apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

For stomach ailments, toast with jam, applesauce, chicken rice soup, herbal tea (not a thing of childhood but very comforting). For menstrual cramps, my mother would set me up with two Advil, a heating pad and a cup of Earl Grey tea with milk and sugar. That was the first time I'd had tea, and for all the bad things you hear about caffeine and cramps, that Earl Grey still does wonders for emotional comfort.

As an adult I will drag myself to the Tibetan restaurant for garlicky momos (dumplings) when I am feeling ill in body and/or spirit. Miso soup is wonderful too although not as good for stomach ailments.

I've always kept to the old fashioned comfort foods for the very reason that eating something familiar from your childhood actually helps more than eating something modern and different; the nostalgic feeling acts as a soothing factor as much as the bland food actually does.

Tomato soup with a buttered slice of fresh bread. I always dip the bread into the tomato soup and then eat it.

Otherwise, chicken & rice soup for me with some saltines and a plain cup of black tea. The black tea would be the modern addition...I never ever had hot tea as a child, but now I find a nice cuppa (to steal a phrase) easier to digest and more soothing than warm milk or lemon-lime soda. That's what I stuck to for a few days this winter when my stomach wouldn't hold down much else.

These past few years, whenever I've been really sick, I always crave miso soup. There's something about the warm, silty broth with bits of soft soft tofu and the occasional spring onion that makes me feel a bajillion times better. Often, it's the only food I can actually stomach. I'm not Asian and had never even heard of miso soup until I was an adult, but I swear there's nothing like it. "Hondey, can ew pu-leese run andh get me somb miso soupb? Andh sumb more kleenex? Pu-leeese?"

i am a huge fan of oatmeal when i'm sick to my stomach. my mom used to make me rice with applesauce, but i don't like it as much anymore.

if i have a cold, tomato soup with grilled cheese works wonders, or else i'll cook pasta in chicken stock and toss it with butter, salt, pepper, peas, and parm. spicy chicken tortilla soup is good, too.

I'm never up for cooking anything when I'm sick so I order matzoh ball soup from Odessa, a diner a few blocks from where I live - but I've read lots of MFK Fisher and I am curious about the odd-sounding milk toast!

I go for traditional comfort foods like chicken noodle soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, and ginger ale.

P.S. You should correct the title to "NurtUring Foods."

Cream of wheat, the slow-cooking kind, made with milk. It is forever embedded in my mind and heart as sick food (although I like it anytime too), since mom and grandma always gave us this when we were little. Sometimes with a skin of sugar and cinnamon, sometimes with fruit or canned peaches, or homemade jam.

Oh yeah, someone else has to make it - that's probably the main point!

my staple sick foods (which i'm totally up on, being sick for the last couple of days...):
soup of course -- esp chicken soup or miso soup
gingerale -- but only canada dry and extra credit for the kind made with sugar!
plain rice...sometimes with butter or soy sauce
rye toast
eggs scrambled over a double boiler so they're incredibly smooth...or soft boiled eggs with toast soldiers
pudding
black currant pastilles

of course if i'm really sick, i don't want anything except flat coca-cola and pedialyte.

chicken rice soup from the thai takeout place, tomato soup, saltines, grilled cheese on rye bread, absolutely cream of wheat!(with a bit of butter, milk, and sugar) and ginger ale--my mom used to warm it up just a little bit for me to take the chill off and that's still my favorite way to have it when i am sick...there's something soothing about the warm, bubbly ginger ale.

abby--yes, rice and pedialyte! two "musts" when you are really feeling sick. (guilty admission, sometimes i crave the yellow gatorade as well).

hope that you are feeling better soon. : )

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the grand-mommy of healing food, matzo ball soup! When I was in college I'd make triple-batches of it for my friends when we all caught the dorm room plague. Now I tend to make it for myself when I feel something coming on. I have a goyishe girlfrind who will also bring me anything I ask for, and I agree with Pixie that half the comfort of comfort food is being cared for by a loved one.

When I was a kid I would have chicken and stars Campbells soup. Now I use pasta with organic chicken broth--Acini di pepe pasta or egg pastina (stars are sometimes mandatory).

I actually did some nurturing myself today! Sore throat, which I'm trying to fight off before I go home for Christmas.

So I made stock with turkey bones from Thanksgiving, a lonely chicken thigh which had been languishing in the freezer, onions, carrots, bay leaf, thyme, some cilantro sprigs, and lots of ginger and garlic. Ohh, and half a frozen habanjero for the last 10 minutes. Once it was all simmered down, I mashed it through a strainer, added salt and a generous splash of rice vinegar, and some dried udon noodles, and heated it back up.

At home it was always Campbells, so this was something totally different. And no offense, Mom, but this was much more satisfying, although part of it is enjoying the fact that school's done for the semester and I've got time to spare to cook something so involved.

yikes -- i'm starting to feel sick today, too, and there's virtually no chance i'm going to make soup from scratch. i wish i had it in me. what i'd really like is for my husband to come home and cook me something, but that's not likely, either -- he's always at work until at least 8. so i bought some canned organic no-salt (so i can add my own salt) vegetable soup that i guess i'll try with some seaweed rice crackers. i've got a box of matzoh ball soup mix hidden somewhere that i'll have to dig out if my cold gets worse tomorrow...

my grandmother got me hooked on elbow macaroni, cooked until very soft and then coated liberally with butter, and, wait for it... a healthy dollop of medium salsa and salt.
it sounds odd, but it's really good, something about the butter/salsa combo gives it a tomato soup-y feel, and the spiciness always makes my throat/tummy feel better

that said however, i had the REAL stomach flu for the first time in about 10 years last week and it was AWFUL. the only thing i could eat were saltines, campbell's soup and ginger ale. it blew.

Had a crazy fever the other night and strangely, found mabo don (ground beef, tofu in small dice, green onions, sesame oil with garlic and ginger seasoning) on rice to be ridiculously comforting. Along with the fact that I didn't have to make it.

Gatorade is actually fantastic to drink when you're sick--no shame in that Christina! My emergency-room-doctor friend will give a lecture on the topic at the slightest provocation. She says it's the same when you're sick as when you've been working out a lot--you need to replace the electrolytes and get energy to help flush out your system. For some reason, it's also easier to keep down than plain water.

Me too on the Gatorade.

Plain rice in boiling-hot black tea.

Tom yum gai from the Thai place around the corner.

fresh ginger tea is not modern at all. grew up drinking it in the philippines...egg noodles with parmesan cheese are the ones i consider modern.