Funny thing is we took cod liver oil each morning, neat, when I was a kid. Mom had learned of the healthful properties of cod liver oil from a Norwegian immigrant friend. In those days, cod liver oil was sold in glass bottles (shaped sort of like a cod fish), in the A & P supermarket. I was probably exhibiting signs of latent craziness as I loved the taste of the cod liver oil. Mom would be chasing and threatening my brother and sister to get them to take their tablespoon of the stuff, and I would be ready to chug it off the bottle. I have not seen cod liver oil on the supermarket shelves since I was a kid, and that is over 50 years ago.
I wonder about the choice of oil for leather belt dressing. I know at most saddle, tack and farm supplies, they usually have neats foot oil for rejuvenating and preserving leather. I bought a pint can of it (made by Fiebings) to use on work boots, motorcycle leathers and leather saddlebags within the past few years. Not terribly expensive as I recall.
I am kind of surprised that you have to make your own steam cylinder oil. The "compounded" steam cylinder oils made with tallow, mineral oils, and rapeseed oils are still available. Lubriplate offered a compounded steam cylinder oil for saturated steam engines, as does "Green Velvet" oils, a specialty maker of oils for steam engines and old machinery. Exxon should also offers a compounded steam cylinder oil. Believe it or not, there is still a small and regular demand for compounded steam cylinder oils. A few remaining steam pumps, steam piling hammers, and certain worm drive gear reducers are in regular use to this day. As a result, steam cylinder oils are still commercially available. The basic steam cylinder oils for saturated steam engines were known as "compounded", meaning they were a mixture of tallow, mineral oil stocks, and rapeseed oil. This is the steam cylinder oil that has that incredibly great and unmistakable smell when heated and in use.
I have a couple of old books of "do it yourself" formulas for everything and anything- off the wall stuff like embalming fluids, explosives, cordials, hair tonics, veterinary remedies, boiler compounds, carriage top dressing, and all sorts of outmoded or harmful stuff. I am sure if I dug out the old books, there would be belt dressing formulas listed. OK, the old book jumped off the shelf at me: "Fortunes in Formulas" pub by Books, Inc, authors are Hiscox and Sloane, 1939 edition. Here we go, "Belt paste for increasing adhesion":formula I: Tallow: 50 parts
Castor Oil, crude: 20 parts
Fish Oil: 20 parts
COLOPHONY (God alone knows what THAT stuff is): 10 parts
Melt on moderate fire, stir until mass cools
Formula II: for cotton belts, so irrelevant
Formula III Gutta percha: 40 parts
Rosin: 10 parts
Asphalt 15 parts
Petroleum: 60 parts
(this already has plenty of sticky stuff in it, beteen liquid raw rubber, rosin and asphalt). Heat in a glass vessel in a water bath for a few hours until uniform solution obtained. Let cool and add 15 parts of carbon disulphide and allow the mixture to stand, shaking it frequently.
My late father had this book in our old house. When I was a kid, I discovered it. Predictably, I attempted some of the explosives and fulminates. Later on, I got into the sections about making whisky, and borrowed my mom's pressure cooker for a still pot. A great old book, for sure. I knew there would be something in there about belt dressing. One oldtimer in our area claims he used to slop roofing mastic onto flat belts in his sawmill to stop them from slipping. Any port in a storm, I guess.