Home Herbalism: Medicinal Foods for Colds, Flus and Frightful Coughs

Today, let’s talk food. Most people have ginger, chilli, garlic, sage and thyme in their cupboards, and a great many have horseradish too - either prepared in the jar or in root form kickin’ it with the potatoes and onions. Following is a general discussion of ways to employ these useful medicinal herbs, intended to further inform and give you ideas, as well as some concrete methods. For more information about the medicinal qualities of these herbs and how to use them with respect to dosage and such, have a look at Seven Useful Herbs for Colds, Flus and Frightful Coughs.

To begin, there area few common sense things that bear discussion, or at least deserve mention. People fighting illness need to stay warm, because cold lessens immunity; therefore, feed them mostly warm things. Avoid large salads, large quantities of cold drinks, iced deserts, and other obvious sources of cold. Try to eat as healthily as possible when you are coming down with something. It is not the time for a full-on barbecue fest or doughnut binge, and save the hard drinking until after the bug has passed. Alcohol is fine in small amounts, but in large quantities it depresses body functions, including immunity, and stresses the liver and elimination systems, forcing the body to run on a very overworked skeleton crew. Germs easily take over. Also, as Grandma said and Mom warned you, milk, cheese, cream, yogurt, and other milk products - with the exception of butter, will exacerbate a mucus problem, and are best avoided for a few days. If someone is very ill and overwhelmed by mucus, as with bronchitis or pneumonia, avoid milk products entirely. Lastly, there is something which is rarely mentioned but quite important regarding food and illness: if the patient has either a craving for or an aversion to something, listen to it, even if it seems to contradict what you would expect. The body knows what it needs. Our day-to-day eating-breakfast, crossing-the-room and taking-a-shower survival is due to the extraordinary intelligence of our organisms, and our well educated brains - though fancy things - are no match for such broad and nuanced knowledge. Sometimes it is best to shut up, watch, and learn.

Soup

So, food. There are many ways to eat your medicine, and traditional wisdom is strong on one point: sick people need soup. Soup warms the body, provides much needed fluids, and gives the body a large supply of easily available vitamins and minerals with which to mount its defence. It also makes a great vehicle for medicinal herbs. Many people swear by takeaway Chinese hot and sour soup, with its garlic chilli and ginger broth, and rich stock. Indeed, it is a fine choice for cold and flu prevention and early treatment. Equally good are the hot and sour Thai tom yam and tom kha soups, packed with lime juice, chilli, and herbs. These Thai soups are quite simple to make at home, and the tom yam paste that forms their base is itself is a good medicinal to have around, aside from being a sweet-hot-smoky-tart dreamboat of an ingredient. In times of both sickness and health use it in sandwiches, other soups and stews, marinades, barbecue, bean and lentil dishes, even things like meatloaf, to give a spicy, smoky, and sweet and tart savour. Chilli and lime juice make it useful as a medicinal, and it lasts a long time, ready to whip out at a moment’s notice. The exotic herbs you will need for both tom yam and tom kha soups can be found in well-stocked Asian supermarkets, or vegetable shops in your city’s Chinatown. Often, they are sold frozen, and this works well because you can keep the ingredients on hand for when you need them. If Thai soup is not to your liking or tracking down the ingredients proves hopeless, sopa de ajo, Mexican garlic soup, is another trick to keep up your sleeve. The rich roasted garlic broth, the sharpness of raw garlic, the brightness of avocado, scallion, and fresh tomato, with crunchy croutons and a little heat from chipotle chillies, make this a perfectly delicious soup with a great medicinal kick.

Once sickness has taken hold, however, these powerful dishes lose their appeal. The time has arrived for the gentler “Jewish penicillin”- nourishing homemade chicken and vegetable broth with matzoh balls (matzoh balls optional, of course, being somewhat of an acquired taste.), or the less august chicken and stars, won ton soup, or a mineral-rich celery and onion broth. Soups, especially the broth based kinds, are essentially big bowls of infusions, and as such they are ideal vehicles for medicinal herbs and foods. 

Traditional Chinese Medicine makes extensive use of soup as a method of administration for herbs, and there is no reason not to follow suit at home. These infusions of vegetables or chicken or meat and vegetables, are excellent medicines on their own because they offer the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients the body needs more of when it is sick and run down. The liquid form makes them easier to access during digestion; with free nutrients floating around in the broth, there is less digestive work to be done, and the body gets what it needs faster and with less effort. It’s a perfect system, really.

For our purposes, homemade or good quality store bought vegetable broth or chicken soup are fine. Doctor it up by adding sage and some thyme, fresh garlic, spinach or other leafy green vegetable, seaweed if you like it - try kombu or carrageen/Irish moss, carrot or other root vegetable, and then simmer until the vegetables are cooked. Adding rice or barely makes the

soup more filling and nutritious. Putting in the garlic and fresh thyme and sage at the end will help you get the most out of them, rather than cooking off their volatile compounds.

In the Puglia region of Italy, a nourishing and simple soup is made with herbs, vegetables, and day-old bread (wheatless and glutenless types can substitute rice or another grain), that is perfect for those feeling under the weather. It is a wonderful combination of seasonal vegetables - potato, winter or summer squashes, tomatoes, carrots, root vegetables, green leafy things like kale or spinach, and fresh herbs like thyme and sage and oregano, with a hint of warming chilli, and of course onions and garlic. It is a highly adaptable recipe, like a good soup should be. If Italian isn’t your thing, a light East Asian-style soup can be made with broth, a few leaves of

spinach or Chinese cabbage, noodles or cooked rice, ginger and garlic, soy sauce or miso, and a few chopped vegetables - mushrooms, carrots, peppers, broccoli, baby corn. It is simple, adaptable, light, and pleasing to the eye.

For cold and delicate patients, horseradish and apple soup is different, delicious, pretty, and light. It has easily digestible comforting natural sweetness from the apples, a complex tartness from white wine, a little spice from nutmeg, and effective but not overwhelming heat from the horseradish. It’s a great autumn and winter dish, medicine aside.

Garlic, Chilli, Ginger and Our D' Artagnan Horseradish

Apart from soup, there are countless ways to make use of the the early intervention triumvirate - ginger, garlic and chilli, and horseradish the fourth musketeer. Horseradish is trickier because it is a less familiar ingredient to most people; but, for its expectorant, heating, decongestant and anti-ineffective qualities, it is well worth knowing. Familiarise yourself while healthy so that when you need it you know it. The best medicines are the ones you have to hand and with which you are most familiar.

Amongst the myriad of possible dishes, salsa comes to mind. Salsa combines raw garlic, raw onions - which have a similar effect to garlic but to a somewhat lesser extent, and fresh or dried chillies. Vitamin C from the tomatoes, fresh chillies, lemon or lime juice, and optional herbs, helps to amp up the salsa’s effectiveness. It is easy to throw together and delicious, and you can make it in huge quantities inexpensively. Who doesn't love salsa? For these purposes, serve it with chilli con (or sin!) carne and rice, as a condiment with chicken pork or fish, on baked potatoes, as a snack or appetiser with tortilla wedges, or just break out the chips. You want to eat a good amount of it, so don’t be shy. You can also apply the stick blender and make it into a gazpacho to be followed by a warm and nourishing meal. To go with your salsa, you can make a guacamole variant using the vitamin rich and stomach protecting avocado as a buffer for the heat of horseradish.

The Greek dip skordalia puts garlic front and centre, using potato and olive oil to take the stomach-burning edge off it. Humus serves a similar purpose, but uses less garlic and is somewhat divisive on account of its grainy texture and tahini flavour, whereas skordalia has wide appeal. Aside from use as a chip or vegetable dip, it can be used on chicken pork or fish, with beans, or simply as a side dish. Garlic can also be used in pesto, and, because pesto is eaten raw, it is a great way to use herbs to their best advantage. Any herb can be used either with or instead of the traditional basil: parsley is common, rocket or arugula is great, thyme, sage, oregano, cilantro or coriander, even a little mint, cannot go wrong. Vary the nuts according to what you have; pine nuts are traditional, but walnuts and almonds are delicious too. Add some extra salt if you don’t have the cheese, or use a small amount of white miso instead. A plate of pasta with lightly steamed or sauteed vegetables, chopped tomato, a few olives, and a garlicky herby pesto is a perfect dish when you think you might be getting something. Small plates of nibbles can be useful medicinal foods too, and the Nepalese bar snack badam sadheko peanut salad puts chilli garlic and ginger into every crunchy spicy addictive bite. Other ideas include bruschetta with tomato garlic and onions, toast with olive oil and raw garlic (I like it with marmite too, but this is not perhaps to everyone’s taste.), and store bought baba ganoush, possibly doctored with freshly crushed garlic for extra oomph. Garlic, chilli and horseradish - even ginger if you like - can be used on baked potatoes and in olive oil mashed potatoes. 

There is, of course, one more salient use for chilli, ginger and garlic: curry. Like Chinese hot and sour soup, curry has many devotees as an early intervention cold cure. Vindaloo and madras curries are popular for this purpose, but any herby spicy dish with heat to your taste will work. Avoid the creamy kormas and mailais and koftas, and go instead for jalfrezi, balti, rogan josh, or another richly flavoured spicy sauce. Although this is the time for your Indian grandma’s homemade curry, store bought sauces or prepared meals will work too should you not be lucky enough to have an Indian grandma, though they may well require some doctoring with ginger and garlic. Add some fresh chopped tomato and use lots of lemon on top to punch up the flavour and the vitamin C content.

Sage and Thyme

Unlike their pungent cohorts, sage and thyme are easy to use medicinally in infusions, and so the tendency to use them medicinally in foods is much less. There are a few things, though, that are worth keeping in mind. Both herbs, along with other mint family plants like rosemary, marjoram, savoury, and oregano, can be used fresh or dried in salad dressings; roasted vegetables; baked potatoes; olive oil mashed potatoes; pasta dishes; stews; soups including those discussed above; sauces for pasta, vegetables, chicken, meat, and fish; bean and chickpea salads; savoury stuffings; galettes; omelettes; and countless other foods. The best way to get the most medicinal value out of fresh herbs is to consume them uncooked; sprinkling chopped herbs over food just before serving is useful, tasty, and fragrant. As a use specifically for sage, try sage brown butter sauce to toss over pasta, steamed or roasted vegetables, potatoes, poultry or pork. Or play to sage’s well known squash affinity and use it over roasted butternut squash or pumpkin.

Feeding Sickrels

When feeding someone who is ill, aside from the content of the food, it is important to also make it pleasing to the eye. Someone with a weak or non-existent appetite can be tempted by a small pretty plate of easy to eat foods. Large amounts of anything are likely to go untouched, and foods requiring a knife and fork will likely be judged too much trouble. Stick to one-implement and finger foods, served attractively in small amounts. Cut sandwiches into small wedges or dust off the cookie cutters, use the small bowls or teacups for soup, and serve familiar sickroom foods in modest quantities and appealing attractive ways. Most parents know this, but still it is important to say. And of course, you can remind your finicky patient just how lucky he or she is to be ill now. In former times, sick people were fed all kinds of horrible things: wet toast; worse still, the starchy lumpy water in which toast has been wetted; and perhaps worst of all, Mrs. Beeton’s abominable raw meatballs. Though that might not do anything in the moment for a flagging appetite.

Hopefully that has planted some ideas for how to use some of the most common and accessible medicinal herbs easily and with confidence. Check back often for the next installments of Home Herbalism - Colds Flus and frightful Coughs. In the meantime, bon appetit!