I was originally going to post a recipe for tripe cooked with peppers and tomatoes, served over rice. It was really good. However, the butcher’s poor food safety practices seem to have given me food poisoning, which I have spent the past two days recovering from. (I knew something was off when he was lackadaisical with his gloves, but I was too excited for tripe.) The tripe was good, but it was not worth that.
Anyway, I am mostly feeling better now. I was originally going to rant about the poor safety practices of the kosher meat industry, but that has been covered extensively in Jewish media. So instead, I am going to provide some Jewish reading materials, liquids, foods, and advice for getting through a bout of food poisoning.
- Read: so a shameless plug here – my cousin Lexi Freiman wrote a very Jewish, very gastric novel called Inappropriation that is absolutely fantastic. If you want to follow a satire of left- and right-wing identity politics told through the coming of age of an anxious teenage girl, this book is for you. You will laugh a lot.
- Read: but if laughing is hurting your stomach, save Inappropriation for when you are not feeling ill. For this circumstance, I am going to recommend reading a nice history book or series of articles, so that you can feel elegant even as you feel violently sick. How about browsing through the Early New York Synagogue Archives from the Center for Jewish History?
- Drink: soup! Clear chicken broth is not just the “Jewish penicillin” – it’s also easily digestible even when you can’t digest anything else. Slow sipping prevents vomiting, and will also both hydrate you and provide much needed electrolytes. It is also way better tasting than Gatorade.
- Drink: South Africans drink rooibos tea when sick – and my South African dad definitely gave me quite a bit when I felt ill at times. Steep a bag of rooibos tea (yes, just get the bags like any South African) for three minutes in hot water, and add honey or sugar to taste. The caffeine-free tea will hydrate you and make you feel better.
- Advice: do not guilt trip yourself! Food poisoning happens to most everyone at some point, and making yourself feel bad for eating something or drinking something sketchy will only make you feel worse. In Jewish communities we often like to guilt-trip, but that’s not healthy! No one deserves to vomit out their insides.
