bunnyjadwiga

This was one of the things I put on the St. Luke's dayboard-- it's one of my never-fail recipes-- but I didn't have it in the documentation. It makes a nice cookie dip or fruit dip, and if you use 'potcheese' (soft cheese) rather than ricotta, or keep it really cold, it also makes a nice spread.

Food for Angels
From the Libro de Sent Sovi, translated in Santich, Barbara, The Original Mediterranean Cuisine (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1995)

Angel's Food
If you want to eat the fresh curds, put the curds in the mortar and pound with some good white sugar. And when pounded together, blend in some rosewater or orangeflower water, and put it in bowls or dishes or whatever you like; and serve it at table... And you can do the same with fresh cheese, which is better, and it is called angel's food.

2 lb container ricotta cheese
several tsps orangeflower water
sugar to taste

I was in a hurry, and the ricotta I had was some my mom had in the freezer, so it was broken in curd. However, for a sweet dish, I had the perfect helper on hand-- a teenage girl. I had her dump the ricotta in a bowl and mix it. I added several generous splashes of orangeflower water -- I use that more often than rosewater because some people have an automatic rosewater=soap reaction; someone once said "I feel like I'm eating face cream"...
Then I handed her the box of sugar and said, "This dish is called food for angels. Keep stirring in sugar and tasting it until it tastes like food for angels.
I believe everyone in the kitchen tried it at some point, and it was nummy.

Also, you can substitute splenda for the sugar if you want. :)

Book I, Chapter X

Above all he cautions them not to wash their hands, as it is the habit of other men to do in the morning; for he tells them that to do so constitutes a sure obstruction to his incantations. This is the case whether it is the witches themselves who was their hands, as we learn from the answer freely given to her examiners by Alexia Gallaea of Betoncourt at Mirecourt in December 1584, and by countless others whose names I have not now by me; or whether it is the intended victims of their witchcraft who wash their hands, as was stated by Claude Fellet (Mersuay, February 1587) and Catharina Latomia (Haraucourt, February 1587)....

The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby opened, 1669:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16441
on Project Gutenberg

Public record of the labor and delivery of a Iberian woman, 1490:
http://www.the-orb.net/birthrecord.html

The second part of the Secretes, p. 28-29

To heale Lippes that be closted and full of chinkes by meanes of colde or wynde
Take Gomme Arabike, and Dragant, as much of the one as of the other, and make Pouder of it, and incorporate it wyth Oile of Violettes, and anoynt your Lippes therewyth.

To heal handes that be full of Chappes by cold or wynde
Take masticke, frankencens, new waxe, and Oyle of Roses, and make of al this an unguent or ointment and anoint the chappes or chinks of your hands, and they wyll immediatly be hole.

Dragant would be gumdragon, i.e. Gum Tracaganth.
"new ware" puzzles me, though. it's new waxe.

Alessio, The Second part of the Secretes, p. 18-19.

For the stinkinge of the breath, and to make the teeth whyte.
Take a pound of skimmed Hony, halfe a pound of Aqua vite, three onces of Lignum aloe, two onces of gomme Arabick, Nuttemegges, Galingale, Cububes, Cinamome, Masticke, Cloves, Spic, and Lavander new, anna three drammes, tow drammes of Amber beaten, mix all this together, & still water of it in a limbeck, and this water will take away the stinking of the breath, whiten the teeth, and maintaine helth long.

A water to make cleane teeth.
Take salt Armoniac, and salt Gemma, three onces of eche one, an once & a halfe of alumen Sucharinum, and distill it, or temper it in two pound of water, the space of eight daies, & with this licour distilled or so tempered, you shal rubbe your teeth & they will be whyte.

Another water to whiten teeth,
Take a pound of salt well purged, and beaten, an once of Alumen Glaciale, & distill it in a limbeck, and mingle an once of the water, with an once of Plantaine water, and rubbe your teeth with the composition, and with cotten, and they will be white and cleane.

To take away the smell of Garlike, Leekes, or Onyons.
After that you have eaten Garlike, Leekes, or Onions, take the roote of Beete, & rost it under embers, and eate it, & you shall see the effect; or els eate a piece of the rote of Zeduaria, & you shal not smell at all, and this is easier to be done than with the roote of Beete.

Spic is probably spike, which may be spike lavender.
Aqua Vitae is distilled spirits
Lignum aloes is aloeswoood (Aquilaria species?)
I have no idea what 'anna' is there.
gomme Arabick is Gum Arabic; Acacia gum.
Salt armoniac shoule be Sal Ammoniac, ammonium chloride, NH4Cl
Salt gemma may be salgemma, halite, AKA natural salt.

The October 3, 2007 issue of JAMA, Journal of the American Medical Association, has on its cover a very nice photo of a circa 1580 terracotta Drug Jar for Theriac from the J. Paul Getty museum:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/298/13/1483
The article inside the cover describes the usual constituents of the drug Theriac

...theriac served as an antidote for all poisons and afflictions; it was part of the ancient physician's armamentarium for prevention as well as treatment of disease. The recipe for theriac varied but usually included vipers' flesh, parts of lizards, honey, plants, and herbs or spices (even ginger, cinnamon, and myrrh). Theriac's ingredients (40 to 60 separate items) were a closely held secret, passed along in poetic verse... Theriac, also later referred to as treacle, existed in the pharmacopoeia of Western physicians and pharmacies until the 1700s.
-- Janet M. Torpy. "The Cover," JAMA, October 3, 2007-- Vol 298, No. 13, p. 1483