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?!

Lucozade and arrowroot biscuits. And a bar of dairy milk to further aid recovery. Also my mother would go up to the off license where you could get a siphon of soda water for 5 shillings. You got half a crown back when you returned the siphon. I have never had Melba toast in my life.

No. If you were ill enough to stay at home, you weren't well enough to eat. The most you got was some water and a mouldy smelling damp flannel shoved in your face.

Unless you were being looked after by your grandfather who wasn't an arsehole, at which point if you appeared to be recovering/no longer puking profusely, you got boil in the bag Cod in Parsley sauce with frozen peas. And a still frozen raspberry ripple mousse because 'the pink will bring colour back to your cheeks' or, if you had a sore throat/Tonsillitis, crusty bread toast with butter, tinned tomatoes and lots of pepper on top because 'the red makes it better'. I suspect his logic had more to do with the likelihood of a rapid return of the meal and the staining potential of the returning items than any magical properties.

Possibly feeling a bit peaky after a vaccination, though? That's not even ill.

Nope.

Orange cinnamon toast or chicken noodle soup growing up for me. To this day, if I make orange cinnamon toast, DH asks if I'm not well!

@AGirlCalledJohnny

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

Ah no not 7up! Surely it was red lemonade boiled and cooled

OP I feel so so sorry for all the deprived individuals on this post!

I can’t imagine being properly ‘day-off-school, on the sofa with a duvet’ sick and not getting Melba Toast. It was an absolute feel better stable in our house.

Along with Cream Soda... but that’s a whole other thread...

@Irishterrier

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

Egg in a cup is a boiled egg mashed with butter in a cup.

I had Melba toast at lunchtime today. I keep the crusts on and use granary bread. I never had it when I was ill. Toasted teacakes was my childhood invalid food.

I’d never even heard of Melba toast until I left home. In our house, you knew you were ill when you had a glass bottle of lucozade with the orange cellophane wrapped around it all to yourself.

I’ve never even heard of melba toast!?
My parents would give us soup and bread or weetabix if we were ill.

Also hot Ribena if we had a cold/sore throat

I think it's just you OP...

Lucozade is the thing when ill.

I think my friend used to eat shop bought melba toast with some low fat cheese when she was doing Weigh Watchers when we lived together.

Lucozade ( with the orange plastic wrapper) and tomato soup.
Dry bread if you had the runs.

Another Heinz tomato souper here, bread and butter and lemon squash.
There was also Rainbow, Pebble Mill at One and Crown Court.

My Mother would not buy Lucozade unless we were at deaths door.

@4PawsGood

Nope.

Chicken noodle soup.

Definitely.

@massiveportion

I think it's just you OP...

Lucozade is the thing when ill.

Excuse me! @postmistressofdibly had it too!

"OP I feel so so sorry for all the deprived individuals on this post!

I can’t imagine being properly ‘day-off-school, on the sofa with a duvet’ sick and not getting Melba Toast. It was an absolute feel better stable in our house.

Along with Cream Soda... but that’s a whole other thread..."

So there's at least two of us!

Hot squash and cheese on toast

Or hot lemon and honey!

no special food for illness
I had to google, didn't know what Melba toast was. Doesn't look nice.

Ordinary toast, with lots of butter but never melba toast, also Heinz tomato soup or scrambled egg. If you had a sore throat (had to be checked by going aaaaah while mum pushed your tongue down with a spoon to see if your throat was red) you got ice cream, but only vanilla, you wouldn't want to risk any fancy flavours making it worse.

Hot Ribena with slice or lemon in it (for the vit c, obviously).

As others have said tomato soup, white bread and a packet of walkers crisps.

No idea what melba toast is so definitely don't associate it with being ill!

Never had melba toast , but my mum would make me dry toast ( if I had a sickness bug , then needed to eat ) and plenty of water.

Nope. Never had melba toast and can't make head nor tail of your description of how to make it either

It was lucozade all the way in our house. And it was the type that came in a glass bottle wrapped in cellophane

Egg in a cup here too! A big spoonful of honey, thick-cut wedges of lemon and hot water to fill the mug for colds and sore throats. Toast only appeared as the ‘see if you’re feeling well enough for proper food again’ test and it was one piece, done in the toaster, that had only been shown the butter from across the kitchen