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?!

Mashed potato with a poached egg

We didn’t drink soda (fizzy drinks?) when I was young, unless ill and then we had ginger ale!

No, depending on illness it would be dry toast if you’ve been sick and are hungry later. Heinz chicken or tomato soup for a cold or toothache.
For drinks we’d have water or Lucozade. Best was Ice cream for tonsillitis.

No to Melba toast, yes to Heinz tomato soup!

No flat 7uppers in the house? That and toast are well known cure alls for every Irish complaint. Every. Single. One. Your arm could be hanging off and your mammy would run to the shops for some 7up, opening it immediately to let the bubbles out.

My mom used to make Melba toast OP, but only to go with her homemade patê

Never had it as an ill food, but it makes sense, providing you have someone to make it! It's plain an easy to eat and sometimes that's all you can face, hence all the people eating water biscuits and the like here.

I had a lot of tonsil trouble as a kid and was so upset that Ice cream was inedible (the sugar felt like acid always). Think I just sucked on dry toast or similar. Awful.

A combination of some of:
Lucozade
Hot blackcurrant
Dippy eggs and soldiers
Tomato soup with cheese on toast

Lucizade with Heinz tomato soup and white buttered toast here too.

I had no idea you could make melba toast like that (only ever seen it for sale ready-made in packets) and certainly doesn’t sound like it would be a very comforting poorly food.

We never had it as an "ill food" , ours were crackers and Canada Dry ginger ale, or grated apple with lemon and sugar.

Hot water with honey and lemon to drink.

Heinz tomato soup and cheese on toast. Hot honey and lemon for a cold (whisky added when old enough). Cures everything according to my mum.

1. never eaten melba toast, ill or not.
2. chicken soup with a cheese and onion toastie for dunking, but only if I wasn’t being sick. Plain toast if sick.

No idea what Melba toast even is but when I have been sick the only thing I can face and keep down is dry toast.

When I have a cold and am blocked up and have a sore throat, the nicest thing is lemonade with an added squizz or two of pure lemon juice and loads of honey, boiled up and served with a couple of paracetamols. That's what my mam used to make for me and what I give to my dc (with the correct dose of calpol ofc) when they're poorly.

Never had melba toast.

My mum used to bring us toast with the crusts cut off (crusts only dispensed with during times of great suffering) and freshly squeezed orange juice topped up with some hot water from the kettle and half a teaspoon of sugar. 'Twas delish.

Nope! Chicken noodle soup from packet. My 46yo brother still calls it getting better soup 🤣

Never had melba toast for illness. Always Heinz Tomato Soup. It seems to have medicinal qualities, judging by this thread.

1. no
2. lucozade, egg custard, pills crushed in jam - hate them all with a passion now!

Tomato soup and bread for us. If you were really poorly, then Mum would get Lucozade in the orange bottle wrapped in cellophane from the local shop. We might sometimes have had a Disprin dissolved in water with some squash to take the taste away too.

1. No
2. Porridge made up with water. And a mug of hot Ribena.

No, never. But my mum was of the opinion that you had to be vomiting or def contagious to be off school or in bed in the day, so no special poorly food as it wasn't something to be nutured.
As an adult, my not feeling great food is Heinz soup with gf macaroni cooked in it. Ds would get plain toast.

I had every childhood illness going. Measles, German Measles, Chickenpox, Scarlet Fever, Mumps, Whooping cough. It was always Tomato Soup and Bread with butter. Always a bottle of Lucozade at the bedside, I loved peering through the orange cellophane.

After three or four days on milkless porridge, my mum knew I was getting better when I made a beeline for the fridge and downed an entire packet of ham.

Tin of chicken or tomato soup.
Boiled egg in a mug with toast (not the melba kind though)

What is that 😱 everyone knows that when you are ill you have Heinz tomato soup (and perhaps half a cheese sandwich to dip in it)

No and no.
I have never eaten melba toast in my (longish) life.