"Dr. N.T. Oliver's Treasured Secrets - The Century Cookbook and Medical Advisor

[talesofthesevenseas]

I have been trying recipes from antique cookbooks lately, and I just bought this one- It was published in 1894 and titled "Dr. N.T. Oliver's Treasured Secrets - The Century Cookbook and Medical Advisor". With a title like that, how could I resist? According to the description it is stuffed with many hand-written recipes, at least one on an envelope from 1914, and another on a lemon crate lable. It is battered and worn (as a good cookbook should be!) and has something that may be chicken feathers stuck to the back. Sounds like an adventure already.

But then I got curious about who Dr. N.T. Oliver might be and went looking for him online. Turns out this guy was an old west medicine show pitch man!!! He had no formal medical credentials and Dr. N.T. Oliver was a pseudonym. He was also known as "Nevada Ned". His real name was Reverand E. O. Tilburn.

"Nevada Ned" partnered with two other men and formed what became one of the largest medicine show operations of it's time- The Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company. Here's a description of their show:

...Healy and Bigelow, however, dreamed of even bigger things. In 1881, along with "Nevada Ned" Oliver, they formed the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Company to vend a remedy called Kickapoo Indian Sagwa. The original Sagwa, according to a legend in the business, was made of aloes and stale beer. Whatever it may have been, the formula through time did not stray far from herbs and alcohol. It was not the constituents but the promotion that brought this tonic fame. Healy and Bigelow began hiring Indians by the hundreds -- none of them Kickapoo -- to put on a show.

Healy and Bigelow could traffic not only on the long-established connection between the red man's vigor and the white man's nostrum. They could also count upon the Easterner's awed curiosity about a bronze-skinned people he no longer knew at firsthand but was much aware of through reports of constant Indian fighting in the West.

The standard Kickapoo show traveled with half a dozen Indians and as many white performers. The show opened with the Indians sitting stoically in a half-circle, in front of a backdrop painted to reveal an Indian scene, the more realistic because of torchlight illumination. Nevada Ned, or some other "scout" wearing long hair and buckskins, introduced the Indians one by one, briefly describing their past heroism. Five of the redskins acknowledged their introduction with a mere grunt, but the sixth delivered an impassioned oration in his native tongue. As interpreted by the scout, the tale described the dramatic origin of the remedy which had saved countless Indian lives and which was about to be offered, after great sacrifice, to the white members of the audience. When the sales pitch was finished, half the Indian and white members of the company went out among the crowd to sell, while the remaining whites played musical instruments and the Indians beat their tom-toms and broke into wild war whoops. In such a noisy atmosphere, medicine and money changed hands.

Some seventy-five such Kickapoo shows might be touring the country at a time during the eighties. Now and then Healy and Bigelow promoted an even more majestic spectacle, a stationary show with up to a hundred performers. Nevada Ned presided over one such venture that played a whole season in New Jersey. A wagon train attacked by Indians was saved by cowboys who in turn were threatened by a prairie fire. The final outcome was the sale of up to $4,000 worth of Kickapoo Indian Sagwa every week. Among the show's spectators was numbered Buffalo Bill himself, but there is no record as to whether or not he bought a bottle.

Source: http://www.quackwatch.com/13Hx/TM/12.html

I can't wait to see what this book is going to be like. It will be interesting to see what kind of advice the disreputable doc was dishing out in 1894!

Here's my question: I wonder where someone would have bought this book back in 1894, does it seem likely that it would have been purchased at the medicine show itself? Wow... what a cool bit of old west history that would be!

I have been printing out info on "Nevada Ned" and will keep it inside the cookbook. I will post photos when it arrives. What fun!!!

[talesofthesevenseas]

Photo of one of the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Co shows:

[KC]

We collect old cookbooks as well.  They can be lots of fun and have some weird and some great recipes.  Seems so many recipe books have the same ones these days!

Got a reprint of a very old one at the Alamo a few years ago!  It is a real kick to read because it has remedies and recipes!

Neat stuff Tales!  There is definitely a market out there for the older ones!

[talesofthesevenseas]

Cool KC! I'd love to hear what your favorite recipes are!

My cousin and I have been exchanging recipes from "The Way to a Man's Heart, The Settlement Cook Book" and the "Boston Cooking School Cookbook", which were two that belonged to our grandmother and great-grandmother. She suggested the other day that we should co-author a blog about our culinary adventures. The spice cake recipe has been getting passed all over the family.

There are some interesting 18th century recipes online that I've been wanting to try. I'm not big on pork, but there's a recipe for baked ham in pastry called "Pyg in a Coffin" that I just have to try for the sake of having said I can cook it!!

There are only a few copies of the NT Oliver book currently online. It doesn't look like anyone selling them has made the connection of who the author is. I suspect that if you included the history with the book, especially with some old historic pics, it would bring a higher price. I only paid $14 for my copy. There's another online now that sounds like it is in better condition for $34. I actually chose the one in poorer condition on purpose. Cookbooks are one thing that I think has more appeal, the more the previous owners have added to them. Makes them very personal items.

[mart]

Sounbds like a great cookbook !!  They indeed would probably have purchased it originally at the show !! Since thats how some of his money was made. Your book may have went through several hand before yours !!

[talesofthesevenseas]

It does seem like a logical assumption that you could get one at the medicine show since they were going on up until the early 1900's. Kind of like getting a T-shirt at a rock concert or a CD from a musician. I wonder if they were also sold through booksellers or general stores, but purchased directly from the showmen does seem to be the most logical since it was published during their hey-day. Way cool. 

[talesofthesevenseas]

The cookbook arrived this morning. It is loaded with fun stuff and wonderful illustrations. It is about 2/3 cookbook, 1/3 household care and home remedies. Lots of extras- handwritten recipes, newspaper clippings from the early 1900's and the owner's name in the back. To my surprise without reading in detail, I don't see any mention of the Kickapoo Indian Sagwa. I would have thought the good doctor would plug his product. The home remedies are interesting reading. I've posted a good one below, it's a wonder anyone survived early doctoring!





I love this one- "Woman's Chances of Marrying at Various Ages"



Some of the extras





Here's a horrifying remedy for morning sickness. Every pregnant woman ought to have a bit of opium and chloroform, eh?!!!

[CuriousCollector]

Opium and chloroform?!!?  Well, not only will that easy morning sickness, I think it would allow you to sleep through the whole pregnancy!!

[Oceans64]

Ugghhh...  Surprised it wasn't the "cure" for pregnancy!

On a lighter note...  Are there any handwritten notes next to recipes?  I love sitting down w/ my gma's recipe book reading her notes about adding this or that, fav recipes, or just discovering a dirty page (so I know it was opened and used  )

[CuriousCollector]

Oceans -- I love looking through a loved one's cookbook, and seeing their handwritten annotations.  I also like seeing hand written recipes. 

I found a recipe for pound cake from the 1870s or thereabouts, in my husband's grandmother's recipe collection, and it went something like this -- "pound of flour, pound of butter, pound of eggs, beat the devil out of it."  And that was it.

That same grandmother also practically wrote a cookbook equivalent of a dissertation on scuppernong wine (a kind of muscadine).  I saved the one we use, which warns, no less than three times, not to mash the grapes.  One year, we did -- and we were punished with a bitter batch of wine.

[talesofthesevenseas]

Yes, there are lots of handwritten additions in the Nevada Ned cookbook. Some are on the pages and some on pieces of paper added in between the pages, like the one on the 1914 envelope above. The owner seems to have particularly liked gingersnap recipes as there are several of those.
I too loved seeing my great-grandmother's notations in the copy of the Settlement Cook Book that went to my cousin. I now have my grandmother's copy of the Boston Cooking School cookbook and love seeing the worn pages and splatters. I think the more beat-up a cookbook is, the better!

In the Nevada Ned cookbook a lot of translation is necessary for some things-

a teacup full (6oz)
a wine glass full (4oz)
a gill of wine (quarter pint or 5oz)
a lump of butter the size of an egg (self-explanatory)

"sweet milk" = fresh milk
"forcemeat" =  stuffing with meat in it.
"pounded sugar" = exceedingly moist brown sugar

Some of the meat ingredients are... shall we say "interesting", like pork face and boiled eel.

[Oceans64]

I found a recipe for pound cake from the 1870s or thereabouts, in my husband's grandmother's recipe collection, and it went something like this -- "pound of flour, pound of butter, pound of eggs, beat the devil out of it."  And that was it.

That same grandmother also practically wrote a cookbook equivalent of a dissertation on scuppernong wine (a kind of muscadine).  I saved the one we use, which warns, no less than three times, not to mash the grapes.  One year, we did -- and we were punished with a bitter batch of wine.

LOLOL...  That had to be be one hu-mungus* cake!!!!  THREE WARNINGS!! And still....   you had to go there!!!!**    LOLOLOL

* Spelled phonetically as I have no idea what Webster would do in this case....
** I'd have done the same thing!  heheheheh

[talesofthesevenseas]

I've found that a lot of the old recipes are vague by today's standards. I believe it is cultural. Victorian cooks would have been women who grew up in kitchens and were destined to spend their lives in them. A lot of basic information is assumed because it would have been directed at a woman who knew how to tell when her cake was done, what kind of a pan to use and what approximate temperature her wood-burning stove needed to be to cook it.

They also used these terms in reference to oven temp.-
a "slow oven" was 300 - 350 degrees
a "moderate oven" was 350 - 375 degrees
a "fast oven" was 400-425 degrees