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?!

Never ever eaten Melba toast nor made it for my DC. As a kid it was always warmed up lemonade, and soup with a cheese sandwich. Same for my DC except I do hot vimto for them as no one likes lemonade.

I have a vague idea what Melba toast is but never made it or seen anyone make it at home.

Off sick food was

Plain buttered toast
Scrambled egg
Ice cream!

Lucozade here , never had melba toast.

Heinz tomato soup with buttery toast, cut into soldiers and dipped into the soup. I make it exactly the same way for my DC when they aren't feeling well.

Whoever came up with tomato soup as a poorly food is a fucking twat.

My son (then 5) and I had flu. We’d not eaten for days. I remember a GP friend saying if you couldn’t summon the energy to pick up a £50 note at your feet, that’s flu. Tomato soup was my £50 note moment.

It took a monumental effort to microwave the fucker. We ate. Settled back under a blanket on the sofa. Then my son projectile vommed it eight feet across a beige carpet, table, tv, fireplace and white wall. I cleaned him up. It stunk. It was bright red. I surveyed the scene and wondered if I could just leave it til DH got home. I honestly seriously considered whether I could just lie there surrounded by a pool of stinking red sick for five hours.

Soup twat.

Never had homemade Melba toast! It was always white foods for me, regular toast and boiled dippy eggs being the go to.

Heinz tomato soup here too.

I wonder if all of us who had this as standard illness food are of similar age (I'm 40!)

We used to have it with a toasted cheese sandwich.

Have never had Melba toast in my life

Soup isn't the same these days! I used to like it but not any more
Dry toast is the best after you've been too ill to eat. It's harmless ( especially if you are sick again trying to eat it !)

I have never eaten melba toast before and didn’t know what it was until now.
If I had a stomach upset I used to eat plain pasta. If I had a cold or something I’d just eat normally but with extra ribena to drink.

Lucozade. Cheese sandwiches with salt and vinegar crisps. Corned beef hash if with a sore throat. Home made melba toast... never even heard of it

I've never eaten melba toast or heinz tomato soup!

Toast and marmite or jacket potato with butter and salt are my 'on the mend' foods.

ccc1 that’s an exceedingly good point. Tang I think I only ever get to the tomato soup stage in weak recovery when not feeling sick.
Awful awful image poor you.
I dropped spaghetti on a big new expensive cream wool rug on the DAY my parents bought it.
The stain never really came out.
When my ma died recently it took some doing to add that rug to the removal rubbish guy pile.
Memories !

@Crunchymum

Heinz tomato soup here too.

I wonder if all of us who had this as standard illness food are of similar age (I'm 40!)

We used to have it with a toasted cheese sandwich.

Have never had Melba toast in my life

I'm 44 and Heinz tomato soup was the only soup I ate growing up. As an adult I've always had homemade soup or the cartons of fresh soups but recently I've been going through a phase where only Heinz tomato will do!! I think it might be a lockdown comfort thing.

I've not read the thread as in a rush.

No to melba toast.

Usually heinz tomato soup with bread and butter. Sometimes boiled egg and toast and butter

No I never got homemade melba toast. I got Knorr chicken noodle soup out of a packet.

I'm late 30s and it was Heinz chicken soup for us

I am also team chicken soup. Also, herbal tea with honey and lemon (if it is a cold-like illness).

Tomato soup here too. Or mushroom.
Now that I'm infrequently ill but more frequently hungover, it's mac and cheese with tinned tomatoes on the side

Heinz Tomato soup
Lucozade I remember the old fashioned bottle with a black stopper and wrapped in orange cellphane

When not well as a child my DM would give me when starting to recover mashed potato with lots of butter and peas mixed together
Lastly my go to for starting to feel flu coming on. Hot Ribena with dispirin. Sends it into touch most of the time

@Irishterrier

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

@Irishterrier northerner here. Fresh hard boiled egg (bit soft if you prefer) peeled and straight into a mug. Dab of salted butter chucked in whilst still hot and all chopped up with a knife. Then eaten straight out of mug with spoon or fork. Known to cure all ills

DH is southerner and he’s had it too.

Rose hip syrup in hot water and chicken noodle soup.

Pasta broth here - a bit like a very basic “chicken soup” idea.

My mum also gave us unbuttered toast with marmite but I hate that so didn’t have it!

(As in I like marmite but there has to be butter too)

What on earth is melba toast?! Never even heard of it!

I would always get soup!