Joey Green's Incredible Country Store: Potions, Notions and Elixirs of the Past--and How to Make Them Today [Paperback]

Joey Green (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 19, 2004

To wander through the pages of Joey Green's Incredible Country Store is to experience the innocence and warmth of a bygone era. In this treasury of tips, recipes, and make-it-yourself concoctions, you will discover which country-store gadgets and gizmos have stood the test of time-and which are now collectors' items. You'll find recipes for homemade soaps, candles, perfumes, elixirs, and candies; directions on how to make those wonderful old wooden toys; and illustrations of those confounding brainteaser puzzles from the Ozarks.

Some other treats that await you include:
- Secret formulas for old-time, brand-name products you can make at home-for just pennies. Make your own Chanel No. 5, Chap Stick, Play-Dough, Tiger Balm, and more

- The history, lore, and strange facts behind famous country-store brands and the stores themselves

- Dozens of Joey Green's trademark wacky facts thrown in for good measure--Did you know that Melanie's pregnancy in Gone with the Wind, when calculated by the dates of the Civil War battles mentioned, lasted 21 months? That collectors value some old Cracker Jack prizes as high as $7,000? That originally the cream filling in Oreo cookies was made with pork lard?

Crammed with vintage advertisements and 357 photographs of curiosities from the past, Joey Green's Incredible Country Store has irresistible retro appeal-and makes a great gift!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Joey Green, America's favorite inventor of wacky uses for brand-name products, is a frequent guest on such shows as Today, The Tonight Show, and Good Morning America. His popular books include Joey Green's Amazing Kitchen Cures, Joey Green's Gardening Magic, and Polish Your Furniture with Panty Hose. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Rodale Books (July 19, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1579548490
• ISBN-13: 978-1579548490
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #303,630 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joey Green--author of "Polish Your Furniture with Panty Hose," "Paint Your House with Powdered Milk," "Wash Your Hair with Whipped Cream," and "Clean Your Clothes with Cheez Whiz"--got Jay Leno to shave with peanut butter on "The Tonight Show," Rosie O'Donnell to mousse her hair with Jell-O on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show," and Katie Couric to drop her diamond engagement ring in a glass of Efferdent on "Today." He has been seen polishing furniture with SPAM on "NBC Dateline," cleaning a toilet with Coca-Cola in "The New York Times," and washing his hair with Reddi-wip in "People."

A former contributing editor to "National Lampoon" and a former advertising copywriter at J. Walter Thompson, Green is the author of more than forty books, including "Sarah Palin's Secret Diary," "Marx & Lennon: The Parallel Sayings," and "The Zen of Oz: Ten Spiritual Lessons from Over the Rainbow." A native of Miami, Florida, and a graduate of Cornell University, he wrote television commercials for Burger King and Walt Disney World and won a Clio Award for a print ad he created for Eastman Kodak. He backpacked around the world for two years on his honeymoon and lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Debbie, and their two daughters, Ashley and Julia.

You can visit him at www.joeygreen.com and www.wackyuses.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Reliving days gone by (details), February 16, 2010

By 

Patrick W. Crabtree "The Old Grottomaster" (Lucasville, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Joey Green's Incredible Country Store: Potions, Notions and Elixirs of the Past--and How to Make Them Today (Paperback)

This is a fun little book of pure nostalgia. You COULD make up some of the products for which detailed instructions are rendered but, in all honesty, this book is much more for personal reading entertainment and (non-fiction) escapism for folks who were born in the 40s and 50s.

What all is in this 2004, 356-page work? It's bulging with old remedies, cleansers, perfumes, cures (sort of the snake-oil types in many cases), and other sundry items. There are also discussions of "Strange Facts," Snopes-type trivia. The histories of many commercial enterprises are conveyed (Tinkertoys, Campbell's Soup, J.C. Penny, etc.) which makes for pleasurable light reading, but there's nothing particularly authoritative in here which one could use for academic research.

In fact, it's quite clear that this book was pretty much published on the cheap -- some of the page numbers are so near the edges as to be cut off, (Rodale, Inc. publishing)! The photos and illustrations are all conveyed in black-and-white.

Is the book worth the price? It depends on what you want it for. If you actually wish to fabricate your own pine cleanser, massage oil, or potpourri, then I would say that this book is indispensable. The author even directs you to where you can supposedly obtain the necessary ingredients for his many and various concoctions, although most local drug stores carry very little of this stuff these days. (Other vendor addresses are provided in the latter section of the book, just in case you can't obtain them nearby.)

But the Ripley-ish sorts of "strange facts" and other appurtenant useless trivia can be effortlessly garnered from thousands of free and very accessible websites, (which is probably where the author gleaned his own information.) Joey Green has corralled quite a bit of reflective minutiae here but it's a real hodge-podge of information.

Recommended if it works for you!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars incredible country store, July 17, 2009

By 

country "down home" (Northern Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Joey Green's Incredible Country Store: Potions, Notions and Elixirs of the Past--and How to Make Them Today (Paperback)

a great litte book that you can't put down, brings back many memories of the past and shows how to recreat them. The author takes a lot of time explaining how things were made, I'm real happy with the book and have ordered one for my brother and one for my daughter. They both think it's a great book and have shared it with others.

Thanks.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just for Old Timers, May 25, 2007

By 

mktgmom (KS United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Joey Green's Incredible Country Store: Potions, Notions and Elixirs of the Past--and How to Make Them Today (Paperback)

This is a fun book with all kinds of trivia, stories about forgotten favorites (Erector Sets) and hard to find goodies (old fashioned candies). It has a huge variety of home recipes for lotions, soaps, balms, antacids and more and the recipes appear to be fairly simple. It's light, full of photos and easy to read.

I picked it up for the recipes but have found it kind of hard to resist. I recently read it out loud to my husband on a trip to the ER -- trying to distract him and keep us both awake while we waited for him to be admitted (he's fine now). After we got home, he swiped it and is reading it himself.

If you like places like Cracker Barrel's old country stores, you'll really get a kick out of this book!