How to Drink Beer, 1725

J. Nothnagel, Man with Beer (1772), Wellcome Library

“I have not known Thirst since I have used hot Beer: Let the Weather be never so hot, and my work great, yet have I not felt Thirst as formerly... But some will say, Cold Beer is very pleasant to one that is Thirsty: I answer it is true: But pleasant things for the most part are very Dangerous. Cold Beer is pleasant when extream Thirst is in the Stomach, but what’s more dangerous to the Health? How many have you known and heard of, who by drinking a cup of Cold Beer in extream Thirst, have taken a surfeit and killed themselves? ...Therefore we must not drink cold Beer because it is pleasant, but hot beer because it is Profitable.”  

A Treatise of Warm Drink

Reminder: cold beer is pleasant but like most pleasant things it brings death. Cheers!

How to Survive Cold Season, 1761

Giovanni Battista Ferrari, Hesperides (1646)

Fever: To prevent catching any infectious fever, do not breathe near the face of the sick person, neither swallow your spittle while in the room. 

Cold in the Head: Pare very thin the yellow rind of an orange. Roll it up inside out and thrust a roll up each nostril.  

Cough: Drink a pint and a half of cold water lying down in bed... Or, make a hole thro' a lemon, and fill it with honey. Roast it, and catch the juice. Take a tea-spoonful of this frequently.  

The Country Gentleman, Farmer, and Housewife's Compendious Instructor 

What, you don't want to spend the winter with a cocktail garnish up your nose? Maybe you shouldn't have swallowed your spittle, my friend.

How to Make Snowballs for Dessert, 1798

Isaac Cruikshank, "Snow Balls" (1794), LWL

"Snow Balls. Pare and take out the cores of five large baking apples, and fill the holes with orange or quince marmalade. Then make some good hot paste, roll your apples in it, and make your crust of an equal thickness. Put them in a tin dripping-pan, bake them in a moderate oven, and when you take them out, make icing for them... let your icing be about a quarter of an inch thick, and set them at a good distance from the fire till they are hardened; but take care you do not let them brown. Put one in the middle of a dish, and the others round it. 

[Icing:] Take a pound of double-refined sugar pounded and sifted fine, and mix it with the whites of twenty-four eggs, in an earthen pan. Whisk them well for two or three hours till it looks white and thick." 

William Augustus Henderson, The Housekeeper's Instructor

Ring in the New Year with this festive dessert! Bonus: if you start whisking the icing at exactly 9 PM, you'll die of exhaustion before 2018.

How to Stay Cool, 1723

"When the Sun is in its full Force, there is nothing more refreshing, or affords more Pleasure to Mankind, than cool Breezes, whether Natural or Artificial, which, provided they are moderate and constant, will invigorate the Spirits, and help the Health of the Body. Many of the Curious have already endeavour'd to purchase the pleasing Coolness I speak of, either in Grotto's or Pleasure-houses... The House, Fig. I. should, in my Opinion, be either Round or Polygonal... Fig II. Shews a Chain of Buckets, which may be continually kept working, by means of a Wheel cross the River, and will constantly supply the Cistern on the Top of the House; and the Water being once brought together in a Body, and deposited in a Bason above us, will by proper Pipes give us the Jets and Cascades we desire." 

Richard Bradley, A General Treatise of Husbandry and Gardening

Summer heat got you down? What you need is an indoor water park. Hello, pleasing Coolness!

How to Avoid Sunburn, 1756

Pierre-Thomas Le Clerc, "Polonaise" (1779), MFA

"Take Deer's Marrow, put it into a sufficient Quantity of Water with Wheat-Flour, and let them settle; then take some Ounces of what subsides to the Bottom and mix it well with a sufficient Quantity of the Whites of Eggs. Plaister your Face with the said Paste when you go to Bed at Night, and wash yourself the next Morning with warm Water. This Method is excellent to prevent Sunburn." 

Abdeker: Or, the Art of Preserving Beauty

The secret to a pasty complexion? Paste.

How to Make Artichoke Ice Cream, 1768

L. Boilly, Les Mangeurs de Glaces (1825)

"Artichoke ice cream. Take three or four artichokes, of which you will use only the bottoms; boil them until they are soft; crush them with a quarter-pound of blanched pistachios, a quarter of a candied orange, and a bit of cream; strain this mixture through a sieve; thin it with a chopine [2 cups] of cream, cooked in the manner of the first one which I instructed; add some sugar to taste; strain it all through a sieve, and put it in a sarbotière [ice cream maker]."

Joseph Gilliers, Le Cannaméliste français

Something tells me the kids will see through your efforts to sneak artichokes into their dessert.

How to Sweet Talk Your Man, 1713

Lewis Walpole Library

"Complemental Expressions towards Men Leading to the Art of Courtship": 

Sir, I am daily in disquiet, and shall be, till some occasion be offered me suddenly wherein I may appear to You to be more than Verbal.
Sir, Your good Goodness wants a resident.
Sir, I shall study to Chronicle Your Vertues.
Sir, You are so highly Noble, that Your Purse is my Exchequer.
Sir, Be confident of my Affection, while I have room to lodge You in my Bosom.
Sir, Sleep is not more welcome to the wearied Traveller, than thou art to my House.
Sir, Without you, the State's necessities increase.
Sir, my appetite is sick, for want of a Capacity to digest your Favors. 

Charles Sackville, The New Academy of Complements, excerpts

Looking to get more than verbal with a special guy? A few of these lines in quick succession will have him lodging in your bosom in no time.

(Need to impress a lady? No problem. How to Sweet Talk Your Lady, 1656 and How to Compliment a Lady, 1653.)

How to Make Turnip Wine, 1796

"To make Turnip Wine. Take a good many turnips, pare, slice, and put them in a cyder-press, and press out all the juice very well; to every gallon of juice have three pounds of lump-sugar, have a vessel ready just big enough to hold the juice, put your sugar into a vessel, and also to every gallon of juice half a pint of brandy; pour in the juice, and lay something over the bung for a week, to see if it works; if it does, you must not bung it down till it has done working: then stop it close for three months, and draw it off in another vessel. When it is fine, bottle it off."

Hannah Glasse, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy

When will your turnip wine taste fine? Maybe right after you've downed the last bottle of non-turnip wine.

How to Avoid Stinks, 1706

H. W. Bunbury, "The Battle of the Cataplasm," 1773

"When you are where Stinks are, open your Mouth, and breath through, and you shall not smell it, nor receive prejudice by it." 

Thomas Lupton, A Thousand Notable Things (1706 ed.)

From the century that brought you the French and American Revolutions: a lesser-known revolution in Stinks management.

How to Choose Meat, 1772

Thomas Rowlandson, The Wonderful Pig (1785)

"Lamb is more Nutritious than any kind of Poultry, Mutton than Lamb, Veal than Mutton, and Beef than Veal; But Pork is more Nutricious than any of these; for the Juices of Pork, which is more like Human Flesh than any other Flesh is, are more adapted to the Nourishment of a Human Body than the Juices of any other Flesh." 

Directions and Observations Relative to Food, Exercise and Sleep (1772)

On reflection, I can understand why the US Pork Board chose "Pork: The Other White Meat"over "Pork: More Convenient than Cannibalism."

How to Make a Christmas Pie, 1784

"To make a Yorkshire Christmas-Pie. First make a good standing crust, let the wall and bottom be very thick; bone a turkey, a goose, a fowl, a partridge, and a pigeon, Season them all very well, take half an ounce of mace, half an ounce of nutmegs, a quarter of an ounce of cloves, and half an ounce of black-pepper, all beat fine together, two large spoonfuls of salt, and then mix them together. Open the fowls all down the back, and bone them; first the pigeon, then the partridge; cover them; then the fowl, then the goose, and then the turkey, which must be large; season them all well first, and lay them in the crust, so as it will look only like a whole turkey; then have a hare ready cased, and wiped with a clean cloth. Cut it to pieces, that is, joint it; season it, and lay it as close as you can on one side; on the other side woodcocks, moor game, and what sort of wild-fowl you can get. Season them well, and lay them close; put at least four pounds of butter into the pie, then lay on your lid, which must be a very thick one, and let it be well baked. It must have a very hot oven, and will take at least four hours." 

Hannah Glasse, The Art of Cookery (1784)

Holiday dining doesn't get more efficient than this Christmas pie. Just toss in your calling birds, French hens, turtle doves, and the partridge in a pear tree. You could probably fit a few lords a-leaping in there too, if you've got those on hand.

How to Make a Hedgehog, 1725

"Dear Ask the Past, I am looking for some vegetarian recipes for the holiday season. Any suggestions? Sincerely, A Vegetarian Jew"

"To make a Hedge-Hog. Take a Quart of New Cream and boil it, then beat an Egg and put into it, and take a quarter of a Pint of sowre Cream, and mix them well together, stirring it continually; let it boil till it be a little turn'd, then put it into a Cloth, and squeeze the Whey from it; when it's cold, mix it with pounded Almonds, and refin'd Sugar; then lay it like a Hedge-hog, and stick it with Almonds, cut small, and put good Cream about it; stick two or three Currans for the Nose and Eyes." 

Robert Smith, Court Cookery (1725)

Sometimes you want to serve a hedgehog, but dietary restrictions or scarcity stand in your way. Enter the Hedge-Log: part cheese ball, part Tiggy-Winkle, all eighteenth-century genius.

How to Make Pumpkin Ale, 1771

Vietz, Icones plantarum (1804)

"Let the Pompion be beaten in a Trough and pressed as Apples. The expressed Juice is to be boiled in a Copper a considerable Time and carefully skimmed that there may be no Remains of the fibrous Part of the Pulp. After that Intention is answered let the Liquor be hopped cooled fermented &c. as Malt Beer." 

American Philosophical Society papers (1771)

This fall, treat yourself to some pumpkin ale-- homebrew of 18th-century American philosophers.

How to Catch a Rat, 1768

"Remember likewise, that they are a very subtle vermin, for if they in the least suspect what you are about, you cannot catch them... set your great cage out of the way at some distance that the other Rats may not hear them squeak, for that will baulk your sport and occasion them to run away." 

Robert Smith, The Universal Directory for Taking Alive and Destroying Rats (1768)

Dealing with an infestation of subtle vermin? Robert Smith offers a "method hitherto unattempted," in which you lure the little beasts into what looks like an exciting rat funhouse. Some assembly required.

How to Make Ketchup, 1774

"To make catchup to keep twenty years. Take a gallon of strong stale beer, one pound of anchovies washed from the pickle, a pound of shalots, peeled, half an ounce of mace, half an ounce of cloves, a quarter of an ounce of whole pepper, three or four large races of ginger, two quarts of the large mushroom-flaps rubbed to pieces. Cover all this close, and let it simmer till it is half wasted, then strain it through a flannel-bag; let it stand till it is quite cold, then bottle it. You may carry it to the Indies."

Hannah Glasse, The Art of Cookery (1774)

Planning a twenty-year sea voyage to the Indies, but unsure which condiments to pack? This mushroomy ketchup will sustain and console you for decades. 

How to Use Tomatoes, 1794

"Love-Apples... The fruit of the wild sort is no bigger than a cherry; but those that grow in gardens are as big as a small apple, very round and red, and therefore called pomum amoris; some call them tomatoes. It hath a small sharp-pointed jagged leaf, growing very thick upon its stalk and branches; its fruit is round and red, or of an orange colour. I have eat five or six raw at a time: They are full of a pulpy juice, and of small seeds, which you swallow with the pulp, and have something of a gravy taste... the fruit, boiled in oil, is good for the itch." 

Henry Barham, Hortus Americanus (1794)

Do you like gravy? Are you itchy? Then the love-apple is the New World fruit for you-- perfect for snacking and for smearing all over yourself.

How to Cure Cramps, 1739

"For the Cramp. Take of rosemary-leaves, and chop them very small, and sew them in fine linen, and make them into garters, and wear them night and day."

Eliza Smith, The Compleat Housewife (1739)

You know what they say: one person's cramp remedy is another person's herbal undergarment.

How to Eat Seasonally, 1746

Peter Jacob Horemans, Still Life (1769)

"Experience teacheth, that Hens are best in January; Eggs in February; Lamb, Kid, Pidgeons and Veal in March; Herbs in April; Cockles in May; Bucks and Salmon in June, July, and August; Gunards in September; Oysters in all Months in whose name an R is found; Pork, Bacon, and Cabbage in frosty Weather, &c." 

Thomas Moffet, Health's Improvement (1746)

That pesky no-oysters-in-no-R-months rule is a venerable tradition. Perhaps it's time to rename the summer months: Mray, Juner, Jurly, and Augurst. In the meantime, enjoy your bucks and salmon!

How to Say 'Drunk,' 1770

"[T]he simple idea of having drunk too much liquor, is expressed in near FOURSCORE different ways...

 Drunk,
Intoxicated,

William Hogarth, A Midnight Modern Conversation (1732)

Fuddled,
Flustered,
Rocky,
Tipsey,
Chuck full,
Hocky,
Crop-sick,
Hot-headed,
A little how came ye so?
Crank,
Cherry-merry,
Bosky,
As wise as Solomon,

        It is also said that he has
Business on both sides of the way,
Got his little Hat on,
Bung'd his Eye,
Got a spur in his head,
Got a crumb in his beard,
Got his beer on board." 

        The Gentleman's Magazine (1770)

Sometimes I think that the entire eighteenth century had a crumb in its little hat, if you know what I mean.

How to Interview People Abroad, 1789

"A traveller's memory will be greatly relieved, by putting down the questions he wishes to have answered... 

Is it easy for ships of war to land on the sea coast, or is landing rendered hazardous by sands? and rocks? 

Which are the favourite herbs of the sheep of this country? 

How are the merchants of this country secured against the pyratical powers of Barbary? 

What is the general value of whales of different sizes? 

What celebrated ladies are still living, and worth to be taken notice of for their extraordinary qualifications?"

Leopold Berchtold, An Essay to Direct and Extend the Inquiries of Patriotic Travellers (1789)  

Careful with your questions there, traveler. The natives will assume you're plotting to raid their coasts, beguile their sheep, sell their whales of different sizes, and take notice of their celebrated ladies.