Writings
Kirsten is currently studying museum publishing in an MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles.
She is researching antique herbals and period recipes in preparation for her first book on the subject.
Below are some excerpts of her work from 2005 - present. For more of her aromatic essays, visit Arabesque Aroma's Facebook page:
The Sachet Powder in which Queen Isabel Packed Her Dresses
I discovered this recipe in a book of period herbals very early in my aromatic career. For me, the desire was strong to simply recreate the fragrance, and in so doing, experience a sensory moment of Spanish history. But during an idle moment in a Barnes and Nobles, I happened upon a book of Tudor and Jacobean portraiture called Dynasties by Karen Hearn of the Tate Gallery in London. Queen Isabel's portrait and life story, as well as her fragrant, bejewelled dresses, quite drew me in!
Karen Hearn writes "Isabel's relationship to Philip II of Spain is articulated primarily through the striking device of the brilliant rose-pink dress. Wearing this colour, which is very unusual in a portrait, was a recognised sign of love. Indeed, there existed a romantic attachment between Philip and Isabel and their marriage certainly inaugurated a period of social and cultural vivacity at the Spanish court. It is, however, difficult to separate personal emotions from political decorum during this period and her portrait would also have been understood in the context of the relationship between France and Spain. The peace treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, signed in April 1559, was sealed and guaranteed by the marriage between Philip and Isabel. Isabel was christened 'Isabel de la Paz' and taken to their hearts by the Spanish. Her portrait characterisation as young, beautiful, dressed in warm pink and laden with jewels similarly represented her as a kind of peace-trophy: the embodiment of optimism and love" (Hearn, 57).
Reflecting on the considerable personal and political pressures inherent in Isabel's union with Philip II of Spain at 14 years of age, I re-visited her recipe with less of a sensory, and more of a historian's, curiosity.
I soon realized that her Apothecary most certainly took these same personal and political considerations in hand. For Isabel's recipe was much more than a casual fragrance to make her dresses smell sweet and pretty. Indeed, this recipe is closer in nature to a magical prescription, a concoction if you will, carefully and intentionally designed according to ancient folk meaning and symbolism, even invoking the influence of the stars.
Apothecaries, perfumers, chemists, and pharmacists of this time were well-versed in astrology, astronomy and the celestial correlations and assignations of planetary influences upon the human body. Likewise, many cures, medicines, and perfumes for the human body were carefully designed using plants and medicines that were deemed to be an astrologically harmonious cure for the problem/or malady at hand. Consider this quote by Paracelsus "Every physician should simultaneously be an alchemist and an astrologer" (Junius, 96). In my opinion, the carefully selected, balanced, even romantic, combination of ingredients used in Isabel's dress powder reflect these philosophies and considerations.
Queen Isabel's Sachet Powder for Scenting Dresses
Coriander
Gum Benzoin
Calamus
Orris
Red Rose Petals
First, I took note of one of the most commonly used aphrodisiac ingredients of this time period; Coriander. Many herbals of the time period connect Coriander with the fiery, sexual, spicy, active, procreative energies of Mars. But I discovered that Coriander has a dual association with the planet Venus. Certain plants, according to The Practical Handbook of Plant Alchemy by Manfred Junius, were affiliated with more than one planetary body. So - the Renaissance-era herbals regard Coriander to contain the masculine, procreative energy of Mars as well as the feminine, alchemical planet Venus within the very seed itself! "As Ishtar or Ashtaroth, Venus was the goddess of sexual love in Babylon, as Aphrodite in Greece... she ruled over love between man and woman" (Junius, 110) Venus, planet and goddess, also ruled over alchemy. Consider the 'Sacred Marriage' between Philip and Isabel as well as between France and Spain as Junius continues "This planet rules the arts, harmony, proportion, affection, and the ability to integrate separate things into a whole and to mediate between opposites".
Next, take note of the Calamus root or Sweet Flag, an herb of the Sun. This herb was believed to lend its solar aspects of the masculine, the golden, consciousness, clarity and its life-giving properties to the user. Quite a powerful combination with the soft, sweet, violet-scented powder of Orris, root of the Florentine Iris, a lunar herb and common fixative in natural perfumery since antiquity. The Moon and its influence were believed to lend Orris the lunar qualities of fertility, conception, a capacity for feelings, motherliness, family and heritage to the user (Junius, 101-105). I don't believe that this Apothecary's archetypal marry-ing of Orris and Sweet Flag, the Masculine sun and the Feminine moon, can be overlooked. Like Isabel's rose-pink dress, this powder was carefully designed and prepared with a specific symbolism in mind.
Finally, in closing, we have the most dominant ingredient in Isabel's dress powder, the Red Rose of Venus.
"All roses, according to legend, were originally white. They turned red only from the blood of Aphrodite, who was pricked by a rose thorn as she rushed to save the dying Adonis. Drops of her blood fell and dyed the rose red; the red rose thereby became the symbol of enduring love..." from Ancient Herbs by Marina Heilmeyer.
Sadly, Queen Isabel died in childbirth, aged 22, in 1568.
Every major world religion uses a form of prayer beads. The use of beads during prayer can be traced to India, pre-dating Christianity. Eastern Christian monks began using rose beads, petals cooked into a fragrant mash and then formed into beads, somewhere between the 4th and 6th century.
The word bead comes from the Anglo Saxon word for prayer, bede. The term rosary has its roots in the Latin word for rose garden, rosarium. Maggie Oman Shannon writes, in The Way We Pray , that Thomas di Cantimpre was the first to use the term rosary. However, the Pope did not officially approve the use of the term rosary until the 16th century.
Arabesque Aromas makes rose beads. Scented with a precious Rose Absolute, fixed with Orris root powder and Gum Arabic, and formed with Rose water, these beads are subtly fragrant. When worn, the warmth and heat of the body brings out the perfume, demonstrating an obvious link to the pomander.
Below is a 19th century recipe for making rose petal beads, taken from the book Rose Recipes from Olden Times by Eleanor Sinclair Rohde.
To Make Rose Beads for a Rosary
Gather the roses on a dry day and chop the petals very finely. Put them in a saucepan and barely cover with water. Heat for about an hour but do not let the mixture boil. Repeat this process for the three days and if necessary add more water. The deep black beads made from rose petals are made this colour by warming in a rusty pan. it is important never to let the mixture boil but each day to warm it to a moderate heat. Make the beads by working the pulp with the fingers into balls. When thoroughly well worked and fairly dry press onto a bodkin to make the holes in the centres of the beads. Until they are perfectly dry the beads have to be moved frequently on the bodkin or they will be difficult to remove without breaking them, held for a few moments these beads give out a pleasing fragrance.
A Brief History of the Aromatic Pomander
Originally posted as part of an aromatic blog, December 2007
So quickly it is winter, my favorite time of year, and I am enjoying the Christmas traditions that I've developed over the years. Medieval classical music is playing, gingerbread is baking and my treasured holiday ornaments adorn my home. My senses turn repeatedly to the pierced brass pomanders suspended from a burgundy ribbon on the French doors that open onto my garden. I am seduced by the scent of the clove-scented rose hips I've stuffed inside, moreso when a breeze carries the rich perfume even more potently through my sitting room. And in my kitchen, suspended from another burgundy ribbon, is the now-shrunken orange that I laboriously pierced with cloves and rolled in spices no less than seven years ago. It is still both fragrant and beautiful to look upon. The beauty and function of these seemingly fanciful objects intrigues both the perfumer and the historian in me. However, they were not always regarded as merely fanciful!
Pleasant aromas were thought to be a person's sole protection against illness and disease in the Middle Ages. Pomanders and scent boxes were an easy way to maintain certain standards of health while moving about the city or traveling on a long journey. They released the curative scent slowly and regularly, and were easy to carry.
Sometimes pomanders, hollow geometrical boxes or balls made of silver or gold, were also set with semi-precious stones. These stones were thought to possess further curative powers of their own. (Medieval mystic, herbalist, gynecologist, lecturer and abbess Hildegard of Bingen alludes to using several semi-precious stones in this manner.)
Pomanders were worn on various parts of the body, the waist, wrist, finger, about the neck on chains. Certain aromatic sachets were made to pin over the heart and to strengthen and protect it, a beautiful concept. Pomanders and scent boxes were carried all of the time by those who could afford it, especially while plague outbreaks were rampant. Here is one life-saving prescription recorded by R. Mead in an account of the history of the plagues c. 1720:
Breathe through a sponge attached to a piece of ash, impregnated with rose water, rose vinegar, malmsey wine and lemon peel
Nostradamus provided instructions for making these lozenges, or what he called aromatic balls, in a book published in the French in 1552. His list of recommended ingredients is as follows:
Labdanum gum 'as obtained from goats beards and sheeps bellies in the fortunate lands of Arabia'
Gum Storax
the aromatic gum we call Benzoin
rose troches
violet root powder (i.e. orris root, or the root of the Iris)
Musk
amber (Ambergris)
rose petals
I have discovered through my research that pomander recipes differed according to each season. Pomanders often contained solid perfumes made from animal musk, often cruelly obtained from animals and thus illegal or undesirable to procure today. These musk were very costly, thus we can assume they were used only by the very wealthy. Many pomander lozenges were also commonly made from flowers, herbs, spices and floral waters, typically dispensed by an Apothecary or perfumer. One can assume that these lozenges were intended for the middle and lower classes. For the poor man there was the option of carrying a cloved and spiced apple or orange, or a bit of wax with cloves and spices or flowers melted into it.
Instructions on how to make your own Cloved Orange Pomander or
"Comfort Apple"
First, neatly quarter the orange or apple with tape or by using a magic marker. This will be the area where the ribbon will later go. Bear in mind you will want your ribbon to be symmetrical.
Then, using a chopstick, knitting needle or something similar, puncture holes into the skins of the apple or orange and insert cloves. If you want the pomander to last then I recommend cloving the entire surface of the fruit (besides where the ribbon will be) rather than making decorative designs. The fruit will soon shrink as it dries, so some small empty spaces are all right. (Note as you are cloving your pomander that the word Clove comes from the Latin word clavus, meaning nail.)
When the fruit is fully punctured and cloved, roll the fruit in the spice mixture below. Do this before you attach the ribbon over the taped or markered area. The cloves and spice preserve the fruit and like mine, it should last for many years.
Allow your pomander to cure for two week in a closed paper bag before hanging by the ribbon. Curing helps the scent to strengthen and develop.
Pomander Spice recipe
Use 1 teaspoon each of powdered cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and orris powder.
The creation and preservation of these pomanders provides us with considerable insight regarding the heavy reliance of such spices in the refrigerator-less and supermarket-less nuances of medieval cookery.
Ahhh medieval cookery! Now that is a topic for next time...
I WISH I had taken a photo of Kerrie's face when we burned my 1st batch of Kyphi incense in Spring 2007. Her quiet, content, heavy-lidded expression as she smiled at me through the curling smoke summed up the nature of this exotic, age-old fragrance beautifully!
In fact, making this batch of kyphi was, as a whole, a very memorable experience.
I had a list of several ingredients - specifically Aquillaria, Galangal, Mastic - that were at the time unknown to me. (I LOVE getting acquainted with new ingredients! Especially since I've been doing this since 1999 and there is a tendency to get - you know - a bit restless sometimes with period recipes. "Oh yes, let me guess. Dried cloves, crushed black peppercorns, a tablespoon of rosewater, ground orris root, powdered sweet flag and ground red rose petals". The Elizabethans - dear to my heart as they are - well, over time, they can get a bit repetitive!) So it was not for one reason did re-creating a centuries-old recipe from Egypt appeal to my sense of olfactory adventure.
Lisa Manniche in Sacred Luxuries writes about kyphi as follows:
"Kyphi is the Latin version of the Greek transcription of the ancient Egyptian 'kapet,' a word which originally meant any substance used in fumigation, just as the word 'perfume' defines a scent released 'through smoke.' By the end of the pharonic civilization it had come to designate one particular brand of scent. Two of the four existing recipes for kyphi have survived in the Greek language. Galen, the Greek physician who practised around 200 AD, provides a sound starting point for investigation..."
and investigate I did.
Here is a recipe for Kupar - Kyphi - from the 2nd century AD, Syria, that I think is closest in nature to the adaptation I used.
Kupar
base 168 g stoned raisins cleansed inside and out
strong smelling wine
sufficient honey
15g Frankincense
15g Myrrh
4g Spikenard
4 g Crocus/saffron
8g Mastic tree flowers (Pistacia lentiscus)
8g Aspalathos
4g Cinnamon
8g Cassia
Dissolve the raisins and soluble ingredients in the wine. Pound the dry ingredients in a mortar and 'clean' them. Heat Frankincense and honey. Mix it all together and store in a jar. Kupar may be burnt as an incense for its smell is very pleasant, or alternatively administered in a beverage suitable for the particular ailment to treat diseases of the liver and chest, as well as coughs.
(Galen, at the same time, prescribed kyphi for the treatment of liver and lung disease)
There was that bit about steeping raisins in honey and wine and allowing it to dry together with the resins that especially appealed to me. Strange. I Had to try it, smell it, feel it, taste it and then - of course - what else but set it on fire!
So I went to Kat, the Head Gardener at the Huntington Herb Gardens where I sometimes trade labor for ingredients, and will always remember how totally cool she was when I asked about GAL-an-gal.
"Ga-LANG-al? Oh sure."
And she took off with her shovel across the garden, me trotting behind her, and gracefully stuck it into this bare patch of earth. (It was so magical and effortless a gesture that she didn't even look at what she was doing and -- how did she know the exact spot where the galangal grew anyways?!) and with one effortless tap of her toe on the shovel, uprooted this little earthy rooty white plant into my waiting hands. It was a pretty awe-inspiring moment. Of course, I did the first thing I always do with something new in my hands - I smelled it. Rooty, spicy, pungent goodness! We also harvested some Lemongrass, whose leaves were surprisingly sharp and cut at my palms, rather in keeping with its fragrance. But I was pleased to have fresh ingredients for my recipe.
A list of the other exotic Kyphi ingredients follows. I had most of them already stocked in my cupboards.
Frankincense resin
Mastic resin
Juniper Berries
Calamus root - powdered
Ga-LANG-al (now one of my favorite words of the English language!)
Cinnamon Bark pieces
Myrrh resin
Lemongrass
Cardamom
Rose petals ground to a powder
Benzoin Siam powdered
Sandalwood powder
Aquillaria wood (I omitted this from my first recipe)
Honey
Red Wine (I decided upon Palm Wine, thinking it was appropriate!)
Sultana raisins
Lady's Mantle - powdered
The kyphi from my recipe took a week and a half to harden and dry.
I now have but one small crumb of kyphi left in my incense box.
Alas it seems to be that time again...
I've perused my books and this time I think I'll try Dioscorides recipe from the 1st century AD, as follows.
Though - I may not exactly stay true to form by his measurements !
As that's a lot of raisins.
5.448 kg 'sun' raisins
4.828 kg old wine
1.136 kg honey
42 g Myrrh
2.270 kg pure resin (I will use Frankincense)
0.284 kg plump Juniper berries
0.454 kg Sweet Flag
0.454 kg camel grass
0.454 kg Aspalathos
0.284 kg Cyperus grass