Science. It can send Heston Blumenthal’s , but it cannot yet deliver us from the common cold.
To be fair, news did that researchers were close to unblocking your nose. And my throat, good for little right now but rasping at my partner, “eggy bread make eggy bread”.
Eggy bread is the cure on which I will depend until those science people quit hurling Heston’s cuisine into space and get this cold thing, and this flu thing, sorted.
It combines one egg with untoasted . The soldiers are not to be dipped into the egg, as I am clearly too weak for that. Soldiers are evenly covered in egg which, before learning the phrase “”, I was perfectly happy for mum – the inventor of this anti-cold appetiser – to soft-boil. Now, I must have my egg gently bathed in warm spring conditions (63°C) for 45 minutes.
There is little left to offer on the topic of eggy bread, because, it’s the cold comforter for me, my sister, my mother and her Irish mother before. These “remedies” are passed around and handed down and evolved in every culture.
Eggy bread provides cold comfort for Helen Razer. (Getty Images) Source: Getty Images
Chicken soup, with or noodles or nothing but chook-essence, is well known in Ashkenazi culture and is known by my Jewish comrade Rick as “Jewish penicillin”. There may be to support the claim made by so many – including devotees of or that chicken soup has medicinal value. Nonetheless, Rick advises: “Take a chicken carcass or some chicken bits with bones, boil with onion and a little celery, salt and pepper. Chuck in carrot chunks late; but allow them to soften.”
These “remedies” are passed around and handed down and evolved in every culture.
I did ask Rick for measurements. He replied, “Specifying precise quantities is a bourgeois fetish.” Comrade Rick is a Marxist. And so, his soup is the property not just of Jewish culture, but of all the people!
As much as I, too, wish that all property be common, I acknowledge that cold-and-flu cuisine is a property privately held. We all find that thing that brings us comfort, and when we are vulnerable, only that thing will do.
Although, some folks can’t always find that longed-for cure. Work pal Bhakthi was raised by her mother and grandmother on Tamil Sri Lankan cuisine, and their particular version of is one she cannot find the time or the ingredients to replicate. “Ours had lots of pepper, tamarind and garlic and it was believed to be a decongestant. The fiery and sour taste was thought to shake all that dull, damp phlegm out of you, not to mention it was served piping hot, and regularly.” Bhakthi now just goes for a home-delivery laksa. It ain’t rasam, but the flavour profile recalls the old cure, and, hey, who wants to cook when they have a head cold?
"Jewish penicillin" is a popular go-to dish when a cold strikes. (Alan Benson)
Well, my best and most stubborn friend, Shakira, who is wont to say things like “there is never an excuse for no home-made curry” even when she’s well. “Who doesn’t have frozen onion and bottled garlic and ginger on hand?” Emergency components for Pakistani-style curry are always in her home, but she did just text me to say she’d been reminded of “Jewish penicillin” in an interfaith moment of harmony by her Uber driver Yossi, and she might make some of that with a halal chicken.
My mate Jack, a Birpai Guri bloke, is also known to take that remedy, as his partner is Jewish. Although, she prefers for a cold, and Jack, a former chef, has evolved his own elaborate cold slow-cook whose ingredients are too several to remember.
Borscht can be another source of comfort during a cold. (Brett Stevens)
And, the cold-and-flu cuisine I learned of in an afternoon of asking are too several to report. They evolve from nations, from faiths, from marriages, friendships and memory. They’re all rather different. But, they all taste like home.
Helen Razer is your frugal food enthusiast, guiding you to the good eats, minus the pretension and price tag in her weekly Friday column, . Don't miss her next instalment, follow her on Twitter .
