We didn't make any of this up.

Which is, honestly, the entire point. Every recipe on this site was set in type, bound, sold, and kept on somebody's kitchen shelf as a perfectly reasonable thing to consult at dinnertime.

Where they come from

We work from a library of cookbooks and household manuals published between 1831 and 1929, all long out of copyright and digitised in full. Every recipe page quotes the original verbatim and links straight to the complete scanned book, so you never have to take our word for anything.

These 144 were chosen from a sweep of 48 of them. We picked for the recipes whose titles alone make you stop, then checked each one against the page it came from.

The Yikes Scale

Not every bad recipe is bad in the same way. Boiling a calf's head won't hurt you; it will just ruin your afternoon. Casting sweets in lead moulds is a different category of problem. So everything gets a rating from one to five.

1 Odd. Perfectly safe, completely baffling.
2 Iffy. You'd survive it. You wouldn't enjoy it.
3 Yikes. A real food-safety problem by modern standards.
4 Big yikes. Contains something now restricted, banned, or protected by law.
5 Call poison control. Acute toxin. Cyanide, lead, mercury, opium, sulphuric acid.

The serious bit

Please do not make these.

This site is a museum, not a cookbook. Several of the recipes here describe acute poisons; several more describe preserving methods that produce botulism; a few involve animals it is now an offence to possess.

Nothing on this site is medical, food-safety, or legal advice. If you have swallowed something you shouldn't have, in the US call Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222, or your local emergency number.

The cookbooks

All 48 of them, oldest first. Each links to the complete book.

A New Collection of Genuine Receipts 1831
The House-Keeper's Guide and Indian Doctor 1851
The French Wine and Liquor Manufacturer 1863
The British Cookery Book 1864
Mackenzie's Ten Thousand Receipts 1867
Kettner's Book of the Table 1877
Six Little Cooks; or, Aunt Jane's Cooking Class 1877
Housekeeping in Old Virginia 1879
Buckeye Cookery 1880
The Dixie Cook-Book 1883
The Home Cook Book 1887
How to Cook Vegetables 1890
The Bread and Biscuit Baker's and Sugar-Boiler's Assistant 1890
The Epicurean 1894
The Cook Book by Oscar of the Waldorf 1896
Ninety-Nine Salads and How to Make Them 1897
Twentieth Century Cook Book 1901
Cooking in Old Créole Days 1904
Meals Medicinal 1905
Consolidated Library of Modern Cooking and Household Recipes 1905
The American Soda Book of Receipts and Suggestions, 1905 1905
High-Class Cookery Recipes 1906
The International Cook Book 1906
The 20th Century Home Cook Book 1906
Good Things to Eat and How to Prepare Them 1907
Mrs. Beeton's All About Cookery 1907
Menus Made Easy 1907
Fruit Recipes 1907
The Cookery Book of Lady Clark of Tillypronie 1909
Good Housekeeping's Cook Book 1909
The Butterick Cook Book 1911
The Catskill Cook Book 1911
Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-Dish Dainties 1911
The Grocer's Encyclopedia 1911
How to Cook in Casserole Dishes 1912
Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery 1912
The Story of Crisco 1913
Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis's Cook Book 1914
Bohemian San Francisco 1914
Canning, Preserving and Jelly Making 1915
Book of Valuable Recipes 1915
The Bride's Cook Book 1918
The Metropolitan Cook Book 1918
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon 1919
Libertyville Presbyterian Cook Book 1920
Mrs. Fryer's Loose Leaf Cook Book 1922
Cook and Be Cool 1928
Modernistic Recipe-Menu Book 1929

Reprints & press

Happy to be quoted. The recipe texts are public domain and yours to use freely; our commentary and ratings are not, but ask and the answer is almost certainly yes. hello@dontcookthat.com.

Who's behind it

Don't Cook That is part of Lazarus Library, which puts forgotten public-domain books back online in readable form. Our sister sites are rather more respectable: Historical Foodie for the recipes that are worth cooking, and Forgotten Trivia for everything else.