Don't eat that! (And I'm not just being picky this time.)

When I initially posted about my grandma's recipe box, I noted how few of those recipes I actually remembered her making. Today's post is kind of the same thing. I don't remember her making any of these recipes either, but today's concoctions are reminders that grandma was a farmer. She had to make do with whatever she had on hand when the family faced problems, which meant keeping plenty of "recipes" you weren't supposed to eat, right alongside the ones for zippy zucchini and cranberry salad.

Well, I don't think people were supposed to eat this first recipe. 

I initially wondered if "Catfish Bait" was a cute name for a type of cookie since I couldn't imagine grandma wasting this much vanilla and maple syrup on fish. (Plus, I don't remember grandpa ever trying to catch catfish. He mostly fished for bluegills.) But considering there's no added fat in this, there's so much vanilla that it likely hits an unpleasant concentration, and the ingredients are just mixed up and refrigerated (Grandma would never serve anything with raw flour in it!), I'm pretty sure it's literally supposed to be catfish bait.

I imagine we may have benefited from this recipe whenever we used a sink at grandma's house...

I don't remember her actually clearing sink drains with this, though. (I wonder if it would work better than the version I've tried in the past with 1 cup each of baking soda and vinegar. My guess is probably not...)

And I am SUPER glad I didn't know anything about this recipe. There's only so much you want to know about your grandparents.

Given how much grandma liked to discuss medical problems, though, I'm kind of surprised I don't remember dinnertime conversations about who was suffering from piles. (I also love the "level (scant)" notation. Should the measure be level or scant? They're not the same. Maybe grandma was so used to using rounded teaspoons of everything on the assumption that more is better that she considered "level" to be "scant" and was saying the same thing twice to encourage herself to pay attention? Who knows....)

For additional soothing power, there's a recipe for "linament" on the back of the card.

I'd spring for a store-bought liniment rather than handling an egg soaked overnight in vinegar, but I live in the age of Amazon, when I can order just about anything and have it delivered directly to my home. Someone living on a farm decades ago who considered a trip to town to be a BIG DEAL (and who apparently kept turpentine, spirit of camphor, and oil of "pepermint" on hand) surely saw this as a more practical and affordable solution than the fancy store-bought liniments.

So maybe grandma actually made these recipes? Maybe they were just things she held onto and never really used, like most of the rest of the stuff in the recipe box? Either way, I'm kind of glad I don't know too much about these particular items...