AROUND HOME : The Book of Potpourri by Penny Black (Simon and Schuster; 1989)

The sumptuously photographed “The Book of Potpourri” takes the reader from the first step of gathering flowers through drying techniques to explaining effects of drying on different types of plant materials. Penny Black offers more than 40 recipes for varying scents and visual effects as well as myriad ideas for displaying the fragrant petals. Included are “chintzy mixes with floral fragrances; pretty herb potpourris, smelling of lemon or mint; rich, moist mixes; traditional damask rose bowls of rich blooms.”

According to Black, potpourri originally was a culinary term meaning a stockpot of mixed vegetables and meat. By the middle of the 18th Century, the word came into common usage and meant “a mixture of scented plant materials that were used to perfume the home.” The traditional potpourri contained five groups of ingredients: scented flowers and petals, or wood, roots and barks; herbs; spices; fixatives, and essential oils. Modern potpourri has the same ingredients as that of yesteryear, although vegetable rather than animal fixatives are used today.

Black shows how each potpourri can be made by using one of two methods: the dry method or the moist method. The former, by far the simplest, is finished as soon as the dried materials have been mixed together. The moist potpourri, more time-consuming to create, requires dried fragrant petals and flowers to be cured with natural salt, brown sugar or brandy before mixing them with the other ingredients. The dry potpourri offers the prettier appearance, while the moist one, usually kept covered, retains the benefit of being more highly scented.

She offers creative ideas including “storing soaps in pretty glass jars, so they absorb the fragance; placing special mixes in small muslin bags to perfume the bath water; to packing writing paper, cards and drawer liners between layers of potpourri to absorb and become perfumed.” Also included is an invaluable photographic catalogue of the flowers, leaves, roots, seed, herbs, spices, fruits, fixatives and essential oils that can be used in potpourri, with explanations of their varying effects on the scent and appearance of the final mixture. A helpful glossary of retail and mail-order suppliers is listed so that the reader can purchase essences, fixatives, dried flowers and other potpourri ingredients. ($19.95)