Some folks have sinus problems that cause them to tend to breathe through their mouths, or have a problem with dry mouth. To relieve the problem, mix 1 tablespoon of honey with 1/2 cup warm water and gargle with it. The sweetness [levulose] in the honey increases saliva and makes it much easier to swallow.

"A few general rules are necessary to be observed in coloring. The materials should be perfectly clean; soap should be rinsed out in soft water; light colors should be steeped in brass, tin, or earthen; and if set at all, should be set in alum. Dark colors should be boiled in iron, and set with copperas Too much copperas rots the thread.

"The apothecaries and hatters keep a compound of vitriol and indigo, commonly called 'blue composition.' An ounce vial full may be bought for nine-pence. It colors a fine blue. It is an economical plan to use it for old silk linings, ribbons &c. The original color should be boiled out, and the material thoroughly rinsed in soft water, so that no soap may remain in it; for soap ruins the dye. Twelve or sixteen drops of the blue composition, poured into a quart bowl full of warm soft water, stirred, (and strained, if any settlings area perceptible) will color a great many articles. If you wish a deep blue, pour in more of the compound.

"Cotton must not be colored; the vitriol destroys it; if the material you wish to color has cotton threads in it, it will be ruined. After the things are thoroughly dried, they should be washed in cool suds, and dried again; they should be washed again in cool suds, and dried again; this prevents any bad effects from the vitriol; if shut up from the air without being washed, there is danger of the texture being destroyed.

"If you wish to color green, have your cloth free as possible from the old color, clean, and rinsed, and, in the first place, color it a deep yellow fustic boiled in the soft water makes the strongest and brightest yellow dye; but saffron, barberry bush, peach leaves or onion skins, will answer pretty will. Next take a bowl full of strong yellow dye, and pour in a great spoonful or more of the blue composition. Stir it up will with a clean stick, and dip the articles you have colored yellow into it, and they will take a lively grass green. This is a good plan for old bombazet curtains, desserts cloths, old flannel for covering a desk &c: it is likewise a handsome color for ribbons.

"Saffron steeped in earthen and strained, colors a fine straw color. It makes a delicate or deep shade according to the strength of the tea. the dry outside skins of onions, steeped in scalding water and strained, color a yellow very much like 'bird of paradise' color. Peach leaves, or bark scraped from the barberry bush, colors a common bright yellow. In all these cases, a little piece of alum does no harm, and may help to fix the color. Ribbon gauze handkerchiefs, &c. are colored well in this way, if they be stiffened by a bit of gum Arabic, dropped in while the stuff is steeping in earthen or tin.

"The purple paper, which comes on loaf sugar, boiled in cider, or vinegar, with a small bit of alum, makes a fine purple slate color. Done in iron.

"The purple slate and the brown slate are suitable colors for stockings; and it is an economical plan, after they have been mended and cut down , so that they will no longer look decent, to color old stockings, and make them up for children.

"A pailful of lye, with a piece of copperas half as big as a hen's egg boiled in it, will color a fine nankin color, which will never wash out. This is very useful for the linings of bed-quilts, comforters &c. Old faded gowns, colored in this way, may be made into good petticoats, and pelisse for little girls.

"A very beautiful nankin color may likewise be obtained from birch-bark, set with alum. The bark should be covered with water, and boiled thoroughly in brass or tin. A bit of alum half as big as a hen's egg is sufficient. If copperas be used instead of alum, slate color will be produced.

"Tea-grounds boiled in iron, and set with copperas, make a very good slate color.

"Log-wood and cider in iron, set with copperas, makes a good black. Rusty nails, or any rusty iron boiled in vinegar, with a small bit of copperas, makes a good black, black ink powder done in the same way answers the same purpose."

The "copperas" mentioned a number of times in the excerpt is ferrous sulfate. A good substitution for ferrous sulfate, something which is not mined in the South and would have been difficult to purchase during the War, would have been rusty nails added to the iron pot in which the mixtures were being cooked up.

Ingredients:
Linseed oil
Ground resin
Heavy paper

Boil linseed oil to which a small amount of ground resin has been added until it forms a stringy paste. Spread this while it is hot on sheets of heavy paper and set aside to cool. It is then ready for use.

General Robert E. Lee Cake
Taken from a recipe used by Mrs. Lee, this cake recipe was extremely popular in the latter part of the nineteenth century, as evidenced by its appearance in several cookbooks. In essence, this is a sponge cake.

Ingredients:
2 cups sifted flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
8 eggs, separated
Grated rind and juice of one lemon
Dash of salt

Grease and flour four 9" cake pans and preheat the oven at 325°. Sift together the flour, cream of tartar, and baking powder four times. Beat egg yolks until they are very thick, light, and creamy. Add the sugar a few tablespoons at a time, making sure to mix it in thoroughly. Continue beating until the mixture is smooth and pale yellow. Thoroughly beating the mixture is of vital importance.

Stir in the lemon rind and lemon juice. Beat egg whites and salt until they stand in peaks. Fold into egg yolk mixture alternately with the flour until well mixed. Spoon the batter into cake pans and bake at 325° for twenty to twenty-five minutes until the cake’s sides begin to pull away from the pans. Loosen its edges with a knife and turn it out on cake racks to cool while you prepare the lemon jelly filling and frosting.

Mix egg yolks with sugar, lemon rind and lemon juice. Cook over boiling water, stirring constantly for twenty minutes or until the filling is smooth and very thick.  Let the filling cool to room temperature and then spread it between layers of cooled cake.

Beat or work the butter until it has the appearance of thick cream. Stir in confectioners' sugar a little at a time, and continue working the mixture until it is very smooth. Beat in egg yolks and lemon juice. Stir in enough orange juice to make a frosting that is fairly easy to spread, and then add lemon and orange rinds. Spread on cake sides and top.

Time to completion: 17 days

To the water add and mix the sliced white ginger root, common loaf sugar, and lemon juice. Boil the mixture for approximately an hour, taking care to rake off the scum from the mixture as it boils. Pour the mixture through a fine sieve into a tub and allow it to cool to room temperature (about 70°). When cool, add yeast. Store it at room temperature for two days, stirring it three to four times daily. At the end of the second day, pour the brew into a cask which is to be kept full, removing the yeast from the bung-hole of the cask with a spoon.

In two weeks, add the fining. If the ginger beer has been properly fermented, it will clear it by ascent. The cask must be kept full, and the rising particles taken off at the bung-hole. When fine (which may be expected in twenty-four hours), bottle the mixture, taking care to cork it well. It may be consumed then, although many prefer to allow it another two weeks to age before consuming it.

This ginger beer will take about one day to properly prepare. One method of making ginger beer is to scald the ginger in half a pail of water, and then fill it up with a pailful of cold. Others, particularly in very hot weather, will stir it up cold.

Either way, the yeast should not be put in till it is cold or nearly cold. In the event that the ginger beer will not be consumed within twenty-four hours of its making, it needs to be bottled as soon as it works.

Ingredients:
3 cups sifted flour
1 tablespoon ginger
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs, well beaten
1 cup molasses
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup butter or other shortening, melted

Sift dry ingredients together. Combine remaining ingredients and add gradually to dry ingredients. Beat for l minute. Pour into large waxed-paper lined pan and bake at 350° for 25 - 35 minutes, or until firm when pressed lightly with the finger tips. Makes a cake 7" X 11".

Combine sugar, oil or lard, and rinse the molasses out of the cup with the hot water as you mix these ingredients together. Add 2 eggs. Then mix in the baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, and flour.  Refrigerate the resulting dough for one to two hours.  After the dough has been refrigerated,  remove it, roll it out, and cut it with a cookie cutter.   Bake at 350° for 10 minutes.

Short bread is of approximately the same antiquity as gingerbread. Shortbread is remarkably simple to make, consisting of 1 cup of butter, 1 1/2 cups of flour, and 1/2 cup of confectioner’s sugar. Mix then together and beat them for about ten minutes, and then bake at between 325° and 350° for 15 minutes or until lightly browned.

"Recipe for making the soup called, by French Creoles, 'Gumbo file', say for twelve plates:

"Take a grown chicken, cut into many pieces, which fry, and then boil them to rags: 12 to 20 minutes before dishing, put in 30 to 40 oysters, with their liquid, and 6 to 10 minutes later add 23 spoonfuls of sassafras powder. Stir the powder in, and if, on lifting the spoon, the composition drains out into a thin thread, you have a genuine ‘gumbo file’. If it does not rope sufficiently, stir in more of the powder. A small piece of bacon, or pork - say 2 to 4 ounces - may be put into the pot at the same time as the fried chicken. Rice, boiled dry, well cooked and each grain perfect, ought to be served separately, to be put into the plate with the gumbo soup.