Mixology

An Ayurvedic doctor explores resonances between traditional Indian medicine and an early modern English recipe in the Folger collection that prescribes coriander to “helpe the memorie.”

The Receipt Book of Margaret Baker, compiled in 1675, contains a recipe for a memory-potion called “Confect of Coriander Seed.”

Love-in-idleness, a flower also called pansy or heartsease, plays an important role in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” as Marissa Nicosia explores.

Marissa Nicosia adapts an early modern recipe for heartsease cordial. This purple pansy syrup was used to “clear the heart” – to treat the chest and lungs or to reduce fever – but also for healing heartaches.