[Sca-cooks] Help in translation?

[tgl at mailer.uni-marburg.de]

<< I came across this recipe for a pomander on page 86 of Handbook of
English Costume in the Sixteenth Century by C. Willet Cunnington.
Plymouth State has this out of print book. I didn't get the source this
quotation was from ... >>

It seems to me that it is from Andrew Boorde's Dietary of Health (1542):

"(...) Or els make a
pomemaunder vnder this manor. Take of Lapdanum
.iii. drammes, of the wodde of Aloes one drame, of amber
of grece .ii. drames and a half; of nutmegges, of storax
calamite, of eche a drame and a half; confect all these
<<291>>
togyther with Rose-water, & make a ball. And this
aforesayd Pomemaunder doth not onely expell contagyous
ayre, but also it doth comforte the brayne, as
Barthelmew of Montagnaue sayth, & other modernall
doctors doth afferme the same: (...)"
(Andrew Boorde's Introduction and Dyetary ... Ed. F.J. Furnivall. London
1870, EETS E.S. 10, page 290-91).

It seems to me that _labdanum_ both means:
-- the plant: "Hills green with flowering shrubs, and in particular with
labdanum." (OED, quot. from 1775)
-- the resin of the plant: "Labdane, Labdanum; a fat, clammie,
transparent, and sweet-smelling Gumme." (Cotrgrave 1611; OED)

storax calamite:
"1694 Pechey Compl. Herbal 333 The resin of Storax, which is sold in the
Shops is two-fold, dry and liquid. The dry is called Storax-Calamite
because it is put up in Reeds." (OED)

Th.