Since we share recipes on this blog, I found a couple that I thought would be great for this time of year particularly.
My sister called me the other evening asking for a recipe. I dug out Mothers recipe boxes to see if perhaps she had a copy, and although I didn’t find the particular cookie recipe Alane wanted, I did, find some “recipes” for some helpful cures or at least to lessen the suffering from the winter cold and flu season. (Disclaimer—Use at your own risk--if you dare to use at all :)
*Home Made Liniment—
1 pt. cider vinegar
½ pt. turpentine
Beat 3 eggs thoroughly. Mix all together, shake well in bottle before using.
Really. This was on a recipe card in my mother’s recipe box under misc.
The next, I copied straight from “Frank Good’s Homemade—(the rest of the title was cut off)
For Bad Cold
“Mix equal parts of honey, cider vinegar and whiskey; take ½ to one ounce, as mixed.
(Contributed by Vera Berner of Newton)
Our note: Hmmm, Very, you don’t say how often to partake of the elixir….but upon further reflection; it’s all organic so it must be good for you taken as oft as you wish. (Pert night tantalizing enough to make one want to stand dripping wet in front of the air conditioner, or barefoot in the snow.)”
Between the first remedy and this one I’m confident you would get to feeling better. After all you would smell so bad that no one would come near you to either expose you again, or for you to get anything in the first place. Or you would be feeling no pain from the afore mentioned elixir to the point that you simply wouldn’t care.
Now before you think that my family was frequently into libations, not at all! Liquor was strictly used for medicinal purposes. You had to be pretty sick before the whiskey or homemade wine was pulled out of the back of the cupboard.
In the day before modern medicine, pharmacies, and over the counter remedies and pills, homemade remedies were the housewife and mothers only hope when a family member became ill. Dr’s were called as a last resort, and often times, before penicillin, the sulfa drugs didn’t work well either.
My Grandmother Wolf swore by her home remedies and when cold and flu season rolled around, she smelled like liniment, and wore an onion poultice around her neck; greasing herself with Musterole (which I’m sure took the place of a mustard plaster), and before you scoff and laugh…………she lived to be 96 years old.
Where’s the vinegar and turpentine?
*Not to be ingested
