When wisdom didn't come with snark. An old-fashioned Depression-era tip guide for the home and kitchen.

Drop two uncracked English walnuts into the pot and cabbage odor never reaches the dining room. Add a pinch of baking soda to your beaten egg whites and meringue holds its peaks every time. Set a pail of cold water in a freshly painted room and the smell is gone by morning.

These are three of the 200+ tips collected in Household Hints, a pocket guide to running a home and kitchen, written during the Great Depression, when families learned to solve problems with whatever was already in the cupboard. Cooking shortcuts, cleaning fixes using vinegar and salt and baking soda, laundry and stain-removal tricks from the pre-detergent era, odor remedies, small repairs, and the quiet thrift of a generation that wasted nothing.

A practical reference for anyone drawn to vintage homemaking, frugal living, traditional housekeeping, or the kind of grandmother's kitchen wisdom that has quietly disappeared from modern households.