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?!

My D.C. liked stewed apples and rich tea biscuits when they were ill.

If you have any hint of a cleavage Melba toast is terrible. The crumbs go go everywhere and are very itchy.

Never had Melba toast when ill.
I had plenty of orange flavour lemonade though. And bananas.

Flat 7 up was the cure in our house growing up. Melba toast was something we had in a restaurant in a seaside town who also had a machine to put swirls of cream on soup.

Cheese on toast was the breakfast you had on an morning of an exam but cooked to the point that the cheese was crispy.

Yes! We made toast like this all the time, but it was also something you had when sick.

Otherwise it was how we made toast to go with pate.

We didn’t rub the untoasted middle out, but did use very thin white bread so there isn’t any squashy middle left after a double toasting.

I’m of Mrsfeatherbottom and her orange cinnamon toast.

Never had melba toast!

We were given home made tattie soup or egg in a cup and fresh orange juice.

Chicken soup with matzo balls in my house with hot honey and lemon to drink (plus a glug of whiskey once you were a teenager).

Also - this thread has taught me that Peach Melba and Melba toast are not the same thing ... I have never eaten either and so in my head had unconsciously combined them into one thing.

Lucozade, and that was for if you were properly poorly, all wan and pale on the sofa.
This was 70s/80s, so we only ever had fizzy drinks at a birthday party - and that was cherryade from a 2 litre shared bottle type affair, not a bottle of your own!

I don’t think it was special treat when ill, but that my parents bought into the idea that it would help recovery.

They had little money so it was a big deal, AND being one of six kids, it was pure glory to be the object of envy! First for the lucozade (which actually I didn’t even like ☺️) but then - more importantly - for being the owner of the orange film to look through! Bliss.

Lucozade or flat lemonade, an apple and a boiled egg with soldiers was the go to ill good growing up.

No melba toast here- unless it's on a charcuterie board and bought in a packet.

My ill food as a child was rich tea biscuits, hot ribena and toast with a smidgen of jam.

Now it's leek and potato soup with a hunk of white bread and gallons of tea.

What the heck is melba toast? Surely isn’t a UK thing? When Sick would be dippy egg and soldiers.

I have never eaten melba toast.

And no, sympathy never existed in my family, if you were dead you might get some attention, but otherwise you had to crack on as normal.

Soup and/or lucozade

I have never eaten melba toast

@Squashbanana125

What the heck is melba toast? Surely isn’t a UK thing? When Sick would be dippy egg and soldiers.

Yes, it’s common in the UK. And it’s fairly well described in the thread!

1. no
2. soup

I certainly know what melba toast is, but haven't eaten it or even seen it since the 1980s. Not sure why it would be good for ill people tbh! Bit crunchy and scratchy if you have a sore throat, surely?

Is your mum German @ProbablyLate ? Melba toast (Zwieback) is something Germans give to sick people. So it is a thing. But in Germany!

Egg beaten up in a cup with butter and soldiers. Heinz chicken soup. Homemade milk pudding - tapioca, rice pudding, egg custard. We firmly believed in feeding sick kids. No wonder I’m fat! 🤣

No melba toast goes with pate as a starter in our house it was two soft boiled eggs with bread and butter soldiers

Honey on toast and flat lemonade.

We had dried toast with lucozade (cellophane wrapper) if this was not available my Nan made us drink sugar water(exactly what it sounds like, sugar dissolved in water) We also had barley sugar sweets when ill, they now have this weird connection with illness that they actually make me feel sick now.

I forgot about the lucozade that you could only get in big bottles with orange coloured cellophane on it from the chemist. Think there was another similar drink. Ferguson’s?

Heinz tomato soup for me too. My nana always stirred a spoon of cream into it. I think she thought it was 'posh'

Never heard of Melba toast as sick food.

Melba toast was always on ' starter menus' in restaurants when I was little ( Bernie inns etc)
Not that we ate out a great deal ( once a year if you were lucky) but I do remember it being popular at one time.
You don't hear about it these days ( until this thread )

Nope
My mum would make scrambled eggs if we were ill. My nana would make hard boiled eggs mashed up with butter in a cup if we were ill. The boiled eggs are my go to poorly meal

@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!

My DH is Turkish and makes this for me whenever I’m poorly. It’s delicious.