What an intriguing and interesting book. I'm likely to try some of the ideas in it, but some I will be a little sceptical about - times and knowledge having moved on.
The book is laid out with images to support the text and it is structured so that it can be used as a manual of sorts, if you wish.
It's the sort of book that you would have as a reference on your bookcase, especially if, like me, you prefer to find old, traditional ways of doing things.

Old-Time Country Wisdom and Lore for Hearth and Home is a volume in a series of republished and collated Old Farmer's Almanac type tips and folklore from the 1970s. Originally released in the 70's, this re-release from Quarto on their Voyageur Press imprint 12th Oct 2021 is 176 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats.

This is a wide-ranging collection of "Old Farmer's Almanac" type of wisdom and trivia. The tips and tricks are very roughly arranged thematically: hearth and home (cleaning and general info) and the country table (food prep & handling).

There are some hair-raisingly scary "tips" and observations included here and they are blended willy-nilly with old wives & farmers tales without regard to the veracity of any of the claims. In fact, the publisher states quite clearly in the disclaimer that "Any recipes or “health cures” are intended as a historical reference only. They are NOT recommended by the editors or publisher of this book. They have been compiled as a historical narrative for historical purposes only. The publisher assumes
no responsibility whatsoever for any injury or damage resulting from reader’s use of any of the material or information contained in this book".

The graphics are simple with old fashioned monochrome illustrations and line drawings throughout. This would be a good selection for the smallholder's winter home library reading, allotments, fans of old farmer's almanac type publications, and similar. I would go so far as to suggest its usefulness for historical research and background context for authors, historical re-enactors, etc. This is *not* a book to be followed or used as a reference to any degree.

Three and a half stars. It's of limited practical use, but will be enjoyed by people who remember the old almanacs fondly.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. It's full of great tips and ideas! I found it very helpful.

Filled full of wonderful almanac information. Many old school hacks that I never heard of until now.

Although I enjoy reading books about old time self sufficiency, I found this one to be a bit confusing. I wasn't sure if it was written to be just a collection of the way things used to be done, or if it was written to suggest ways to be more self sufficient. Although I found parts of it to be quite interesting, the purpose of the book was never clear to me.

How much fun is this book? I love reading books that give you hints and tips especially if they talk about the old times and how things used to be done.

Although it is mostly things we wouldn't use in today's society it gives an insight into how things have been done and you still get some good tips and ideas from it. But best of all it does evoke memories of days gone by and stories of my parents, grand-parents and great-grandparents days.

Loved the addition of the artwork as this made it feel even more old-fashioned and gave the book a bit of personality. It is fun, it is insightful and it is history.

It's a long way from gathering your own pot pourri to doing some home tanning, and making your own leathers. But this book takes it. I am sure many people are aware of the connection between newspapers and a nice, clean window, and how to spruce up a saucepan with rhubarb leaves, but there is also a heck of a lot here that is on the less common side. Outside the kitchen, we swing from calculating paint usage for our intended area, to making our own wallpaper. This is very much on the encyclopaedic scale, as opposed to the trivia gift book, with pages crammed with text, despite the many spot illustrations and other design elements breaking up the potential visual monotony. I think as a result it will be more suited as a reference/curiosity book for history buffs. That said, if you have the urge to make piano polish, who am I to stop you?! Oh, but before you think this far too esoteric – it has a sourdough starter, too.

Certainly the people who have swamped it with negative write-ups due to it including guff of the highest order in lieu of echt medical advice just have not got the point of it. We honestly did all believe that kind of guff, once upon a time and in one corner of the world or another. Get over it.

I enjoy vintage, heirloom cookbooks, so was excited to read this one. It has some wonderful, quaint wisdom and includes some interesting historical tidbits (such as the origin of cheese, how to make ink, and pest control). The book is illustrated with cute, period pictures like one might find in early American catalogs and is arranged more or less by subject. However, as a bread baker I have to give the sourdough recipe the verbal side eye. Sourdough starter is only flour, water, and time. You do not need to add yeast to it as it accumulates naturally from the air, and you definitely don't need to add sugar to a loaf of bread, unless you are doing it strictly for the taste, and the baking soda is an unnecessary leavening agent. The book also doesn't address the effects of weather on proofing times (18 hours at 80 or 85 degrees is going to to give you wildly overproofed dough). This throws a lot of the subsequent information into question. However, if you're feeling adventurous and want a "cottage arts" style book to experiment with (while taking the information contained within with a grain of salt) I think this would be a great addition to someone's kitchen library. I give it 4 stars because even though I can't speak to the veracity of the information, it was still an enjoyable read and provided plenty for someone to start building their own country wisdom from.

The promotional blurb for this book invites you to “Achieve your goal of a self-sufficient, sustainable lifestyle, no matter where you live, with instruction on a range of basic home skills inspired by old time country living.”

Sounds downright cozy, doesn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to enhance their lives with some practical budget-friendly skills?

The blurb waxes poetic some more, then wraps itself up with the assurance that “Basic, thorough, and reliable, this book deserves a place in urban and rural homes alike.”

Luckily, the publisher decided to have a word, too. The front matter of the book states in no uncertain terms that “Any recipes or “health cures” are intended as a historical reference only. They are NOT recommended by the editors or publisher of this book. They have been compiled as a historical narrative for historical purposes only. The publisher assumes no responsibility whatsoever for any injury or damage resulting from reader’s use of any of the material or information contained in this book.”

Who to believe? Well, I’ll give you a few examples of the book’s advice, and then give you my advice on how to use this book. Don’t worry, I will be kind.

“When labor is prolonged in childbirth, blow snuff, held on a goose feather, up the mother’s nose. This will induce a sneezing fit, resulting in delivery.” Go ask a mom right now if she would have appreciated that helpful gesture. I’ll wait.

Some advice might be fairly harmless, or provide a little relief, such as “Eating a hot roasted onion before retiring can be helpful in curing a cold.” I find a bowl of French Onion soup to be just as helpful. Onions get the sinuses open, can make you tear up, and basically get that snot packing its bags. So, yes. Harmless and probably will work.

Fortified by that thought, I read a cure for earaches. “Place a brass button in the mouth of one suffering from an earache. Surprise him by discharging a gun at his back. This will cure the pain.” Sounds more like a cause of earaches to me, or perhaps a fine way to bring on a heart attack. Doesn’t this make you wonder who the first person to try it was? And what they were thinking?

“To treat snakebite, cut open a freshly killed chicken and place it on the wound.” I’m fascinated by what’s left unsaid. Where do you cut into the chicken? Do you drain the blood, or just let everything gush freely over the snake bite? How long do you leave the chicken on the bite? Do you strap the chicken to the wound, or just ask the patient to balance it? In a pinch, would a duck work?

After the many pages of ‘cures’ mercifully ends, there’s advice on miscellaneous topics such as choosing the right astrological sign under which to have your surgery. There’s lots of recipes for household cleaners and pest control, some of which are clever and others are downright hazardous. Some of the recipes for cleaning soaps contain quicklime, which can be harmful if not handled properly. No caution or handling advice is given. Some of the recipes for insect repellants make me wonder how many small children and pets were eliminated along with the roaches and ants.

But, rather than nitpick the entire book to pieces, let me praise it a little. From a historical point of view, it provides a fascinating glimpse into the everyday lives of our ancestors. It gives insight into why lifespans were shorter, how everyday meals were prepared, and what sort of work kept the housewife toiling every waking moment. You’ll learn how homes were cleaned and maintained. What was involved in painting a house, or wallpapering it? How was clothing dyed, how was leather tanned?

Some activities are harmless and could be tried, if you’re feeling crafty. Make a quill pen and also the ink to dip it in. Dry and carve a corncob pipe, and if your land is cooperative, make some adobe bricks or clay for pottery.

In part two, “The Country Table” we learn all the little tricks that went into putting food on the table. Most of it is harmless and some of it is innocently silly, but our family trees might have had more branches on them if the advice for “Restoring Tainted Meats” never existed.

Summing up: This book is a valuable resource for anyone who wants to learn about our past. It would be an excellent reference guide for writers of historical fiction. Authors of murder mysteries will find dozens of interesting ways to kill off their characters.

Lastly… I will admit that now I kinda want to build an oatmeal box radio.

My thanks to author Jerry Mack Johnson, Quarto Publishing Group – Cool Springs Press, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a digital advance review copy of this book. This review is my honest and unbiased opinion.

Wild! Will these tips be useful to my everyday life? No. Am I totally loving seeing these tips and recipes? Absolutely. So wild what people did for home remedies. Also did you know you could make your own cider vinegar and soy sauce? Am I going to? Absolutely not. Can I? After reading this, yep.

What fun! This book contains nostalgia and charm in spades, including scores of practical and impractical tips and fascinating tidbits of information about health cures, cleaning, pest control, making dye colours, leather tanning, mounting snakeskins, gravestone rubbing, making adobe clay bricks and drying foods. The goal is to simplify life by using organic cures and remedies, though many "recipes" aren't exactly simple to create.

Though I will not make hair dye or fingernail paste, I would make the rosemary-lavender shampoo. Using hot hedgehog fat for hearing loss doesn't seem terribly practical. If you have plantain leaf juice on hand, you could heal snake bites. Loose tooth? Myrrh may be your answer. Have some quicklime lurking in your closet? There are uses for that. Next time you churn your butter, add baking soda and alum to prevent it from melting in the heat. Many of these tips are tongue in cheek, others were actually used in times past, as silly as they may seem now. Several of the recipes do look tasty (my grandma used to make Grandma's Cracklings Sausage and Taffy which we loved but we disliked headcheese) and several cleaning tips would work.

This book is great to dip in and out of and would be wonderful to give to those yearning for times past.

My sincere thank you to Quarto Publishing Group - Cool Springs Press and NetGalley for the privilege of reading this delightful book!

Old-Time Country Wisdom and Lore for Hearth and Home is an interesting book and great to browse through. However I think the blurb is a bit irresponsible as there should be a 'DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME' on some of the entries. It shouldn't be sold as a set of recipes for getting back to a simple life. It is a whimsical book full of interesting things of how things were done in old time, and some may be applicable today but many are not. I enjoyed reading it but wouldn't recommend trying everything out !

Reading this brought back so many memories of my childhood & the things my Grandmother swore by. Love how they're written, very useful & informative

As you can imagine this isn't a pickup and read it all at once, kind of book, it's recipes and tips on how to live successfully in a traditional, simple way. I found the recipes easy to follow, though I haven't made any yet, and enjoyed having written instructions I can follow for things like canning, making shampoo, how to work with different fabrics and herbs, etc. It's not everyone's cup of tea but I'll definitely be keeping it on the shelf. As others have reviewed, this is not to be kept or read in place of basic medical help or especially in times of emergency if you have access to 911, but it's awesome for immediate knowledge if you are out camping or whatever until you can get help from 911.

There is no way I would recommend this book. First off, I'm as "old timey" and crunchy as they come. Our family forages hundreds of pounds of food a year. I garden, cook from scratch, grind my own flours, use herbs and home remedies, cloth diapered and breastfed my babies, you name it. I have a basement full of home canned foods and a china cabinet full of herbs, tinctures, liqueurs and wild mushroom powders. There is currently a big jar of homemade kombucha on my dining room table. I'm not one to disparage a book for using folk remedies. There are thousands of them that were passed down for a very good reason, and science has caught up and now even backs a lot of them. So I am not dismissing this book because I'm some modern snob who tut-tuts the things our grandmas taught us.

But there is continually really terrible, almost laughably awful advice in here. I grew up reading these books back when I was a latchkey big city kid, and then I devoured them as I taught myself these skills decades back. I know home remedies. Many of these are new to me and absolutely defy common sense or any kind of knowledge of science, medicine or herbs, and many of them are dangerously ridiculous.

For example...

• Fasten a live frog on the throat of a person who has asthma. When the frog dies the person will be cured.

• Press a mixture of cobwebs and brown sugar on cuts.

• Pour lamp oil over a bleeding cut.

• If a woman is in prolonged labor, put snuff up her nose on a goose feather to induce sneezing.

• Relieve congestion from colds by rubbing your throat and chest with skunk's oil.

• Make a tooth polish by mixing salt and baking soda (this is so abrasive you will soon remove most of the enamel off your teeth).

• Mix three whole eggs, rain water and zinc sulfate and cook and strain them to make an eye wash for inflamed eyes.

• Drop melted hedgehog fat into ears to remove wax buildup.

• Put a mixture of fresh butter and tobacco on your hemorrhoids three times a day.

• If your baby is fussy after weaning, cover his hands with molasses and give him chicken feathers to hold.

• To cure "poisoning," drink a mixture of water, mustard and salt, or swallow a small piece of soap or tobacco.

I could go on and on and on. But just no. Good grief, no. Pass.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book via Net Galley.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I liked the concept of this book, but unfortunately it wasn't for me.

This book is full of "country wisdom" with different skills, recipes, etc. listed. Unfortunately a lot of the information feels out of date for modern American life and some of this information is downright harmful or hard to access. Tips include things like recipes to clarify blood or using lye. While there are some interesting ideas preserved here, it doesn't account for a lot of the science we've learned in the last 100 years or so.

Tired of using potentially toxic cleaners, personal care items like soap and shampoo that have been tested on helpless animals? Tires of the plastic waste you generate with every product you buy ? This fascinating guide shows you other options; by making things you need yourself, you cut down on waste, protect the environment and save yourself some money in the process. Entertaining as well as informative, this is a book for those who remember the Foxfire series or a new generation of those who want to make do and mend

I received this book for free for an honest review from netgalley #netgalley

Such a great book! I'm so happy I got this book

Old Time Country Wisdom and More for Hearth & Home

A book that will bring back memories of the ones you used to see on your Grandmas/ Grandpa's bookshelf.
A great country how- to title, chock full of great little remedies and problem solvers from before the time you could have a quick Google to find the solution to your problem. Also contains some good old fashioned recipes as well.
A keeper.

I love this type of book, always find them fascinating. This book was a pleasant read, informative and I loved the illustrations.
It was a bit hard to read in electronic format and I think I will buy a paper copy.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine