How to Serve a Flaming Bird, c. 1465

Musée du Petit-Palais L.Dut.456, f. 86v (15th c.)

How to Dress a Peacock With All Its Feathers, So That When Cooked, It Appears To Be Alive and Spews Fire From Its Beak

     How to dress a peacock so that it appears to be alive: first, the peacock should be killed by stabbing it in the head with a sharp knife or by slitting its throat, as you would with a baby goat. Then slice the body from the neck all the way to the tail, cutting only the skin and delicately skinning it so that you do not ruin the feathers or the skin. When you have finished skinning the body, turn the skin inside out, from the neck down. Make sure not to detach the head from the skin of the neck; and similarly, make sure that the legs remain attached to the skin of the thighs. Then dress it well for roasting, and stuff it with good things and good spices, and take some whole cloves and use them to stud the breast, and cook the bird slowly on a spit; and place a wet cloth around the neck so that the heat does not overly dry it; and wet the cloth repeatedly. When it is done cooking, remove form the spit and dress it up in its skin.
     Prepare an iron device attached to a cutting board that passes through the feet and legs of the peacock so that the iron cannot be seen and so that the peacock stands up on its feet with its head erect and seems to be alive; and arrange the tail nicely so that it forms its wheel.
     If you want it to spew fire from its beak, take a quarter ounce of camphor with a little cotton wool around it, and put it in the beak of the peacock, and also put a little aqua vitae or good, strong wine.    
     When you serve it, light the cotton wool and it will spew fire for a good bit. And to make it even more magnificent, when the peacock is done, you can decorate it with leaves of hammered gold and place the peacock's skin over the gold after you have smeared the inside of the skin with good spices.
     The same can be done with pheasants, cranes, geese, and other birds, as well as capons and pullets.

Martino da Como, Liber de arte coquinaria 

Haven't you always fantasized about the holiday turkey spewing fire in the direction of your least favorite relative? Time to turn those dreams into fiery, delicious, gold-plated reality.

How to Throw a Party (Single Ladies' Edition), 1896

Manners and Customs of Polite Society (1896)

"The bachelor women in their cosy little city apartments, or even their one apartment, refuse to be debarred from the pleasure and privilege of giving the little entertainments so dear to the heart feminine. They not only give the most charming little "teas" and "coffees," but they are past masters in the use of the chafing dish... A sandwich spread is another entertainment easily given by a "bachelor maid." This is a meal at which everything, barring the tea and coffee, is served in the form of a sandwich. Not until one has tried does one realize to what excellence and variety this form of viand lends itself. Deviled ham sandwiches, egg sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, lettuce sandwiches, potted ham, potted fish, potted cheese sandwiches, pineapple sandwiches, peanut sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches, tomato sandwiches, walnut sandwiches, oyster sandwiches and so on indefinitely."  

Maud C. Cooke, Manners and Customs of Polite Society

You won't be single for long once the guests taste your walnut sandwiches.

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 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 Stockpile Lobsters, 1660

Anne Vallayer-Coster, Still Life with Lobster (1781)

"To keep lobsters a quarter of a year very good. Take them being boild as aforesaid, wrap them in course rags having been steeped in brine, and bury them in a cellar in some sea-sand pretty deep." 

Robert May, The Accomplisht Cook (1660)

The power of planning ahead! Just think: if you'd done this a few months ago, today you'd have... a cool CSI-style lobster graveyard in your basement.

(Or there's this lobster gardening technique.)

How to Make a Cooked Bird Sing, c. 1450

Luttrell Psalter, BL Add. MS 42130, f. 207v

"To make that Chicken Sing when it is dead and roasted, whether on the spit or in the platter. Take the neck of your chicken and bind it at one end and fill it with quicksilver and ground sulphur, filling until it is roughly half full; then bind the other end, but not too tightly. When you want it to sing, [heat] your neck or chicken. When it is quite hot, and when the mixture heats up, the air that is trying to escape will make the chicken's sound. The same can be done with a gosling, with a piglet and with any other birds. And if it doesn't cry loudly enough, tie the two ends more tightly."  

The Vivendier (c. 1450) 

 From the same geniuses who brought you the live bird entrée: this sequel recipe will provide a soundtrack for your feast! Plus, what's a holiday without some toxic mercury-based stuffing?

How to Serve a Live Bird at a Feast, c. 1450

"Get a chicken or any other bird you want, and pluck it alive cleanly in hot water. Then get the yolks of 2 or 3 eggs; they should be beaten with powdered saffron and wheat flour, and distempered with fat broth or with the grease that drips under a roast into the dripping pan. By means of a feather glaze and paint your pullet carefully with this mixture so that its colour looks like roast meat. With this done, and when it is about to be served to the table, put the chicken's head under its wing, and turn it in your hands, rotating it until it is fast asleep. Then set it down on your platter with the other roast meat. When it is about to be carved it will wake up and make off down the table upsetting jugs, goblets and whatnot."  

The Vivendier (ca. 1450)

Is your Thanksgiving turkey routine getting dull? This year, don't roast the bird -- just denude, glaze, hypnotize, and serve. Your guests will never forget the dinner, and you'll never have to host again.

(I'd love to see the out-takes on this one.)

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 a Pumpkin Pie, 1670

Still Life with Pies (17th c.) 

"To make a Pompion-Pie. Having your Paste ready in your Pan, put in your Pompion pared and cut in thin slices, then fill up your pie with sharp Apples, and a little Pepper, and a little salt, then close it, and bake it, then butter it, and serve it in hot to the Table." 

Hannah Woolley, The Queen-Like Closet, or Rich Cabinet (1670)

Paraphrase: prepare your pan, pare your pompion, put it in paste with pepper.

How to Make a Salad, 1660

"Take the buds of all good sallets herbs, capers, dates, raisins, almonds, currans, figs, orangado. Then first of all lay it in a large dish, the herbs being finely picked and washed, swing them in a clean napkin; then lay the other materials round the dish, and amongst the herbs some of all the foresaid fruits, some fine sugar, and on the top slic't lemon, and eggs scarce hard cut in halves, and laid round the side of the dish, and scrape sugar over all; or you may lay every fruit in partitions several."

Robert May, The Accomplisht Cook (1660)

In the good old days, salad was a sugar delivery system, and a salad spinner was a cook with a napkin.

How to Make Coffee, 1685

"We must now particularize the preparation of this Drink made with Coffee... The Grain... is put into an Iron Instrument firmly shut together with the coverlid; through this Instrument they thrust a Spit, by the means whereof they turn it before the Fire, till it shall be well rosted; after which having beaten it into very fine Powder, you may make use thereof... and put it into a glass of boyling Water, putting a little Sugar thereto: And after having let it boyl a small time, you must pour it into little dishes of porcelain or any other sort, and so let it be drunk by little and little, as hot as it can possibly be indur'd."

John Chamberlayn, The Manner of Making Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate (1685)

The barista will be charmed when you outline the requirements for your morning order of seventeenth-century spit-roasted coffee. For clarity, bring along a diagram of The Instrument.

How to Make Pink Pancakes, 1786

"To make a pink-coloured Pancake. Boil a large beet root tender, and beat it fine in a marble mortar, then add the yolks of four eggs, two spoonfuls of flour, and three spoonfuls of good cream, sweeten it to your taste, and grate in half a nutmeg, and put in a glass of brandy; beat them all together half an hour, fry them in butter, and garnish them with green sweetmeats, preserved apricots, or green sprigs of myrtle."

Elizabeth Raffald, The Experienced English Housekeeper, For the Use and Ease of Ladies, Housekeepers, Cooks, &c. (1786)

If your pancakes aren't pink, you are no lady. 

How to Make Waffles, 1714

"The Right Dutch-Wafer. Take four Eggs, and beat them very well, then take a good spoonful of fine Sugar, one Nutmeg grated, a pint of Cream, and a pound of Flower, a pound of Butter melted, two or three spoonfuls of Rose-water, and two good spoonfuls of Yeast; mix all well together, and bake them in your Wafer-tongs on the Fire. For the Sauce, take grated Cinnamon, Sack, and melted Butter, sweeten'd to your Taste." 

A Collection of Above Three Hundred Receipts in Cookery, Physick and Surgery; for the Use of All Good Wives, Tender Mothers, and Careful Nurses (1714)

The waffle of All Good Wives, Tender Mothers, and Careful Nurses. Leave cheap imitations to the wicked wives, malicious mothers, and negligent nurses, and ready the Wafer-tongs!