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?!

I looked it up and Sainsbury's sell it in packets! Dh said you can put pâté on it too.
I might buy some ..

Lucozade in the glass bottle with the crinkly wrapping and Heinz tomato soup.

Still have the tomato soup if I'm feeling poorly.

I used to make melba toast for dinner parties in the 90s and serve with homemade chicken liver pate. Delicious but not really my idea of comfort food.

Lucozade in the cellophane wrapper. We only had it when ill. And often a strawberry tart (for some unfathomable reason!)

I still love a lucozade - original, obviously

Gosh, I've not seen toast done like that since the 80's! With paté.

Tomato soup - Heinz
Oxtail soup - Heinz
Macaroni cheese - also Heinz!

My gran did chopped up, buttery boiled eggs in cups too. With buttery soldiers. Or tongue sandwiches cut into 4

1. No, only as a starter served with pâté
2. Heinz tomato or chicken soup with buttered toast. Hot water with lemon and honey for sore throats, with a dash of rum when older. Arrowroot powder mixed with water if you felt sick - it generally accelerated the vomiting 🤢 I have only heard of egg in a mug on MN.My DCs would get scrambled eggs with grated cheese and buttered toast or maybe ice cream for sore throats.

No, don't think I've ever had Melba toast.

It was Heinz cream of tomato for a cold or similar in our house. But if you had a tummy bug, the first food after dry toast was always a mashed banana and honey sandwich - have never met anyone else who had anything similar, but it tasted like the food of the gods. @JustMeAndWheatley is giving me some hope our family weren't totally alone in this!

@BeckyWithTheGoodHair5629456

1) no never 2) chicken soup

This^

No I never had that!

It was always lucozade and soup.

We had a slice of bread broken up into small pieces and soaked in stock made up from a beef oxo cube. I used to think this was what everyone had when ill until I went to uni and my housemates were disgusted by me making this whenever I caught whatever bug was going around.

@MissKeithsNeice

My nana used to cut (proper, unsliced bakery) bread into cubes, sprinkle with sugar and pour on hot milk when we were ill.

Thank you for this. It surely must be proper old-fashioned bread-and-milk, as fed to ill or badly behaved children, toddlers and hedgehogs in Milly-Molly-Mandy, Five Children and It etc etc.

I always wondered. My mum had no idea how to make it either. We tried soaking wholemeal bread in cold milk and it was grim.

1. Is homemade melba toast something that for you goes hand in hand with a day off ill?

No. I've heard of it, but I've never had it, ill or otherwise

1. If not did your parents/carers have any special recipes reserved for the suffering?!

Chicken soup (Heinz) Also weetabix in warm milk (disgusting idea)

My friend loved hot bovril when she was poorly.
Enough to make anyone feel ill!

Never eaten Melba toast in my life.

Ill on sofa fare was Lucozade, and if you could stomach food it was Heinz Mushroom or Chicken soup.

I've just realised, I didn't have a go to poorly food for my own dd!

Mind you she has autism and quite rigid avoid food as a child. She'd never have eaten Heinz tomato soup

I've never heard of melba toast.

Lucozade all the way. Very lightly spread toast upon feeling better.

1. No
2. Tinned soup here, probably own brand as Heinz was expensive! And hot apple and blackcurrant squash. Maybe original lucozade if serious

Nowadays it’s still my ill food of choice, have also added marmite on toast, Batchelors pasta n sauce, and Heinz macaroni cheese on toast.

Lemsip made with hot lemon, honey, a generous whisky double and ginger for the dreaded cold type lurgy.

1. No!
2. Chopped up egg and butter in a cup and sometimes warmed, flat lemonade for a cold

1. no
2. tomato soup or lentil soup

My childhood feeling unwell food was homemade chicken soup.

OH's mum always made him a homemade rice pudding.

Boiled and cooled red lemonade was the staple at Granny’s house.

Sadly red lemonade wasn’t available at home so we had to settle for flat lemonade or hot orange squash.

We called this Panada - thick plain white bread cut into cubes, in a cup, covered with sweetened hot milk and with a sprinkling of sugar on top. My cousin loved it as a treat when her DGM made it!

1. No.

1. Mum was a nurse, it was tough love unless "dying" haha.

BRAT (bananas, rice, apples and toast) for upset tummies and lemonade ice lollies for a temperature.

Also egg is a cup is a firm favourite in my house, ill or not. Love it!

And dippy eggs with soldiers 😋

I’d never heard of egg in a cup till MN, what am I missing out on?