Sippermallo'S Ungient

This ointment recipe hails from a later 17th-century English household manuscript, spanning approximately the 1660s to the 1680s. During this time, domestic medicine was closely intertwined with cookery, and householders commonly kept such remedies on hand for skin irritations, wounds, and other minor ailments. The recipe reflects a fascinating overlap between herbal lore and culinary practice, in a period before the strict divide between food and medicine. References to 'may-butter' — butter churned in spring and prized for its tenderness and vivid color — and to wild edible and medicinal greens like plantain and dandelion, all speak to a resourceful rural life.

Traditionally, this ointment would have been made using a brass or copper pan over a gentle fire (such as the hearth or a trivet by the coals). Herbs would be mashed or bruised using a mortar and pestle or chopped with a small knife on a board. Straining the mixture may have involved a fine cloth or old linen, with the finished ointment poured into glazed ceramic or glass pots and sealed with parchment. Most steps can be reproduced in a modern kitchen using a heavy-bottomed saucepan, a fine mesh sieve, and clean glass jars.