2016
Rowan, or Mountain Ash
Image: From geograph.org.uk, Stephen McKay
Rowan has a long history of being an effective protector against enchantment, it is also, at least when uncooked, an effective laxative.
Original Receipt from 'Pot-luck; or, The British home cookery book' by May Byron (Byron 1914)649. MOUNTAIN ASH JELLY (Surrey)
Pick the mountain-ash berries clean from the stalks, and stew them down to as near a pulp as you can, with enough water to cover them and a very little "race" ginger. Crush and strain the pulp, and boil it up again for half an hour, with two-thirds of its weight in sugar. (Mountain ash is known in Ireland as "quicken" and in Scotland as "rowan." It is credited with wonderfully restorative properties, and is, I believe, largely used in the jelly form upon the Continent, especially in Switzerland. Ed.)
650. ANOTHER WAY (Middlesex)
Pare, core, and slice two pounds of good preserving apples of the juiciest kind, and boil them for twenty minutes or more in one quart of water, till they are well to pieces. Strain off the water, and add to the apples in the preserving pan three pounds of mountain ash berries. Let all simmer gently until quite pulped: then strain off the juice, and to every pint measure one pound of sugar. Let the juice boil fast for twenty minutes, then put in the sugar, which should be warmed and crushed. Boil for fifteen minutes more, skimming well, and then pour off the jelly into heated pots. Some people put a leaf of scented geranium, such as oakleaf, into every pot.