How to Make a Watermelon Cake, 1896

Watermelon (c. 1855)

         "1/2 cup butter.
          1 cup sugar.
          1/2 cup sweet milk.
          3 whites of eggs.
          2 cups flour.
          1 teaspoon cream tartar.
          1/2 teaspoon soda.
          Flavor with lemon.


Take a little more than 1/3 of the mixture and to it add 1 teaspoon liquid cochineal and 1/2 cup raisins. Put the red part in the center and bake. Cover with a frosting colored green with spinach."

Smiley's Cook Book (1896)

This is perfect for a child's birthday party. The kids will be so busy picking out the raisins they won't notice the cake is made of spinach goo and liquified insects.

How to Converse, 1651

"Neither shake thy head, feet, or legges; Rowle not thine eyes. Lift not one of thine eye-browes higher than thine other. Wry not thy mouth. Take heed that with thy spettle thou bedew not his face with whom thou speakest, and to that end approach not too nigh him." 

Francis Hawkins, Youths Behaviour (1651)

The close-talker: terrorizing conversation partners since the seventeenth century.

How to Drink Beer, 1623

"Beere that is too bitter of the hop... hurteth the sinewes, offendeth the sight, and causeth the head-ach, by filling the ventricles of the braine with troublesome vapors... Here some may demand, Whether it be better to drink their Beere cold, or a little warmed, especially in the Winter season? Whereto I answer, that I see no good reason to approve the drinking thereof warme, as I know some to do, not only in the Winter, but almost all the yeere: for it is nauceous and fulsome to the stomack... Moreover, it doth not so well quench the thirst, temper the naturall heat, and coole the inward parts, as if it be taken cold." 

Tobias Venner, Via recta ad vitam longam (1623) 

This just in from the archives of drinking lore: poorly chosen beer can give you the head-ach, and warm beer is nauseating.

How to Bust a Move, 1856

"Throw the body and stretch the right arm and right leg as far as possible to the right. Reverse the movement, and stretch them to the left, as at Fig. 54. Count one at the first movement, and so on to twelve." 

Catharine E. Beecher, Physiology and Calisthenics for Schools and Families (1856)

Have you been trying to figure out Travolta's moves since 1977? Surprisingly, the secret is contained in this nineteenth-century manual of calisthenics.

          

How to Keep Wine from Going Sour, 1649

Pieter Bruegel, Summer (1637)

"How to keep wine from sowring. Tie a piece of very salt Bacon on the inside of your barrell, so as it touch not the Wine, in so doing your Wine will never sowre." 

Francisco Dickinson, A Precious Treasury of Twenty Rare Secrets (1649)

Didn't finish the bottle at dinner? Just stuff some bacon in there. Your wine will stay fresh, plus it will have a nice porcine nose.

How to Treat the Freshmen, 1495

They get smaller every year.
Codex Manesse (c. 1304)

"Statute Forbidding Any One to Annoy or Unduly Injure the Freshmen. Each and every one attached to this university is forbidden to offend with insult, torment, harass, drench with water or urine, throw on or defile with dust or any filth, mock by whistling, cry at them with a terrifying voice, or dare to molest in any way whatsoever physically or severely, any, who are called freshmen, in the market, streets, courts, colleges and living houses, or any place whatsoever, and particularly in the present college, when they have entered in order to matriculate or are leaving after matriculation."

Leipzig University Statute (1495)

A friendly reminder for the new academic year: please resist the temptation to terrify the freshmen with spooky voices, at least for the first few weeks.

How to Predict Your Baby's Gender, 1684

Ulisse Aldrovandi, Monstrorum historia (1642) 

"If it happen to be a Male Child, then the right Eye of the Woman will, to appearance, move swifter, and sparkle more than the left... her right Cheek will often glow, and be more ruddy than the left, and indeed the whole colour of her Face more lively than at other times, she feels less Sadness than if she conceived a Female." 

Aristoteles Master-piece (1684) 

If the right side of your face is looking a little bit like an anime character, you're probably having a boy. (Also, I have a sneaking suspicion that the seventeenth century was not hoping for a girl.)