beaten fine, and a penny white loaf grated also, mix them all together with a little salt, then stamp some green wheat with some tansie herbs, strain it into the cream and eggs and stir all together; then take a clean frying-pan, and a quarter of a pound of butter, melt it, and put in the tansie, and stir it continually over the fire with a slice, ladle, or saucer, chop it, and break it as it thickens, and being well incorporated put it out of the pan into a dish, and chop it very fine; then make the frying-pan very clean, and put in some more butter, melt it, and fry it whole or in spoonfuls; being finely fried on both sides, dish it up and sprinkle it with rose-vinegar, grape-verjuyce, elder-vinegar, cowslip-vinegar, or the juyce of three or four oranges, and strow on a good store of fine sugar." To all of this we can say that it would certainly be a very good dish--without the Tansy. Another mediaeval recipe was of Tansy, Feverfew, Parsley, and Violets mixed with eggs, fried in butter, and sprinkled with sugar. The Minnow-Tansie of old Izaak Walton, a "Tanzie for Lent," was made thus:-- "Being well washed with salt and cleaned, and their heads and tails cut off, and not washed after, they prove excellent for that use; that is being fried with the yolks of eggs, the flowers of cowslips and of primroses, and a little tansy, thus used they make a dainty dish."