Everyone eats melba toast when they're ill

[ProbablyLate]

When I was young if I ever had a day off school poorly, mum would make me homemade melba toast by cutting the crusts off some bread, toasting it, then slicing it in half horizontally (like making two thinner slices) then grill it with what had been the inside of the toast slice up so it curled up.

I thought, until yesterday, that this was a perfectly standard off-ill delicacy and offered to make some for DH if he had a bad reaction to his vaccine. He was perplexed by the concept and consultation with a wider group suggests this was not as common a practice as I had been led to believe.

So two questions for you all:

1. Is homemade melba toast something that for you goes hand in hand with a day off ill?
2. If not did your parents/carers have any special recipes reserved for the suffering?!

1. no
2. toast with butter and sliced banana

Also hot ribena

Looking at melba toasts online (I realise I’ve seen them in shops but never really noticed them and certainly never bought them) they strike me as likely to be too noisy and crunchy to eat when really I’ll/feeling sick. Possibly also resistant to softening up sufficiently to get round this problem (like a ready salted crisp or chipstick can).

@Hottesttrikeintown

Never had that but quite want to try it! I love melba toast and never tried eating it.

DH is Greek and all Greek mums give their children boiled chicken in rice and lemon when they’re ill (as in boil the entire carcass). I can’t stand the smell of it cooking but once made it for DS when he was ill. He wouldn’t touch it!

Do you mean avgolemono soup? If so it's delicious

Mashed potato and gravy.

Porridge.

I’m fairly certain I ate a lot of Heinz soup while poorly as a child!

I also used to be given salted crisps and flat lemonade (as in fizzy lemonade that had been allowed to go flat) if I had a stomach bug, to replace the fluids/salt/sugar that I’d lost. I think it’s supposed to be flat coke, but I really hate non Diet Coke so I ended up with lemonade

Never had melba toast.
Dry toast, lucozade, soup. I now like mash if I'm feeling unwell.

My Mum’s generation used to follow the “get them eating something“ rule if their kids were ill, so provision of a novel/unusual food might be enough for the “invalid” to eat something.
She started off with soup for me as a child, unwell, but I didn’t like it, so she then tried dry toast, which I accepted, so that became my “ poorly food”

Tomato soup of course.

I have never had Melba toast. My mum's pick-me-up for all my ills (apart from an upset stomach) was egg-nogg with a little sherry in it, and fuzzy felt to play with (bought and kept especially for those occassions), and I got to have a little bed on the settee - I loved not being well!

If I was ill with an upset stomach it was chicken noodle soup (no cream soups), and toast without butter, but with jam or marmite depending on what I felt like, and if really bad, just water crackers and flat lemonade. But I was ill with upset tummies much less than with colds and sore throats (see above!) 😄

Apparently Dame Melba ate Melba toast when she was ill. Perhaps that's where it stems from?

It is where it comes from. Created by Escofier just for her (as well as peach melba etc). Scoff scoff, eh?
Wiki also tells me melba was made up from ‘Melbourne’ her home town ! Never knew that.

It was only Lucozade in our house (still is), food is whatever you fancy (cold McDonalds chips in my case).

I have only ever made melba toast for entertaining!

@HeartvsBrain I’m chuckling at young enough for fuzzy felt but old enough for Sherry! Sounds lovely though.

Flat coke (full fat) after a upset tummy.

Fuzzy felt farm ! Yes!! No Sherry here though.

I've never had Melba toast in my life.
I really can't remember any special off ill foods, I wasn't a good eater as a child and pushed most things around my plate.

No, it was lucozade in our house.

For some reason, I always craved boiled eggs with soldiers when I was ill. These days, I tend to opt for porridge.

@MaudTheInvincible

No I never got homemade melba toast. I got Knorr chicken noodle soup out of a packet.

Knorr powdered chicken noodle soup for us too. I have period pain and I’m feeling sorry for myself, I might actually ask DH to nip out and pick up a sachet so I can have it for lunch

No
Digestive biscuits.

Heinz tomato soup with bread and butter or an egg and cheese grilled under the top grill.

My DS had whatever he fancied when he was sick.

Newsflash - I am going to try to make melba toast ! No idea why but the urge has taken hold - strongly. May make some mushroom pate to accompany. May remove batteries from smoke alarm briefly just in case. Looks a bit of a delicate process.

No, sorry. Chicken soup and buttered toast when I was growing up if you were ill. DB used to have Lucozade, but I didn't like it.