17th Century: Apple Tansy

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Preparation info
  • Makes a 25 cm 10 inch pancake; serves

    4–6

    • Difficulty

      Easy

Appears in
Pride and Pudding: The History of British Puddings, Savoury and Sweet

By Regula Ysewijn

Published 2016

  • About

A tansy is a medieval egg bake using the bitter herb tansy. It would have been a dish made exclusively in spring when the tansy herb isn’t poisonous. Because of this seasonal link, the dish became associated with Easter and Lent. It would indeed be a perfect dish to use up the last eggs before fasting. Intriguing is the fact that in Flanders we have a pancake called ‘kruidkoek’ which is also made using tansy. It is a pancake that is now only eaten around the town of Diest, but it used to be