Old Fashioned Cure

One of the many reasons I collect old cookbooks is that they provide a peek into a woman's life so long ago. I'm always amazed at the responsiblities that a woman had - not only as a provider of food, from scratch, three times a day - but also as the caretaker of the family's health.

Most cookbooks from the 19th and early 20th centuries include sections on medicinal remedies. "Cures" for smallpox, typhoid fever, diptheria and cholera are included along with recommendations on how to treat fits and hysteria ("chiefly seen in females, and generally connected with uterine irregularities" according to The Dominion Cook Book-1899). While some remedies seem laughable knowing today's science other remedies still make perfect sense. "Rules for the Preservation of Health" in the latter cook book include instructions to drink water, avoid excess of spirits, exercise regularly and sleep in a well ventilated room.

Some remedies call for tincture of opium and chloroform - I can't imagine you would feel anything after that! Ingredients that I don't think I could find in a grocery store or at a pharmacy are listed: antimonial wine, laudanum, best manna, and tincture of senna are things I have never heard of before.

So while I was wrapped up in a blanket on the couch trying not to feel sorry for myself after developing my fifth cold since December, I decided to consult my old cookbooks for an old fashioned cure. Egg gruel or beef tea didn't sound appealing and I really didn't like the idea of simmering bacon in vinegar and then laying the bacon on my sore throat for a cure. I settled on "A valuable recipe for fever and ague" figuring I at least had the fever. According to Mrs. R.A. Sibley from "The Home Cook Book" of 1877 I should steep 4 ounces of galangal root in a quart of gin left in a warm place; take often. Unfortunately I didn't have any galangal root handy but I substituted some tonic water. Now I feel just fine!

Old cookbooks and a new hobby

One of my great passions aside from baking is collecting old cookbooks - the older the better. My collection started several years ago when I inherited a bunch of old cookbooks from an aunt. I didn’t really know her very well because she lived far away and was much older than my parents so I only really remember meeting her 2 or 3 times. But I did get to know her better through her books. Tucked inside a well-worn copy of a Fannie Farmer cookbook were hand written recipes and letters, correspondence between sisters and friends with recipes written in neat script included with news about neighbours and friends. I enjoyed getting to know my aunt a bit better and realized that we shared the same enthusiasm for baking and collecting recipes.

The next cookbook I purchased I found in a used bookstore in downtown Halifax, an Aladdin’s cave of used books. The red cover of Mrs. Beeton’s Cookery Book peeked out from a bottom shelf and I felt I had hit the jackpot when I opened it up to see ads from the early 1900’s and “receipts” and instructions for running a household. From there I started to search ebay and other used book stores and have been lucky enough to find cookbooks from as early as 1844. Each book carries its own story and history of its owner aside from the recipes included in its pages. I have books with names of their previous owners inscribed in fine ink with addresses in London, England and ones with extra recipes pencilled in on blank pages at the back. All of them carry a sense of personal history and memories from a time when a woman ran a household like a business and manners mattered. I often wonder how a book published in England in the 1800’s found its way across the ocean to Canada - probably in the hands of a young bride coming to start a new life in a new country.

These books carried information on not only how to feed a family but also how to work with servants, plan dinner parties, set tables and heal the sick. Dinner rituals and presentation skills were outlined in detail along with medicinal remedies for cholera, smallpox and influenza. In a time when the health and happiness of the family rested squarely on the shoulders of the woman in charge, these books were a guidebook for life. Although the original owners of these books are long gone their stories remain alive with me.