I have found an hilarious 134 year old book - 'Chambers Cookery for young housewives'

[goingonfortynoelectricshocks]

I have found in my eclectic collection of books (mostly from my late grandma) a very old cook book entitled ?Chambers Cookery for young housewives?. It is 134 years old. I?ll repeat that ? 134 years old (99 years older than me in fact ). DH and I have been POSL at both the recipes and the advice at the back. It makes Mrs Beeton look like Nigella. Calves Foot Jelly anyone? (I know it is made from Calves foot but it actually goes into how to boil it yourself). Stewed Oysters, Boiled tongue etc - you get the idea. But it is the ?General advice to housewives? that is the clincher! I will give you an example when I?ve typed it out (labour of love). If you like it ? there is plenty more:

Sounds ace.....my gran gave me her childhood copy of the Bero cookbook, sample phrase:

"Nothing pleases a husband more than to srive home from a days work to be greeted by the sight of a table laden with home baked produce"......hehe

Oh do go on! Sound brilliant. I will obviously take notes. I already tie my hair into a pony tail & ribbon and re-apply my make-up for DH's return from the office!

General Advice to Housewives
Presuming that you possess some influence in reference both to the choice and the furnishing of a residence, I beg to offer the following general hints for your consideration????.Choice of a house: There are certain important points on which you should obtain satisfactory information in making the choice of a house. First take care that it is not damp. Dampness may arise from several causes??imperfect drainage and a too close contact of the floors with the ground are the principle. When a house is damp in any part???..avoid it???. It may produce the most pernicious effects on the health of your family. Second, see that the house has a most open exposure to for fresh air and a beneficial influence of the sun?s rays?????.Third, ascertain if there be a plentiful supply of good water in the premises and if there be proper means at hand for drying and bleaching clothes. Fourth, learn where the vents go well and do not smoke. The inquiries you may make in reference to freedom from vermin and other???.i leave to your own judgement.

General Advice to Housewives
Furnishings:
When you design to furnish a house, take care to set out on a right principle in the selection of articles. It is essential for the sake of neatness, and for a pleasing effect to the eye, that there should be a harmony of colours and also a similarity of style in the main articles of furniture. Therefore if you do not exercise a little taste and judgement in your first selections you may find that you have committed a blunder that will cost you much subsequent annoyance???..If the colour of your curtains be scarlet and the colour of your walls or carpet blue, a most inharmonious and unpleasing effect will be produced???it is a good economic plan to buy carpets of the same pattern for several different rooms, because, in the event of removal to a house with differently sized apartments, a piece of one carpet may be taken to eke out the other.

General Advice to Housewives
Tables, Chairs etc.:
When you are bargaining for chairs, tables and other wooden articles of fine quality take care to specify that they must be of solid fabric and not veneered. Veneering is only tolerable in a few articles which are not to be subjected to much wear and tear????consequently they are soon destroyed. This practice, I am sorry to say, is done in cases where the highest price is paid for solid articles and I mention the circumstance to put you on your guard. ????..In ordering sofas you should also take care to bargain for genuine hair stuffing, for in many instance the stuffing is composed of what is generally known as POB, or a compositor of tow, wool and other kinds of rubbish. I have seen a hair sofa, for which the highest price was paid, swarming with a species of louse, shortly after being sent home from the upholsterers.

There is loads more .

General Advice to Housewives
Earthenware and china:
In purchasing sets of earthenware articles for the table, also take care to set out the right plan. Select that set which, in case of breakage, can at all times and in all places be easily matched. ???.. Thus a peculiar set of earthenware or china however beautiful or cheap may ultimately prove a source of vexation.

Plate:
A change of opinion has taken place recently regarding plate. Formerly most persons aspired to have as much genuine plate as possible????.now from the risk of robbery, and the excessive trouble in keeping plate, not to say the loss of interest in money, it is found preferable to have only a few genuine silver articles, and others plated on nickel or electrotyped????for common use a German nickel or silver teapot will be found convenient and much more durable than Britannia Metal.

Gilding:
Order the gilding of your picture frames and other articles to be done in oil.

Baths and foot warmers:
Houses that do not possess the convenience of baths may command the use of moveable bathing vessels for reclining, sponging or showering?.???

Oh we have one called 'Consult me for all you need to know' of the same vintage which tells you not only how to braise a sheep's brain (for food apparently) but also how to cure cancer by means of cold baths and drizzling oil over one's head on a nightly basis.

Has a hilarious section on the dangers of masturbation exhorting parents of adolescent boys to tie their arms to the bed sides and hang a crucifix prominently above their bed to avoid exposure.

It goes on but since it's only me amused and fascinated and horrified by such stuff....................i think i'll stop.

Oh no, go on, I love these.

I have experienced vexation when trying to replace broken china

Thanks WMMC I will carry on tomorrow - that's alot of typing for one drunken night. It goes onto household accounts and treatment of servants - priceless!

I'm enjoying too!

I have some late Victorian/Edwardian housewife manuals, telling ladies how to "manage when you have only a housekeeper rather than an entire domestic staff" and how to run a house.

Very amusing stuff! I love old books like this.

• Naughty naughty

Thanks for this - great stuff!