When sick, you’d best stick to chicken soup because these old-school remedies are crook

We all have our own weird short list of “sick food” when we’re down in the dumps, and thankfully we’ve moved on from these retro recipes.

Terry Durack

October 4, 2024

One day, everything’s going along nicely and you’re wondering what’s for dinner, and the next you’re not well. It could be a sore throat, a cough, a cold, a strain, a sprain or something unexplained, but you’re no longer yourself.

Suddenly, your options shrink to being what you can bear to put in your mouth – or what will make you feel less miserable.

The common cold, which has been extremely bloody common this past winter, has proven yet again the close relationship between smell and taste. If your nose is blocked and giving you no sense of the smell of what you’re eating, any flavour is greatly diminished.

If you’re really unlucky, you can suffer from dysgeusia, the name given to an unpleasant or altered taste sensation. A possible side effect of the flu, hayfever, diabetes, certain medications and COVID-19, it turns everything bitter, metallic or sour, which sure takes the fun out of ordering a sandwich. “I’ll have something acrid, double the bitterness and hold the flavour on soy-and-linseed sourdough – oh, never mind.”

I know I’m really ill (apart from the doc telling me) when even the thought of a glass of wine makes me shudder. If I can think fondly of a cold beer and a potato chip, I know it’s not that bad.

The Kookaburra Cookery Book’s invalid recipes are a bit, well, crook.Illustration by Simon Letch

We all have a short list of “sick food” that we go to when we’re down in the dumps, and chicken soup is surely mine, closely followed by noodles. I love how they slip down a sore throat, how they’re the complete opposite of challenging and how they distract my poor brain like a game of pick-up sticks.

My partner’s sick food, weirdly, is a bland, peanut-butter, white-bread sandwich with a glass of fizzy lemonade. What’s yours? I bet it’s just as weird.

For centuries past, cookbooks have had a final chapter on Invalid Cookery, for when you weren’t feeling valid. The Kookaburra Cookery Book (1911), for instance, lists recipes for raw beef tea (pour cold water over raw beef, steep for 3 hours, then strain and drink); calves’ foot jelly; and something called water gruel.

Just reading through those recipes makes me feel so much better, knowing that if I do fall ill, it will be now and not then.