A GARDEN OF HERBS
50
CHICKWEED TEA. to
two
One quart
of boiling
water poured on
large handfuls of the plant.
CLARY A
now put young Clary tops in soups, but it is astonishing how much the young leaves and tops were used formerly as a pot-herb. Evelyn tells us that when few cooks
tender it is a good addition to salads, the flowers being strewn on salads, the leaves (chopped) used in Omelets and " the tender leaves, made up with cream," were fried in butter and then eaten with sugar flavoured with Orange or Lemon juice. It was an ingredient in perfumes, in ale and beer and nearly all the home-made wines and metheglins, and Clary wine was famed for its narcotic properties. Hogg in his Vegetable Kingdom and its Products says it was used in Austria in fruit jellies, to which it gave a flavour of ;
pineapple.
CLARY WINE.
Ten gallons of water, thirteen pounds of to the sugar gallon, and the whites of sixteen eggs well beat. Boil it slowly one hour and skim it well. Then put it into a tub till it is almost cold. Take a pint of Clary flowers with the small leaves and stalks, put them into a barrel with a pint of ale yeast, then put in your liquor and stir it twice a day till it has done working. Make it up close and keep it four months, and then bottle it off. John Murrell, A Delightful Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlemen, 1621.
To MAKE CLARY WINE.
Take twelve pounds
of
Malaga
Raisins, after they have been pick'd small and chop'd, put them into a Vessel, a quart of Water to each pound. Let
them stand covered
all
to steep for ten or twelve Days, being kept close the while, stirring them twice every Day after-
wards
strain it off, and put it up in a Cask, quarter of a Peck of the Tops of Clary, when it is in
then stop bottle
it
;
adding a Blossom ;
up close for six weeks, and afterwards you may off, and it will be fit to drink in two or three it