This is a Mediaeval recipe designed to commemorate the bitter herbs eaten by the Jews during the original Passover period.

If you are adding violet leaves- from empirical experience I am adding the caution: only use fresh, small new violet leaves. Wash these very well. Half a dozen leaves is probably too much - or share a leaf of violet between two or three people in a reduced recipe.

Violet leaves are an herbal remedy for the heart- a tonic. Too many of them feel like an uncomfortable overdose of too much internalized soap - that 'prelude to a stroke' feeling.

Keep the caution for leaves of feverfew, one flower of which is used as a dose for migraine. Use two feverfew leaves per ten people, as a homeopathic dose which will do them good.

We North Americans overdo things, and no doubt, in the fervent, pious Middle Ages, great suffering doses of the bitter herbs were used (lest we forget) in the hope that over-wintering minutiae would get the hint to leave into the Spring outdoors.

"Tansies" get their name from the insect repellent- Tansy .