Old Recipe Ingredient Glossary: Saleratus, Treacle, Sago & Forgotten Names

Old recipes are full of words nobody says anymore.

Saleratus. Treacle. Sago. Oleo. Dripping. Pearl ash. Suet. Some of these are still sold today under different names. Others disappeared with the kitchens that used them.

This glossary translates the most common forgotten ingredients in pre-1950 cookbooks into things you can actually buy at a modern grocery store, or make a good substitute for.

Search the tool below by term, or scroll down for a full plain-language guide to the most common confusing ingredients in vintage recipes.

Why Old Recipes Use Strange Ingredient Names

Three things changed between 1850 and 1950: chemistry, branding, and trade.

Baking powder replaced saleratus and pearl ash. Mass-produced Crisco and margarine took over from lard and dripping. Cane sugar got cheap enough to push molasses and treacle out of daily baking.

Brand names also swallowed generic ones. “Golden syrup” is really just a specific brand (Lyle’s) that became synonymous with a category. “Oleo” was shorthand for oleomargarine, which became margarine, which became the tub of spread in your fridge.

The ingredients did not vanish. The words did.

Leavening Agents You Have Not Heard Of

Before commercial baking powder hit the shelves around 1860, cooks used a rotating cast of sharp-smelling powders to make cakes rise.

• Saleratus: Early 19th-century baking soda. Chemically it is potassium bicarbonate or sodium bicarbonate. Substitute: baking soda, 1:1.
• Pearl ash: Potassium carbonate, made by leaching wood ashes through water and evaporating the liquid. The very first American chemical leavener. Substitute: baking soda with a little extra acid (buttermilk or vinegar) in the batter.
• Hartshorn: Ammonium carbonate, originally made from burning deer antlers. Used in crisp, dry cookies like springerle and ladyfingers. Substitute: equal parts baking powder and baking soda.
• Sal volatile: Another name for smelling-salts-grade ammonium carbonate, used the same way as hartshorn in dry baking.
• Cream of tartar: Still sold today. Tartaric acid crystallized out of wine barrels. Pair with baking soda in a 2:1 ratio to replicate commercial baking powder.

Sweeteners That Are Not Just Sugar

• Treacle: British term for dark molasses or golden syrup, depending on context. “Black treacle” is blackstrap molasses. “Light treacle” is golden syrup. Substitute: dark molasses (for black) or corn syrup plus a teaspoon of molasses (for light).
• Golden syrup: Inverted cane sugar syrup. Mild, caramel-toned, runnier than honey. Substitute: 3 parts light corn syrup to 1 part molasses.
• Sorghum: American Southern sweetener pressed from sorghum cane. Thinner and tangier than molasses. Substitute: molasses diluted slightly with corn syrup.
• Loaf sugar: Cane sugar that used to come as a solid cone wrapped in paper. Cooks chipped pieces off with sugar-nippers and crushed it in a mortar. Substitute: granulated or caster sugar, by weight.
• Castor sugar: Superfine white sugar. Still sold in the UK. Substitute: American “baker’s sugar,” or pulse granulated sugar in a food processor for 30 seconds.
• Muscovado: Unrefined dark brown sugar with high molasses content. Still available at specialty stores. Substitute: dark brown sugar, compressed firmly.

Fats You Will See in Every Old Cookbook

• Lard: Rendered pork fat. Still sold at many grocery stores. Gives pastries the flakiest texture of any solid fat.
• Suet: Hard kidney fat from beef or mutton. Used in steamed puddings and mincemeat. See our full guide to suet for how to buy and render it today.
• Dripping: Fat poured off a roasting joint and clarified. Substitute: rendered bacon fat or tallow.
• Tallow: Rendered, clarified beef or mutton fat. Shelf-stable. Used for frying and pastry.
• Oleo / Oleomargarine: Early margarine, originally made from beef tallow and skim milk. Substitute: modern margarine or butter.
• Vegetable shortening: Crisco and equivalents. Still sold under the same name. Used as a 1:1 replacement for lard in wartime and post-war baking.

Dairy Terms That Mean Something Specific

• Sweet milk: Fresh whole milk. “Sweet” distinguishes it from buttermilk or clabbered milk.
• Sour milk / clabbered milk: Milk that has naturally soured. Substitute: buttermilk, or 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar stirred into 1 cup of whole milk and rested 5 minutes.
• Top of the milk: The cream layer that rose on non-homogenized milk. Substitute: half-and-half or light cream.
• Scalded milk: Milk heated until just under boiling. Still called for in old yeast breads to neutralize enzymes that interfere with rise.
• Curds and whey: Home-made fresh cheese. Substitute: ricotta or small-curd cottage cheese.

Flours, Grains, and Thickeners

• Sago: Starch extracted from tropical palm pith. Small pearls, used in puddings and soups. Substitute: pearl tapioca.
• Arrowroot: Fine white starch from the arrowroot plant. Still sold in most grocery stores. Gluten-free thickener for clear sauces.
• Indian meal: 19th-century American term for cornmeal. “Indian pudding” is a cornmeal-and-molasses dessert.
• Rye meal: Coarsely ground rye. Substitute: dark rye flour with 10% added bran.
• Graham flour: Coarse whole-wheat flour named after Sylvester Graham. Still sold. Used in Graham crackers and brown bread.
• Semolina: Coarse wheat flour from durum wheat. Still sold. Used in milk puddings, pasta, and some old bread recipes.
• Hominy: Dried corn kernels treated with lye to remove the hull. Still sold canned or dried in the American South.

Wartime and Depression-Era Substitutes

A big chunk of old recipes come from rationing or depression kitchens. These ingredients were substitutes to begin with, and the terms stuck around.

• Mock cream: A whipped mix of margarine, sugar, and milk used when real cream was rationed. Still appears in wartime cake recipes.
• Ersatz coffee: Roasted chicory, acorn, dandelion root, or grain drinks sold in place of real coffee. Our full ersatz coffee guide covers what actually tasted decent and what did not.
• Dried egg / egg powder: Spray-dried whole egg, rationed one packet per person per month in WWII Britain. Substitute: 1 tablespoon of powder reconstituted with 2 tablespoons of water equals 1 fresh egg.
• National flour: UK wartime flour with 85% extraction rate. Darker and coarser than regular white. Substitute: 85% white flour plus 15% whole wheat.
• Condensed milk: Sweetened condensed milk became a substitute for cream and sugar in one tin. Still sold.
• Evaporated milk: Unsweetened concentrated milk. Substitute for fresh cream in coffee, soups, and custards.

For the full weekly ration allowance and how cooks actually used these substitutes, see what British families actually ate on wartime rations.

Herbs, Spices, and Flavor Agents

• Mace: The outer shell of the nutmeg seed. Warmer and sharper than nutmeg. Still sold.
• Allspice / Jamaica pepper: Dried berry tasting of clove, cinnamon, and nutmeg together. Not a blend, a single berry.
• Rosewater: Water distilled with rose petals. Used in Tudor and Georgian puddings and drinks. Still sold in Middle Eastern groceries.
• Orange-flower water: Similar to rosewater but from orange blossoms. Common in 18th and 19th century baking.
• Verjuice: Sour juice pressed from unripe grapes or crabapples. Used like vinegar or lemon juice in medieval and Tudor cooking. Substitute: half lemon juice, half white wine.
• Sack: A sweet fortified Spanish wine, ancestor of modern sherry. Substitute: medium-dry sherry.

Proteins and Meat Cuts

• Salt pork: Pork belly or back fat cured in salt. Still sold. Used for flavoring beans, stews, and chowders.
• Streaky bacon: British term for American-style bacon (belly cut). UK cookbooks sometimes specify “back bacon,” which is leaner.
• Neats foot / calf’s foot: Boiled calf’s feet used to make jellied stock and aspic. Substitute: commercial gelatin.
• Sweetbreads: Thymus and pancreas glands. Still eaten as offal in European cooking.
• Forcemeat: A ground, seasoned meat stuffing. Substitute: sausage meat or homemade pork-and-breadcrumb stuffing.

Frequently Asked Questions

What can I use instead of saleratus?

Baking soda, 1:1. Saleratus is an older name for the same compound (sodium bicarbonate) that is sold as baking soda today.

If the recipe calls for saleratus without an acid (like sour milk or molasses) also listed, add a teaspoon of buttermilk or cider vinegar to activate the soda.

Is treacle the same as molasses?

Close but not identical. “Black treacle” is essentially blackstrap molasses. “Light treacle” or just “treacle” in a British recipe usually means golden syrup.

If the recipe asks for treacle without specifying, use golden syrup when the dish is sweet and light, and dark molasses when the dish is spiced and dark (Christmas pudding, gingerbread).

What is oleo in an old recipe?

Oleomargarine, the early American form of margarine. Mid-20th-century American recipes used “oleo” and “margarine” interchangeably.

Substitute modern margarine 1:1, or unsalted butter for a richer result.

Where can I buy suet?

British supermarkets sell shredded Atora suet year-round. In the US, ask an independent butcher for fresh kidney fat or order it online.

For the full rendering method and which recipes need suet rather than lard, see our suet guide.

What is sago and where do I get it?

Sago is starch pearls from the sago palm. You can substitute pearl tapioca, which is almost identical in texture and how it cooks.

Asian and British specialty grocers still sell actual sago, usually in the pudding-rice aisle.

Is “sweet milk” different from regular milk?

No. “Sweet milk” is just fresh whole milk. The term existed to distinguish it from soured milk or buttermilk, which were more common in pre-refrigeration kitchens.

What is the difference between lard and dripping?

Lard is rendered pork fat. Dripping is fat poured off any roasted meat, most often beef, then clarified.

They are not interchangeable for pastry. Lard produces a flakier crust. Dripping gives a beefier flavor and a denser texture.

Working Through a Vintage Recipe

When you hit an ingredient you do not recognize, the first question is always era. A term like “oleo” in a 1940s American recipe means something different from “oleomargarine” in an 1890s one.

Measurement units are the next hurdle. Once ingredients are sorted, volume and weight conversions do most of the remaining work. Use our vintage measurement converter for gills, teacups, and butter “the size of an egg.”

For the broader context of how these ingredients moved through history, see our cooking history timeline.

And if you want to see these ingredients in live, working recipes, the wartime cake roundup, colonial bread roundup, and colonial desserts roundup are the most ingredient-diverse starting points.