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?!

Melba toast was served with dinner on holiday at our hotel.

Comfort food when ill was a sliced apple with slices of cheese and warm orange squash.

Or just buttered white bread

(With the soup)

1. No
2. Lucozade

I’ve never heard of melba toast or eaten it.

Growing up I’d be offered mashed banana with a bit of milk stirred in or banana and sugar sandwiches.

Now my go to is plain toast or chicken soup.

I've never eaten Melba toast. I am vaguely aware of it as something that might be offered in a posh restaurant with pate.

It sounds dry and scratchy as fuck on the throat for an invalid to eat.

Heinz tomato soup was our thing.

1 - No
2 - Mashed potato with gravy.

@gurglebelly

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)

It's a wonder I survived childhood!

Bread-and-milk (as described by a pp) if tummies were upset ('bland food').

Days off for non-stomach related illnesses- kippers, weirdly. With brown bread and butter, in the sitting room watching Pebble Mill At One.

TBH, although my mother was not the best in most ways, she was pretty good when I was ill. Whatever I fancied eating she'd get for me. One time it was, very specifically, a hazelnut yoghurt.

1. No
2. Heinz tomato soup, white bread and margarine, washed down with Lucozade.

For sore throats it has to be hot honey and lemon. I turn into a honey and lemon equivalent of Mrs Doyle when the children have colds. I’ve never yet persuaded any of them to drink any, but it doesn’t stop me trying.

I don't think I've ever had melba toast, etc alone when ill. When I was growing up it was dippy eggs and soldiers.

Tomato soup
Bread and butter
Mashed egg in a cup
Or a tin of grants mince and peas with bread if my throat wasn’t sore and my tummy was ok.

Also Lucozade or sweet milky tea sipped out of a saucer.

Dry toast yes but not melba toast. Digestive biscuits and hot ribena. My brother was really poorly with a chesty cough when he was about 8. My dad tried to give him brandy and hot water. My mum went ballistic!!

🤣 sounds like it! Melba toast was the stuff that came in a packet from the supermarket (and basically broke your teeth if you tried to eat it!)

No

Boiled egg chopped up in a cup with butter or tomato or chicken soup

Lucozade with the orange cellophane. Only available at the chemist.
Hot orange juice with orange junior disprin.
Chicken soup.
Boiled egg in a cup.

1. No

2. Chicken soup with s mashed potato island

If she thought you were swinging the lead she would threaten you with Gee's Linctus.

(My mum was seriously ill when I was about 9 and self-medicated for a few weeks with Lucozade. Turned out she was diabetic! )

What is this egg in a cup you're all on about? Is it a regional thing? I've never heard of it!

Definitely never melba toast.

Homemade Scotch Broth when poorly. Although I'll happily accept others might have had homemade chicken soup instead and look down on the poor souls whose mothers gave then TINNED soup. Mind you, my kids don't get special poorly food (mainly because they don't like soup - oh the shame!).

When I was young it was home made chicken soup. If there was any spare money lucozade.
My own poorly food and which we lived on when covid was tyrells ready salted crisps (not that we ate much ) I always have hot ribena.
Mum never would have heard of melba toast, nor would I ever consider when ill. But everyone has their own .

Never had melba toast when I was ill. When I was little it was:

Lucozade in the bottle with the orange cellophane

Heinz tomato soup with bread torn up in it /. buttered toast cut into soldiers / thick white bread & butter

Bowl of Heinz spaghetti with the above accompaniments

Arctic roll

We used to get a spoonful of my grannies black currant jam made into a drink with hot water. (Colds/daytime)

A baby aspirin crushed between two teaspoons in a spoonful of grannies black currant jam. ( colds with a temperature)

A spoonful of rum in hot water. ( colds/ nighttime )

If you were really, really ill you got lucozade, but that was for very serious, life threatening illnesses that you might not recover from, or recovery from having your tonsils out on the tonsil ward.

[Baby aspirin were a real thing btw, they were small and orangey and didn’t need disguising in jam as they were delicious.]

When I was a child my DGM would make 'bunny bread' which was leftover bread dried out/toasted in the Aga. Inexplicably this was fed to the family rabbit.

We used to sneak bits out of the tin and eat it. It was delicious

Missing the entire point of the OP, sorry, but it reminded me of a happy memory

As a child mine was a thick but mild cheese sauce on toast under the grill. It's still my go to when I'm ill but it's an effort to make it yourself. Tinned soup would have been so much easier,