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ah the hot toddies brink back childhood memories. i had a grandmother like that, only she used tea not water.

My grandma said drinking beer helps nursing moms make more milk. Can't give a ruling on that one as I haven't put it to the test. I do know it helps you make more pee, though.

My mother would throw salt over her shoulder if she spilled it, to cancel out the 'bad luck' she had incurred.

My grandmother and mother both said that cheese would give you nightmares if you ate it before bed, but milk would make you sleep.

@buffy--I heard that drinking while breast feeding made for a quiet baby because babies consume the booze through the mother! (But I didn't hear this from my family).

Other family lore that was less cracked, more normal if slightly inaccurate: you had to drink a million gallons of water and orange juice if you had a cold, and chicken soup, ginger ale settled your stomach. Every piece of food had to be covered in a million pieces of silver paper or saran wrap if left out for more than two seconds. One milligram of sugar would instantly make you fat.

@buffy: beer consumption can also lead to making more babies, if youare not careful!

When sauteing "wild" mushrooms, put a quarter (25 cent piece) in the pan. If it turns black, the shrooms are poisonous.

Water steeped with a bay leaf for a colicky baby.

Chamomile tea for a colicky baby.

Anytime anyone had a pimple on his or her tongue, my mother would say, "You need a laxative." No idea how this connection came into existence.

Drink lots of water to combat constipation.

This thread reminds me of the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding because the bride's dad thought Windex could cure just about anything.

Almost forgot, cod liver oil, a big honking spoonful every day. This isn't a home remedy, but she kept a big bottle of Flethcher's Castoria in the kitchen as well, and that stuff was pure evil. Anyone else old enough to remember that?

We always roasted whole fish, never fillets. It's no small suprise that it took some time before the kids got the knack for knowing how to avoid the pin bones. Well, at one huge family gathering one of my cousins started coughing on a fishbone. My grandmother immediately put part of the fish skeleton on top of her head, saying it would draw the wayward bone up and out. She did cough it out...but, erm, yeah, we still laugh about that little trick.

Immediately after a woman gives birth, she is given seaweed soup (miyuk gook). It was believed to be restorative. Traditionally, the new mom was only allowed seaweed soup and rice for an entire month and traditionally the new father also only ate the same meal for the first month in solidarity. No one goes to that extreme anymore, but the seaweed soup is still the first thing the new grandmothers make for the new moms. Turns out that there is a real benefit to seaweed soup: there is a compound in the seaweed that promotes breast milk production.
Also, it's really good.

More booze: My 84-year-old mom has had a portion of a root (I believe it's something like ginseng) that is supposedly "descended" from an ancient, healing plant in China. It's OLD. Ever since I can remember, she's had this crystal decanter with a piece of the root steeping in Jack Daniel's. It was used for everything from simple bruises and cuts to headaches, stomach aches (topical use only), arthritis, joint sprains, you name it. It smelled awful. The funny thing is, it worked. I can remember it taking the swelling down on a sprained ankle in no time. And with bruises it seemed to "draw" it out.

Because of its VERY distinctive aroma my siblings and I knew right away when someone opened that bottle!

Warm lemonade with a spoonful of honey to soothe a sore throat.

@buffy: Was your grandmother from any of the Scandinavian countries? They still say that here, in Denmark! I don't know anyone who tried it, however, since no one seemed to have a milk-production problem.

Seems like all the people around me are positive that honey in hot tea/lemonade is good for a sore throat or cold. And my grandparents belonged to the 'ginger-ale for an upset stomach' school of thought. Can't think of anything else, though.

@mongoose--the grandmother in question is from Arkansas. Her father was German and her mother was Scotch-Irish. I dunno.

Ginger really is good for an upset stomach, in various forms. I'm an avid fan of Mythbusters. They tested multiple motion sickness remedies and ginger won by a landslide, with no unpleasant side effects such as drowsiness.

And for the sore throat, my mom has an old recipe for laryngitis medicine, involving beaten egg whites, lemon juice and sugar. The sugar would presumably be to make it palatable? I can tell you from experience that it really and truly works wonders.

My husband swears by treating warts by putting duct tape over them. Gingerale for an upset tummy. Frozen peas for icing down bumps or sprains. Diaper rash ointment for terribly chapped lips--something I'll have to resort to tonight. No kisses from hubby tonight.

For flu and terrible New England colds: inexpensive red wine with boiling water...sure to make you sleep and hate wine for years. The only soda we had was ginger ale to be used "flat" for upset stomach...it works. Years of cod liver oil and Dr. John's Medecine...OMG awful! But we siblings are all still here and healthy.

Oh I forgot mother said never eat hard boiled eggs at night becuz it will make you deathly ill, have no idea about that one. Mom would give me sugar water for when I have the hiccups. Mom would put a cloth soaked in vinegar on the area to drive the stinger out. The hiccup and bee sting solutions would work and I still use these methods today, but I don't know about the hard boiled eggs thing, where she came up with that one.