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Apple Tansy
Pare and core six or eight large apples, cut them into thin, round slices, and fry them in butter. Then beat up three eggs in a pint of cream, and pour this upon the apples. Time to fry the apples, five minutes. Probable cost, 1s. 8d. Sufficient for five or six persons.
The recipe assumes knowledge the book expects you to already have: it stops after the custard is poured on and never tells you to cook it. A tansy is finished like a thick pancake or frittata, set slowly over low heat and turned or browned on top.
- The missing instructionOnce the egg and cream go in, cook the pan over low heat until the custard is just set, about 8-12 minutes, then either flip it or slide the pan under a hot broiler to colour the surface. Set over high heat it will curdle and weep before the centre firms.
- An imperial pintCassell's pint is 20 fl oz, a little under 2 1/2 US cups of cream to three eggs. That is a very loose custard by modern standards; four or five eggs to the same cream gives a tansy that will hold a wedge.
- CreamCream then was not standardised, and hand-skimmed it was generally nearer today's single or light cream than to heavy whipping cream. Heavy cream will make it dense and rich rather than wrong.
- The applesUse a firm cooking variety - Bramley, Granny Smith, Braeburn - cut in rings about 1/4 inch thick so they hold shape in the butter. Softer dessert apples collapse into sauce in the five minutes given.
- PanA heavy skillet, ovenproof if you intend to finish it under the broiler, and as wide as you have. The apples want to sit in something close to one layer; six to eight large apples will crowd a small pan and the custard will never set through.
- Sweetening and spiceThe recipe gives none. Sugar, nutmeg and rosewater are all associated with tansies of the period, though this entry does not mention them. Two or three tablespoons of sugar in the egg mixture and a grating of nutmeg suits modern palates.
- Cost and yield1s. 8d. is the Victorian household reckoning for the whole dish, not a unit price. It serves five or six as a sweet course, cut in wedges and dusted with sugar.
A tansy took its name from the bitter herb Tanacetum vulgare, whose juice coloured and flavoured the egg dishes eaten in England around Easter - the bitterness is often linked to the bitter herbs of Passover, though that association is traditional rather than documented. By the time Cassell's was compiled in the 1870s the herb had largely fallen out of use and "tansy" meant simply a sweet fried custard-pancake, usually with apples, sometimes with breadcrumbs or ground almonds. Butter, fruit, eggs and cream cooked in one pan: the same set of operations that underlies an omelette, a custard and a fruit fritter. Its terseness is deliberate - the reader is expected to recognise the form and know when the eggs have caught.