[Sca-cooks] An ingredient listing

[Johnna Holloway]

This paragraph is discussed in Food in Shakespeare: early modern  
dietaries and the plays
  by Joan Fitzpatrick. Just pulled my copy off the shelf.
Chapter 2 "Celtic Acquaintance and Alterity" examines Henry V and  
MacBeth.
The mummy ingredient, she writes, "refers to the remains of a embalmed  
corpse."
"As Melvin Ealres pointed out "Mummy Mumia was included in the London  
Pharmacopoeia of 1618."
The ingredient would restore withered limbs, help with ulcers, cure  
consumption, and help with blood problems. Apparently there were  
recipes for creating one's own (artificial)  mummy made from the newly  
dead.
The ingredient list also calls for "Liver of blaspheming Jew" and  
"Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips."

Johnnae

On May 22, 2011, at 5:02 PM, Alexandria Doyle wrote:

> I've been researching the witches potions ingredients from MacBeth.
> One site here<http://www.mamalisa.com/blog/the-three-witches-spell-in-macbeth-double-double-toil-and-trouble/ 
> >
> claims that witches mummy was "a medicinal substance".  At least one
> other site suggests that they are refering to actual mummified human
> remains.  I wanted to see if anyone here knows if this is correct, or
> if this is a reference to a plant substance?