Crush some garlic and add a dash of cayenne pepper. Brew with the juice of six grapefruit. Bombard with positive thoughts--this, like, being Southern California. And, oh yes, let someone tuck you into bed with tender, loving care.

This concoction was among the nearly 200 responses sent in by readers who shared their best cures for wintertime colds and flu.

Chicken is big, booze is bigger. And lots of readers have faith in salt, onions, garlic, and sizzling teas and soups.

There were readers who passed on home remedies that had been in their families for generations--like Magda Simon's chicken soup, which originated in Hungary at the turn of the century.

"The chicken has nothing to do with it," says Simon of Los Angeles. "It's the onion, garlic, parsley roots, parsnips and carrots."

And, the call for home remedies clearly brought back memories of a time before TheraFlu.

Devra Hill, a Beverly Hills writer, was raised on her Italian grandmother's boiled grapefruit juice and her English grandmother's hot toddy consisting of lemon juice, brandy and hot water.

Ben Fellstad of Mission Viejo recalls that while growing up during the Great Depression in the backwoods of Norway, "Home remedies were all we had.

"It was a common remedy (to put) two drops of turpentine or naphtha on a sugar cube, chew fast and swallow. After a few minutes in the stomach, this vile concoction started a revolution that could only be relieved by a tremendous burp that was more like an explosion. And you felt like your face disappeared through your ears."

Other readers recalled home remedies that saved them as a child but dare not be repeated in the days of antibiotics.

It was apparently common to blow sulfur through a straw into a child's sore throat; swab the neck with kerosene, also to relieve raw throats; blow smoke in an aching ear, and hang little bags of smelly "asafetida" or fried onion around the neck to ward off germs. (Actually, the bag probably warded off other children, which warded off germs.)

Lael Littke of Pasadena says her "flesh cringes" when she thinks of her mother's remedy for chest colds: flannel plaster bags smeared with a concoction of dry mustard, water and cayenne pepper.

"She smeared this mess inside the two bags at bedtime, then fitted them onto the unfortunate child," Littke recalls. "After a couple tablespoons of cod liver oil . . . the child was deposited to bed, covered with heavy quilts, and left to fry gently all night.