Nostradamus's Traité des fardemens et confitures, variously entitled Moult utile opuscule... and Le vrai et parfaict embellissement de la face..., was first published in 1555, even though it contained a Proem, or prologue, dated 1552. Clearly the work of an apothecary, it contained recipes for preparing cosmetics and preserves, the latter based largely on sugar, which was controlled at the time by the apothecaries' guilds.
Among the topics covered (which include removing spots from the face with mercury) were:
A. THE COSMETICS MANUAL
Chapter VI: To make a perfect nutmeg oilChapter VIII [the one giving Nostradamus’s famous plague remedy]: To make the basis of a perfectly good and excellent aromatic powderChapter X: To make a sweet smelling, long lasting pasteChapter XI: Another method for making aromatic ballsChapter XIII: Powder for cleaning and whitening the teethChapter XIIII: Another more excellent method for cleaning the teeth, even rotten ones [by filing them down]Chapter XV: Perfumed water for impregnating the shapes or forms mentioned aboveChapter XVIII (1556): To truly make the lovers’ sexual potion which the ancients used for love-makingChapter XXIIII: How to make the hair golden blondChapter XXVI [often erroneously described as for an aphrodisiac]: A supreme and very useful composition for the health of the human bodyChapter XXVII: There follows the way in which one should use the above mentioned compositionB. THE COOKBOOK
Chapter III: To make candied orange peel, using sugar or honeyChapter VIII: How to make a jam or preserve with heart cherriesChapter XV: To make a quince jelly of superb beauty, goodness, flavour and excellence fit to set before a KingChapter XXIIII: To preserve pearsChapter XXV: To make a very fine sugar candyChapter XXVII: To make marzipanChapter XXIX: To make a laxative rose syrupThe book was translated into German in 1574, then the German was revised in 1994, and finally the German was translated into English under the title The Elixirs of Nostradamus (Moyer Bell, 1996). Needless to say, the fourth-hand results of this process were unreliable, if not downright dangerous: the term roses rouges incarnées, for example, was routinely translated as 'black orchids', and urines (urine) came out as 'drinking wells'.
