A Cordiall Water: A Garland of Odd and Old Receipts to Assuage the Ills of Man and Beast by M.F.K. Fisher

Paperback.

First published in 1961, A Cordiall Water collects a charming mixed bag of nostrums, elixirs, restoratives, and fortifiers and intersperces them with autobiographical anecdotes from M. F. K. Fisher’s life in California, Provence, Mexico and Switzerland. These engaging recipes, “a perfect combination of superstition, instinct, and primitive knowledge” deal with commonplace ailments—sore throats, cures for cats, aging skin, fevers, PMS and hangovers. Ingredients of these extraordinary receipts are transformed into cures and preventatives told in the inimitable style of this master of the finely observed life.