How to Eat a Pumpkin, 1597

"The pulpe of the Pompion is never eaten raw, but boiled... The fruit boiled in milke and buttered, is not onely a good wholesome meate for mans bodie: but being so prepared, is also a most phisicall medicine for such as have an hot stomacke, and the inward parts inflamed. The flesh or pulpe of the same sliced and fried in a pan with butter, is also a good and wholesome meate: but baked with apples in an oven, it doth fill the bodie full of flatuous or windie belchings, and is foode utterly unwholesome for such as live idly; but unto robustious and rusticke people, nothing hurteth that filleth the belly."  

John Gerard, The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes

Try some baked pumpkin! A few windy belchings are sure to enliven your week.

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!