Exactly as printed, 1919
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. Public domain; transcription unaltered.
🧪 Bad Science
1919
Clabbered Milk
Stand the bottle of milk in a warm place until it thickens, then salt it and drink it.
So what happens if I make it?
The milk is deliberately held warm and never heated, which is to say it is incubated. In 1918 that milk was very likely raw, and warm raw milk is a growth medium for whatever it arrived with.
Traditional clabber worked because the lactic bacteria in raw milk outcompeted everything else and dropped the pH. It usually worked. Usually is the operative word.
Notes from the 21st century
- Modern milk will not clabber. Pasteurisation kills the lactic flora, so retail milk left warm does not sour — it spoils. The recipe cannot be followed even if you wanted to.
- Buttermilk and kefir are the safe versions. Cultured from pasteurised milk with a known culture. Same tang, none of the gamble.
- It was a temperance drink here. On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon offers it as an alternative to beer, which is a fairly bleak substitution.
Also in this book
- Castor Oil and Sarsaparilla — Two tablespoonfuls of castor oil hidden under sarsaparilla syrup and soda. Drink at once.
- Lime-Juice Cordial — Half an ounce of boric acid, and the promise that it will keep indefinitely.
Don't take our word for it. The complete book is online, free and searchable.
Read the original page →More bad science
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.
🧪 Bad Science
Yikes
Meals Medicinal · 1905
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.”
🧪 Bad Science
Call poison control
Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis's Cook Book · 1914
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.
🧪 Bad Science
Big yikes
Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis's Cook Book · 1914