Most of the cooks I know have a collection of recipes under the unofficial heading of “things it might be interesting to try — someday.” Every couple of years I weed through mine and, for one reason or another, discard about nine-tenths of them.
I have a second collection that never has to be weeded out — a strictly mental collection. I never clip them out because I have no intention of ever trying them, but they’re pleasantly distracting to think about. Some of the most interesting among them are hangover remedies.
One medieval recipe called for “the shadow of a starved pigeon.” I’m not at all sure whether this unhappy bird had merely been deprived of a couple of meals, or whether the hunger pangs were supposed to be fatal.
And where would you get either a dead pigeon or a super-hungry pigeon when you needed it? Somehow I can’t see the conscientious medieval housewife keeping a brood of underfed pigeons handy, just in case her husband happened to overindulge.
I’ve also spent a great deal of time brooding on the logistics involved for an ancient Roman remedy. The famous Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder recommended raw owl’s eggs as a hangover cure. Surely it’s asking a lot of the poor, hung-over soul to expect them to seek out a tree containing an owl’s nest, then climb the tree and dispute possession of the eggs with Mama Owl?
Raw eggs also figured in a remedy introduced at the Paris World Exposition in 1878, but the required ingredients were more easily obtained. The mixture consisted of a raw egg yolk, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce and salt and pepper — which sounds pretty awful, but probably not as awful as a hangover.
Of course, in today’s world, the food police would undoubtedly frown on using raw eggs, even to avert the horrors of a hangover. But be of good cheer: kitchen remedies for hangovers are alive and well in today’s world. Everyone seems to have their list of favorites, and eggs — although not raw eggs — are found on many of those lists.
Furthermore, modern science has provided a convincing justification for the centuries-long persistence of eggs in the treatment of hangovers. Eggs are rich in cysteine, an amino acid that helps break down the toxins in the alcohol. So Pliny the Elder wasn’t so far off with his owl’s eggs, after all.
A snacking staple found in nine out of ten kitchens, the banana, is another of our modern anti-hangover agents.
One of the results of over-indulgence is a loss of potassium, an important electrolyte that helps stave off the effects of dehydration, such as light-headedness and headaches. Bananas are rich in potassium, and also in Vitamin B-6, which can reduce hangover symptoms by as much as 50 percent.
Although it isn’t as likely to be among your kitchen staples, coconut water is even higher in electrolytes than bananas. Another good source of electrolytes is tomato juice.
Since one of the major symptoms of a hangover is nausea, it isn’t surprising that ginger is another popular remedy. After all, ginger has long been recognized as an effective remedy for nausea, including morning sickness, car sickness and seasickness. In fact, no New England whaling captain would have dreamed of going to sea without a good supply of gingersnaps to ward off the indignities of seasickness.
You can deal with nausea by putting several chunks of ginger root in a cup, adding boiling water and letting it steep for five minutes — or you can simply grab a box of gingersnaps. And if you don’t like the flavor of ginger, you can find it in capsule or tablet form at your neighborhood supermarket or drugstore.
Oatmeal is said to be soothing to hangover victims, partly because consuming starchy carbohydrates helps boost the level of serotonin — the happiness hormone — in the brain.
They all sound very logical and probably very effective, but I still think Pliny’s raw owl’s eggs were a lot more interesting.
Mary Ryder is a food columnist for the Daily Commercial. Email her at practicalpotwatcher@cfl.rr.com.
