This Is How You Do It - Folk Lore & Stuff

When a young woman starts out in life as a homemaker, she usually doesn't know much unless she was chief cook and bottle washer at home during her growing-up years.  It's not uncommon for the young woman to know nothing about cooking thus,  she will need lots of help in the kitchen and household. 

Grammy and mama helped me.  They told me how to do things in the kitchen.  These were household hints to make life easier and to give me "know-how".  Grammy and mama hints are priceless and oldies but still goodies.  I hope these might help you!  But remember some might be only folklore and not work for you......I offer no guarantee....just love and knowledge from old times.

1.   Dredge nuts in flour before adding to a recipe to help distribute them....dredge simply means mix the nuts in a small bowl with about 2 teaspoons of flour and then dump flour and nuts in the batter

2.   Potatoes soaked in salt water for 20 minutes will bake faster.

3.  Dry flowers with sand.  This won't work for white flowers and cactus and hyacinths.  Use white sand and cover the bottom of a deep dish.  Cover the flower, making sure you get the sand between the petals.  Completely bury the flower.  Check in a week by pouring the sand off.  If the sand appears damp, change the sand to get rid of the moisture (sand can be dried and used repeatedly).  Some flowers take a couple of weeks to dry.  

4.   Drive away fleas by sprinkling a few drops of lavendar oil.

5.   Lamp chimneys and other glass intended for heat will be less likely to break if put in a pan of cold water and bringing to a slow boil.  Boil slowly for an hour and let cool in the water before removing.

6.   Honey is good for a sore throat and bee stings.

7.   To remove onion smell from your hands, hold a stainless steel spoon in your hand under running water and rub your hands as if the spoon was soap...works!

8.   Use a piece of bread to pick up broken glass fragments.

9.   Nutmeg in a cup of boiling water will cure a violent headache.

10.  If you have the tendency to retain water, lemon juice in water is a natural diuretic.

11.  For an upset stomach and diarrhea, drink flat coke and eat crackers.  Especially the small amounts of flat coke every hour.  This will help prevent dehydration.

12.  A teaspoon of vinegar cures hiccups.  Also eating sugar or sucking on a piece of lemon will cure them.

13.  For a bee or wasp sting, place wet chewing tobacco on the sting and it will immediately be cured. (I know that this works!!)

14.  For a sunburn, evaporated milk on the sunburn will help it.

15.  Cure urinary infections with Alka Seltzer tablets.  Dissolve two tablets in a glass of water at the first onset of urinary tract symptoms.

16.  For toenail fungus, soak your toenails (toes) in Listerine.

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I can't dispute some of Grammy's old folklore because I've used them, but you know how folklore over time becomes legends in a person's imagination ..... and of course exaggeration overcomes the original hint.  So, I offer you my grammy's hints and folklore and you can use them at your pleasure.   Grammy was a smart person and she was old so she knew lots.   She never even saw a computer so what she knew came from the heart and her memory from years of practice and applying her knowledge.  

As I shuffle through the papers with her handwriting, I get a tear in my eye because I miss her.  But her hints and her knowledge lives on.  Be sure to come back again and sit a spell.