All 144 of them
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Showing all 144 recipes.
Opium, Laudanum (antidotes)
The antidote table's advice for opium and laudanum — emetic draught, vinegar and water, “dashing cold water on chest and face, walking up and down for two or three hours.”
The 20th Century Home Cook Book · 1906
Meat for Invalids
Raw loin beaten in a marble mortar with sweet and bitter almonds and sugar, into a pulp with “a rosy hue, and a very agreeable taste.” Said to keep “even in summer.”
The Dixie Cook-Book · 1883
Mercury, Chloride of Calomel
One grain of mercury chloride twice a day as an alterative, four to five as a laxative. The book calls it “a most dangerous medicine” and prints the doses anyway.
The 20th Century Home Cook Book · 1906
Stimulants for Opium Poisoning
The home first-aid table treats opium poisoning with “cathartics and stimulants, such as coffee, brandy, and strychnine,” while the patient is walked up and down.
Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis's Cook Book · 1914
Bilious Cholic (opium-turpentine cordial)
“Equal parts of gum opium, gum camphor, and spirits of turpentine, dissolved in spirits.” For stomach pain. Taken by mouth.
The House-Keeper's Guide and Indian Doctor · 1851
Purgative Pills
Calomel and jalap, ten grains each; opium, a grain and a half; tartar emetic, a grain. “To be taken at once, or divided into pills, if the patient prefer it.”
Mackenzie's Ten Thousand Receipts · 1867
Raw Beef Soup
A pound of chipped raw beef, four ounces of water, four drops of muriatic acid. Twelve hours on ice, strained, served cold. Nothing is ever cooked.
Cooking in Old Créole Days · 1904
Sulphuric-Acid Fumigation of Tainted Meat
Meat going off? Suspend it over a bowl of salt, add two ounces of sulphuric acid by degrees, and let the fumes work. “Care must be taken not to breathe them.”
Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis's Cook Book · 1914
Acid, Sulphuric (Diluted)
“Sulphuric acid mixed with 11 times its bulk of water. Used in dyspepsia, also to check sweatings, salivation and diarrhea; also as a gargle.”
The 20th Century Home Cook Book · 1906
Beer of Sulphuric Acid
Dilute battery acid, orange syrup, two gallons of water. “Entirely harmless, even if taken in considerable quantities.”
The 20th Century Home Cook Book · 1906
Bonbons cast in leaden moulds
“Provide leaden moulds… oiled with oil of sweet almonds.” Boiling candy syrup goes straight into the lead. The sweets are for children.
Mackenzie's Ten Thousand Receipts · 1867
Gardner (Cholera Remedy &c.)
Equal parts laudanum, rhubarb, double-strength capsicum, camphor and spirits of nitre. “Dose for children, from two to ten drops,” repeated every fifteen minutes.
The Home Cook Book · 1887
The Family Medicine Shelf
“Common, everyday remedies” recommended for the home shelf — mercury chloride, opium tincture and a barbiturate-era hypnotic, filed beside the Epsom salts.
Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis's Cook Book · 1914
Children's diarrhea cordial
A teaspoonful every half hour “until the discharge shows the color of the medicine.” The medicine is brandy and opium tincture. The patient is a child.
The Dixie Cook-Book · 1883
Opossum, roasted whole
“Scald with lye, scrape off hair, and dress whole, leaving on head and tail.” Served with an apple or a sweet potato in its mouth.
The Dixie Cook-Book · 1883
Sparkle-fining with sugar of lead
Working directions for brightening cordial gin and hock with salts of lead. The book calls it “pernicious” and then prints the method anyway.
The French Wine and Liquor Manufacturer · 1863
Worms in Children
Boil witch-hazel bark in a pewter vessel and dose by age — a tablespoonful at a year old. “It is sure and safe.”
The House-Keeper's Guide and Indian Doctor · 1851
Testing and Cooking Mushrooms
Try a piece of any mushroom you cannot identify; if the throat burns, “eat no more but take a copious dose of common salt, which generally neutralizes the poison.”
The 20th Century Home Cook Book · 1906
Cough Mixture
“Two ounces of gum arabic, one ounce of paregoric elixir, two ounces of sugar candy, juice of one lemon.” A wineglass morning, noon and night.
The Home Cook Book · 1887
Russian Mode of Preserving Fruit
Moisten quicklime with water containing “a little creosote,” pack the fruit in it, and layer with paper. Reported as in extensive use in Russia.
Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery · 1912
Salt Test for Poisonous Mushrooms
“The best rule” for telling a deadly fungus from a safe one: salt the gills and watch the colour. Yellow, poisonous. Black, edible. It is a coin flip.
Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis's Cook Book · 1914
Pickling Olives
Home-cured olives in half a pound of concentrated lye, finished in weak brine. Even the 1915 editors hedge: “We do not vouch for this recipe.”
Canning, Preserving and Jelly Making · 1915
Preservation of fresh meal (tainted meat)
“Tainted meet may be rendered good by pickling it in potash water for some time; before it is cooked however, it should” be dipped in vinegar. Then serve it.
A New Collection of Genuine Receipts · 1831
To Prevent Contagion from Eruptive Diseases
Keep sliced raw onions in saucers about the sickroom to absorb the disease, and “as fast as they become discoloured, replace by fresh ones.”
The Home Cook Book · 1887
Common Ratafia
“Nutmegs, 8 oz., bitter almonds, 10 lbs., Lisbon sugar, 8 lbs., ambergris, 10 grs.” Bruised and infused three days in ten gallons of proof spirit.
Mackenzie's Ten Thousand Receipts · 1867
Jamaica Rum (factitious)
“Neutral spirits, 4 galls.; Jamaica rum, 1 gall.; sulphuric acid, ½ oz.; acetic ether, 4 oz.” One gallon of rum, stretched to five.
Mackenzie's Ten Thousand Receipts · 1867
To Make Sherry Wine (by fermentation)
Sixteen barrels of whiskey, two thousand pounds of sugar, coriander seed — and sulphuric acid, “added to clarify the wine.” No sherry involved.
The French Wine and Liquor Manufacturer · 1863
Almond Milk
“When almonds, either bitter or sweet, are pounded together, and water added…” Four ounces per pint, sweetened, boiled once, drunk as a beverage.
The Cook Book by Oscar of the Waldorf · 1896
To Can Corn (soldered tins)
Raw corn sealed in tins soldered at the kitchen table, then boiled. “Peas, string beans and Lima beans can be put up in the same way.”
The Dixie Cook-Book · 1883
Custards, Boiled
“1 pint of milk, 3 eggs, 3 oz. of loaf sugar, 3 laurel-leaves, or the rind of ½ lemon, or a few drops of essence of vanilla.” Take your pick.
Mrs. Beeton's All About Cookery · 1907
Domestic Peach Brandy
Two gallons of brandy, one of mashed peaches, “and the pits from a peck of the fruit.” Let stand two months, filter, bottle.
Fruit Recipes · 1907
Oil of Cognac from fusel oil
The flavour of French brandy, manufactured: distilled from marc and lees, esterified with concentrated sulphuric acid, and adulterated with alcohol before it reaches you.
The French Wine and Liquor Manufacturer · 1863
Raspberry Syrup Coloured with Aniline Red
A wholesale raspberry syrup, given “a good color… by the addition of a sufficient quantity of either aniline-red, or cherry juice.” Either will do.
The French Wine and Liquor Manufacturer · 1863
Brandy Peaches
Twelve pounds of peaches in syrup and spirit — with the second version dunking them in boiling lye “to loosen the fur,” and both adding the kernels.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia · 1879
Curry Powder
“One pound and a half of Papaver Somniferum. Two pounds of Turmeric…” The opium poppy, named by species, heading the ingredient list of a curry powder.
High-Class Cookery Recipes · 1906
Imitation gin with ethers and acid
Gin assembled from ethers and acid, flavoured with mashed prune kernels. The author assures the reader that “the addition of ethers and ammonia is not at all prejudicial.”
The French Wine and Liquor Manufacturer · 1863
Mushrooms (the salt test)
“Sprinkle salt on the gills; if they turn yellow they are poisonous; if they turn black they are good.” Offered alongside a description of what a safe mushroom looks like.
The 20th Century Home Cook Book · 1906
Prune Tincture
“Stones, kernels, the whole together” — twenty-five pounds of them, broken open and steeped fifteen days in proof spirit, then blended into brandy.
The French Wine and Liquor Manufacturer · 1863
Soda Biscuits (No. 65)
Eight pounds of flour, two of butter, and three drachms of muriatic acid — while the same book's appendix quotes Liebig that commercial muriatic acid “is always most impure.”
The Bread and Biscuit Baker's and Sugar-Boiler's Assistant · 1890
Cherry Ferri
“Draw 1 ounce of American Cherry Ferri in a hot soda cup, fill cup with hot water, add whipped cream if desired.” Just as fine hot or cold.
The American Soda Book of Receipts and Suggestions, 1905 · 1905
Ginger Liqueur
A gallon of malt whiskey, four pounds of sugar, bruised ginger, lemon rind — and five ounces of bitter almonds. Steep six days, filter, bottle.
The Home Cook Book · 1887
Peach Jelly
“Crack one-third of the kernels and put them in the jar with the peaches.” Heat, strain, and set as jelly.
The Dixie Cook-Book · 1883
Pineapple Rum
“Neutral spirits, 4 galls.; honey, 5 pts.; Jamaica rum, 1 gall.; sulphuric acid, 1 oz.; butyric ether, 2 oz.” The pineapple is the ether.
Mackenzie's Ten Thousand Receipts · 1867
Unfermented Bread
“Mix 1 ounce of bicarbonate of soda with 8 pounds of flour. Stir 1 ounce of hydrochloric acid with 4 pints of warm water.” Fizz the two together and bake.
Consolidated Library of Modern Cooking and Household Recipes · 1905
Peach-leaf custard flavoring
“How I wish my garden were near enough… a handful of fresh peach leaves! I would boil them in the milk… there is no flavor more delicious.” Said to children, in a book for children.
Six Little Cooks; or, Aunt Jane's Cooking Class · 1877
Lemon Custard with cherry-laurel
“A wonderful flavour is given… by boiling in the cream… a leaf of the cherry laurel. Great care, however, must be used; for the cherry laurel is poisonous.”
Kettner's Book of the Table · 1877
Canker in the Mouth (frog butter)
Boil a pound of butter, add “four common green frogs,” cook until dry, stir in alum. For canker of the mouth, throat or stomach. Said to be infallible.
The House-Keeper's Guide and Indian Doctor · 1851
The Whale-Carcass Rheumatism Cure
American whalemen's cure for rheumatism: open the carcass “while the interior still retains some warmth” and put the patient in from the loins down.
Meals Medicinal · 1905
Porpoise
Cassell's files the porpoise under fish, soaks the pieces, and fries them with bacon. It is not a fish.
Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery · 1912
Coca Champagne
A soda-fountain formula: champagne stock syrup, sugar colour, tartaric acid, and one full pint of cocaine-bearing coca wine.
The American Soda Book of Receipts and Suggestions, 1905 · 1905
Wine of Coca
The fountain's house coca wine: “Fluid extract of coca, 2 ounces; port wine, 1 gallon; sherry wine, 2 gallons.” Colour to suit.
The American Soda Book of Receipts and Suggestions, 1905 · 1905
Test Pickles for Copper
Chop the pickle into ammonia and watch for deep blue — proof it was “cooked in brass or copper kettles.” A routine kitchen test, because it happened constantly.
Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis's Cook Book · 1914
Alum for Croup
“For croup, combine a teaspoonful of powdered alum… with two teaspoonfuls of sugar, and give this promptly.” Plus a quarter-ounce of alum in boiled milk.
Meals Medicinal · 1905
Peacock
“Kill a peacock by thrusting a quill into his brain,” roast it, re-dress it in its own feathered skin on iron wires, and set burning camphor in its beak at table.
Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery · 1912
Gherkins (pickling method)
The gherkins are boiled in half vinegar “in an untinned copper basin,” then cooled in the same liquid. The green colour is the point.
The Epicurean · 1894
Mineral Oil Mayonnaise
“Mineral oil… has no food value. It may be used to make mayonnaise dressing.” The book adds: “Mineral oil is mildly laxative, an added advantage.”
Modernistic Recipe-Menu Book · 1929
Brine That Preserves Butter' a Year
Three gallons of brine “strong enough to bear an egg,” with loaf sugar and a tablespoonful of saltpetre. Wrap the butter in muslin and sink it for a year.
The Home Cook Book · 1887
Honey and Tar Cough Candy
Boil horehound down, add honey, lard and “a tablespoonful each of lard and tar,” and boil to a candy. Increase the dose “from a piece the size of a pea to as much as can be relished.”
The Bride's Cook Book · 1918
Terrapin, a la Maryland
Boil it whole, “draw out nails from feet,” discard the gall bladder and sand bags — but the liver and the small intestines stay in.
The Story of Crisco · 1913
Hectic Cough (tar-and-port cordial)
Three yolks, a gill of honey and a spoonful of tar stirred into half a pint of port over a slow fire. A teaspoonful before each meal, with cayenne in hot water at bedtime.
The House-Keeper's Guide and Indian Doctor · 1851
Mayonnaise Maigre
Mayonnaise built on “one and a half cups of mineral oil,” beaten a teaspoon at a time into raw yolks. Recommended because it passes through undigested.
Cook and Be Cool · 1928
To Cook Turtles
“Drop four turtles into boiling water, and boil one hour,” then skin the legs and feet, return them to fresh boiling water for another hour and a half, and finish with Madeira.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia · 1879
Turtle Garnish
A soup garnish of mushrooms, truffles, brains, beef palates, olives, gherkins and chicken quenelles, warmed through in the turtle liquor.
The Cook Book by Oscar of the Waldorf · 1896
Beef-Steak for Winter Use
Cut the steaks the usual thickness, layer them in a jar with salt, sugar and powdered saltpetre, and keep in “a cool, airy place, where it will not freeze.”
Buckeye Cookery · 1880
Calf's Head en Tortue, Dressed
Half a calf's head, boned and simmered three hours in acidulated white stock, garnished with large cockscombs and topped with the ear, skewered upright.
The Epicurean · 1894
Halfpenny Gingerbread Squares (No. 49)
Alum boiled in water and poured into the treacle, three ounces at a time. “This mixture is for wholesale purposes, and pays well.”
The Bread and Biscuit Baker's and Sugar-Boiler's Assistant · 1890
Mock Turtle à la Marion Harland
A calf's head dressed as turtle, garnished with imitation turtle eggs: boiled yolks rubbed with the calf's boiled brains, bound with raw egg, “rolled into little marbles with floured hands.”
The Butterick Cook Book · 1911
Pickled Cucumbers (Gallon vinegar)
“To green the fruit: line your brass kettle with grape-leaves… and boil.” Stated as routine practice, with no comment.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia · 1879
Turtle — notes about using fresh turtle for soup
“The turtle must be put in straw in the cellar and given water every 2 or 3 hours. It should be beheaded at night, and left hanging neck downwards.” Then dress the fins like calf's head.
The Cookery Book of Lady Clark of Tillypronie · 1909
Borated Fish
“Fish preserved by boracic acid; largely imported from Norway.” That is the whole entry. No comment is offered, because none was needed.
The Grocer's Encyclopedia · 1911
Brisket of Beef
“Take one pound bag salt, two of saltpetre, a little sugar, and a few cloves. Rub this mixture well into the beef every day for a week.”
Cooking in Old Créole Days · 1904
Larks in Onions (Italian Recipe)
Eight larks boned and baked inside four Spanish onions, then glazed and served with the heads put back on — “from which the eyes should be removed.”
Mrs. Beeton's All About Cookery · 1907
Lime-Juice Cordial
Six pounds of sugar, four ounces of citric acid, and “one half ounce boric acid.” The book adds, with satisfaction, “This will keep indefinitely.”
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon · 1919
Woodcock, roasted
“He is never drawn, and every morsel of him is eaten, to the last entrail.” Roasted over toast that catches the trail, which is then spread and served.
Kettner's Book of the Table · 1877
Oreilles d'Agneau à la Marquise (Lambs' Ears)
Lambs' ears stewed and served upright on a border, “with a peeled plover's egg in each ear,” cocks' combs and cream sauce in the centre.
Menus Made Easy · 1907
Ammonia Cocktail
“Aromatic Spirits of Ammonia, 2 dashes; Orange Syrup, 1 ounce; Bicarbonate of Soda, ½ teaspoonful.” Add the soda last, stir, serve quickly.
The American Soda Book of Receipts and Suggestions, 1905 · 1905
English Sparrows as Food
Trap the sparrows, poison the wary ones — then cage-fatten the rest on table scraps and “place the thumb nail at the base of the skull and dislocate the neck.”
Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis's Cook Book · 1914
Roast Doe-Birds
“Singe, draw and truss six fine, fat doe-birds.” Doe-bird was market slang for the Eskimo curlew, a species not reliably seen since 1963.
The International Cook Book · 1906
To Make White Wine Whey
Boil skimmed milk with sherry, lemon juice and “fifteen grains of purified nitre,” let the curd subside, and take it in two doses at bedtime.
The British Cookery Book · 1864
Raw Marrow for the Bloodless
Marrow from “animals, freshly killed,” administered to bloodless patients “to stimulate their fresh blood formation.” The logic is that marrow makes blood, so eat marrow.
Meals Medicinal · 1905
Raw Beef for Dysentery
“Raw beef is excellent in dysentery; it should be minced very fine, and given in doses of a spoonful at a time,” every four hours.
Buckeye Cookery · 1880
Brain-paste sandwich filling
A brain paste, cooled, spread between rounds of bread fried in clarified butter and warmed over hot water. Filed under “dainties.”
Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-Dish Dainties · 1911
Food for Infants, and its Preparation
Infant feeding by starch — arrowroot, bread, baked flour — with proprietary “farinaceous food” pronounced “unquestionably the best aliment that can be given.”
Mrs. Beeton's All About Cookery · 1907
Frog Broth and Puree
Frogs' legs and hindquarters simmered with celery, carrot, turnip and leek, then pounded to a purée and served “in a clear state in cups” to invalids.
The Epicurean · 1894
Yolk of Raw Egg, &c. (Dr. Seton)
A prescribed sickroom dose: raw yolk and half a white, sweetened and beaten with warm water, then brandy, whisky or port added. Often taken “well whisked” in wine alone.
The Cookery Book of Lady Clark of Tillypronie · 1909
Eggs (Invalid Cookery)
“An egg broken into a cup of tea, or beaten and mixed with a basin of milk, makes a breakfast more supporting than tea solely.” Yolk and white split into two draughts with wine.
Consolidated Library of Modern Cooking and Household Recipes · 1905
Rattlesnake's Bite
“Take green hoarhound tops and pound them fine; press out the juice,” a tablespoonful three times a day — “before breakfast, dinner, and just on going to bed.”
The House-Keeper's Guide and Indian Doctor · 1851
French Remedy for Consumption
“One-half pound finely cut up fresh beefsteak; one drachm pulverized charcoal; four ounces pulverized sugar; four ounces rye whisky; one pint boiling water.” Stand overnight, take liquid and meat.
The Dixie Cook-Book · 1883
To Make Brain Cakes
Blanched brains beaten with egg yolk, cream, parsley and butter, fried light brown, and recommended as a garnish for calf's-head hash.
The British Cookery Book · 1864
Prune Whip
Stewed prunes chopped fine, folded into raw beaten egg whites, and stood on the ice. A nursery and sickroom dessert.
Mrs. Fryer's Loose Leaf Cook Book · 1922
A Good Relish—Uncooked
Three cups of chopped raw cabbage, onion and green pepper, a little sugar and vinegar, “place in jars and cover with parafine.” Nothing is ever cooked.
Libertyville Presbyterian Cook Book · 1920
Choking remedy
“If you can get it neither up nor down, place two grains of tartar emetic in the patient's mouth.” As it dissolves it will make him “excessively sick,” and the obstruction may shift.
Mackenzie's Ten Thousand Receipts · 1867
Beef Juice
“The best nurses now prepare beef juice”: an inch-thick round, seared two minutes, then pressed. The recipe warns you not to heat the juice, because it would set.
The Butterick Cook Book · 1911
Liver for Bleeding Lungs
Fresh animal liver as a food “to help against active bleeding from the lungs in consumptive disease,” three or four ounces daily — and the same liver dried and powdered as a drug.
Meals Medicinal · 1905
To Can Peas
Fill the jars with uncooked peas, top with cold water, stand them on straw in a wash boiler and boil three hours. Tighten the lids once cold.
How to Cook Vegetables · 1890
Albumen Beverages
Beat the white to a froth, add orange or lemon juice, strain, sweeten, serve cold. An entire recipe family with no heat step anywhere in it.
The Metropolitan Cook Book · 1918
Mayonnaise Dressing
Two uncooked yolks beaten with salt and cayenne, then a quart of oil worked in drop by drop. The closing line tells you to keep it a week.
How to Cook Vegetables · 1890
Syllabub
“Dissolve a generous teaspoon of sugar in a tablespoon of brandy. Put in a pint cup and milk into this from the cow till the foam reaches the top.” Filed under invalid cookery.
Good Housekeeping's Cook Book · 1909
Yellow Sauce
Yolks beaten with powdered sugar, whites beaten stiff with more sugar, combined and poured over hot pudding. No custard stage, no double boiler, no cooked syrup.
The Catskill Cook Book · 1911
Yorkshire Black Puddings
Blood pudding seasoned with pennyroyal — a herb long used as an abortifacient — and hung in the larder until wanted.
Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery · 1912
Albumenized Water
A cup of cold water, the white of one egg, lemon juice and sugar, shaken in a covered jar and stood on ice. Served to exactly the people who can least afford it.
Mrs. Fryer's Loose Leaf Cook Book · 1922
Iced Rice Pudding
Rice boiled and drained, a quart of milk poured over, sugar beaten with two raw yolks stirred in, whites folded through, and the whole frozen.
Good Things to Eat and How to Prepare Them · 1907
Koumiss
Two quarts of new milk with sugar and a third of a yeast cake, stood warm ten hours, bottled — “cork the bottles tightly and tie the corks down” — and left another day.
Mrs. Fryer's Loose Leaf Cook Book · 1922
Nectar
Tartaric acid, sugar and hot water boiled seven minutes; “when nearly cold, add the whites of four eggs, one ounce essence wintergreen. Bottle and keep cool.”
Twentieth Century Cook Book · 1901
Roast Turkey, with Truffles
A pound and a half of pounded truffles mixed with rasped fat bacon, stuffed into a raw turkey, which is then held forty-eight hours before roasting.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia · 1879
Sausage (Seven pounds of lean pork)
Seven pounds of lean pork and nearly two of fat, ground with sage, pepper and salt. “Taste, to be sure all is right.” The mixture is raw.
Twentieth Century Cook Book · 1901
Sweet Corn (canned)
“The following recipe for canning corn is so satisfactory that no other will be given for this article in these pages.” It is a boiling-water process.
Canning, Preserving and Jelly Making · 1915
Veal Chops (forcemeat-coated)
Fry the chops brown but “without actually cooking the chops,” press them cold, coat thickly with a paste of raw pork, marrow and raw egg yolk, and bake ten minutes.
The Story of Crisco · 1913
Blancmanger (Carême's receipt)
Carême's blancmanger: sweet almonds with twenty bitter ones pounded in, strained into isinglass jelly, never cooked. Once prescribed to consumptive patients.
Kettner's Book of the Table · 1877
Braised Calf's Head (with Calf's Head, Financiere)
Bone the head, stuff it with veal and bacon forcemeat, sew it up and stew four hours. The Financière scalds and stuffs the ears and crowns the whole with cockscomb skewers.
The Cook Book by Oscar of the Waldorf · 1896
Colds
“A half-teaspoonful of ARM & HAMMER BRAND BICARBONATE OF SODA in a glass of water… will often ward off a cold in its early stages.” And a pound of it in a hot bath for rheumatism.
Book of Valuable Recipes · 1915
Bite of Serpent
Snakebite protocol: “apply fire in some form to the wound, thoroughly and immediately,” follow with ammonia, and give whisky “to intoxication.”
Buckeye Cookery · 1880
Broiled Beef Balls
Scrape the soft part from a piece of raw round steak, form into balls “applying no more pressure than absolutely necessary,” and cook two minutes.
Good Housekeeping's Cook Book · 1909
Clabbered Milk
“Stand the bottle of milk in a warm place until it is the consistency of cream. Season with a little salt, and drink in place of buttermilk.”
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon · 1919
Syllabubs Under the Cow
Sugar, lemon, a pint of sherry and a glass of brandy in a punch bowl — then “take it to the dairymaid, and let her milk the cow into the bowl until it is quite full.” Stands overnight.
Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery · 1912
Calf's Head Pudding
Boil the skinned head five or six hours “until the bones are ready to drop out,” pick it fine, bind with eggs — then “lay the brains all over the top and bake.”
Housekeeping in Old Virginia · 1879
Mutton Custard for Bowel Complaints or Consumptive
Fresh mutton suet shredded fine with cinnamon or nutmeg, boiled in a pint of milk, skimmed, and taken warm — half a teacupful, three or four times a day.
The British Cookery Book · 1864
Castor Oil and Sarsaparilla
Soda water, two tablespoonfuls of sarsaparilla syrup, then two tablespoonfuls of castor oil. Fill with soda from the syphon “and drink at once.”
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon · 1919
Lime Water
“One of the most useful agents of household economy,” dosed into children's milk, stirred in to stop milk curdling, and added to bread sponge to stop it souring.
The Home Cook Book · 1887
Snail-and-Frog Broth
Francatelli's invalid broth: two or three garden snails, “the hind-quarters only of two dozen stream-frogs previously skinned,” bruised together and simmered with turnip and saffron.
Meals Medicinal · 1905
Snails à la Bordelaise (Lazzarini)
“Put ten pounds of snails in a covered barrel and keep for ten days.” Then salt, vinegar, and stirring “until a foam rises.” All of it alive.
Bohemian San Francisco · 1914
Boiled Calf's Udder for French Forcemeat
Stew the udder, pound it in a mortar, rub it through a sieve. Beeton lists it as one of the three things French forcemeat is made of.
Mrs. Beeton's All About Cookery · 1907
Udder, Beef
Udder “gently simmered in broth or water, then sliced, and served with onion or tomato sauce.” Salted and eaten cold, if you prefer.
Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery · 1912
Fresh Fowl's Blood in Warm Lemonade
For wasting and prostration: fresh fowl's blood “mixed with warm wine, or milk, punch, warm lemonade, or coffee… before its coagulation ensues.”
Meals Medicinal · 1905
Frog Salad
“One pound white, medium sized frogs” as the salad meat, with artichokes, potatoes, hard-boiled eggs and a French dressing.
Ninety-Nine Salads and How to Make Them · 1897
Ox Palates Rolled and Stuffed
Ox palates “slowly simmered many hours,” pressed under a weight, skinned, rolled around quenelle stuffing and glazed.
The Cookery Book of Lady Clark of Tillypronie · 1909
Squirrels En Casserole
Jointed squirrels layered with salt pork, corn and lima beans, the pot luted shut with a paste of flour and water, and left for four hours.
How to Cook in Casserole Dishes · 1912
Squirrel Pot Pie
“Prepare squirrels as rabbits, cut in pieces, flour and fry brown.” Stew an hour, lay biscuit rounds on top, boil fifteen minutes covered.
Modernistic Recipe-Menu Book · 1929
Four Cockscombs
Four cockscombs, blanched and skinned, with veal or chicken quenelles in a white sauce, filled into puff pastry at the last moment.
High-Class Cookery Recipes · 1906
To Catch Wild Ducks or Geese Alive
The entire recipe: “Soak wheat in strong alcohol, and scatter where they are in the habit of feeding, and take them while they are drunk.”
Buckeye Cookery · 1880
To Keep Oysters Alive and Fatten
Stand the oysters in a tub “with their mouths upwards” and feed them salt water “by dipping in a broom and frequently passing over their mouths.” Add meal to fatten.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia · 1879
Bearnaise Sauce (invalid version)
Four tablespoons of shortening creamed into four egg yolks, with tarragon vinegar and onion juice. A béarnaise for patients, made with Crisco.
Modernistic Recipe-Menu Book · 1929
Crabs (to boil)
“They should be boiled alive, being plunged into cold water” and heated slowly — deliberately, so they do not “throw off their claws by a violent jerk.”
The Cook Book by Oscar of the Waldorf · 1896
Haggis, the Edinburgh prize receipt (Meg Dods)
“Clean a fat sheep's pluck… letting the windpipe lie over the side of the pot to permit the phlegm and blood to disgorge from the lungs.” A prize receipt.
Kettner's Book of the Table · 1877
Roasted Snipes
Bone the snipes, stuff them with pork and mushroom — then “fry the trails of the snipes with three chickens' livers… pound and pass them through a fine hair-sieve.”
The Cook Book by Oscar of the Waldorf · 1896
Cleaning Codfish
“Cod is crimped by being cut up and notched with a knife while partly alive; but some cooks object to this.” Oscar records the objection and the method.
The Cook Book by Oscar of the Waldorf · 1896
The goodly terms of Carving
Kettner reprints the carving vocabulary from Wynkyn de Worde's 1508 “Booke of Kervinge,” where every creature has its own verb.
Kettner's Book of the Table · 1877
Toulouse Ragout
“Prepare half a dozen fine, large cockscombs” with sweetbreads and truffles in a drawn-butter sauce. A San Francisco banquet centrepiece.
Bohemian San Francisco · 1914
Pickle for Corning Beef
Three gallons of water, 6¾ pounds of salt, 2½ pounds of sugar, a pint of molasses — and “1 ounce pearlash.” Sufficient for fifty pounds of beef.
Mrs. Fryer's Loose Leaf Cook Book · 1922
Yorkshire Christmas Pie
The true Yorkshire pie: a boned fowl sewn inside a goose, packed round with pigeon, partridge and hare in a raised crust. An 1832 specimen broke down carrying itself.
Kettner's Book of the Table · 1877
Toast Sandwiches for Invalids
“Toast carefully a very thin slice of bread… lay it between two slices of thin bread and butter,” each seasoned with a very little mustard and salt. That is the recipe.
The British Cookery Book · 1864
Good Mincemeat Without Intoxicants
Five pounds of beef, twice the apple, a quart of boiled cider and no spirits at all. The title does the framing; the canning method does the damage.
Good Housekeeping's Cook Book · 1909
Adulteration (the trade's defense)
A trade encyclopedia mounts the defence: “at least half the accusations are unfounded,” and mustard cut with flour is “not only harmless but… perfectly proper and justifiable.”
The Grocer's Encyclopedia · 1911
Boiled Eggs at the Soda Fountain
“Several large dispensers through the West have introduced the novelty of boiling eggs at the soda fountain, to order” — served in a little silver cup, eaten from the shell.
The American Soda Book of Receipts and Suggestions, 1905 · 1905