In chilly and flu season, many flip to dwelling cures: tea, ginger, sizzling soup. From Jap Europe, there’s gogl-mogl — a milk/yolk/honey concoction each beloved and dreaded.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
For so long as individuals have had the sniffles, they’ve had dwelling cures. And for individuals with roots in Jap Europe, a kind of cures is gogl-mogl. Deena Prichep reviews it is the stuff of childhood recollections, each good and dangerous.
DEENA PRICHEP, BYLINE: It is onerous to pinpoint the primary look of gogl-mogl.
EVE JOCHNOWITZ: It appears to be a kind of issues like hen soup. It is at all times been there.
PRICHEP: Eve Jochnowitz is a Yiddish instructor who researches the historical past of Jewish meals.
JOCHNOWITZ: They start with grinding up the sugar or some honey, mixing it with the egg yolks after which beating in sizzling milk.
PRICHEP: There are barely totally different variations of this recipe. Typically a shot of brandy or slivovitz was thrown in, sometimes some chocolate. And Jochnowitz says it was discovered throughout Europe.
JOCHNOWITZ: From Czechoslovakia within the west, so far as the borders of the Russian Empire within the east, I might say.
PRICHEP: And with immigration, gogl-mogl. made its means into America. The late New York Metropolis mayor Ed Koch gave out his model at a press convention in 1987.
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ED KOCH: My suggestion is a minimal – if you happen to actually wish to get cracking on the chilly – a minimal of three gogl-mogls a day.
PRICHEP: In a latest interview on WHYY’s Contemporary Air, singer Barbra Streisand recalled her mom recommending it after her first actual gig.
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BARBRA STREISAND: The very first thing she stated, I bear in mind, was your voice wants eggs. It’s a must to use a gogl-mogl ‘trigger your voice must be stronger.
PRICHEP: Now, some individuals have candy recollections of oldsters and grandparents bringing a gogl-mogl to their sickbed, however lots of people dreaded it, particularly when the egg was uncooked, like within the gogl-mogl Barbra Streisand’s mom made.
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STREISAND: Which I may by no means swallow – ugh.
PRICHEP: This concoction has develop into extra of a reminiscence, probably because of the rise of over-the-counter medicines and decreasing tolerance for giving uncooked eggs and alcohol to youngsters. In response to Michal Korkosz, a meals author in Poland, you possibly can nonetheless discover gogl-mogl in Jap Europe, however as a dessert. And even then it is seen as a relic of the previous.
MICHAL KORKOSZ: Through the Communist occasions, the place there was no candy treats within the shops, my mom, she would make the gogl-mogl at dwelling.
PRICHEP: The Polish model is extra like an egg foam, a cloud of simply whipped eggs and sugar, like the start of a sponge cake.
KORKOSZ: It is so fluffy. It is so creamy. It has its richness.
PRICHEP: However Korkosz says generally when somebody was sick, his grandmother would pour in slightly sizzling milk, turning this dessert right into a treatment.
KORKOSZ: Candy deal with however in some way milk makes it a medication, proper (laughter)?
PRICHEP: Which raises the query, does gogl-mogl really do something medicinally? Dr. Diane Pappas is a pediatrician on the College of Virginia who researches cough administration in children. She says, meh.
DIANE PAPPAS: We have no actually good proof that honey does an entire lot for a cough. There’s a couple of research that say it’d assist slightly bit. They are not nice high quality, however it’s actually all we’ve.
PRICHEP: Pappas says in order for you a gogl-mogl, go for it. Energy and heat fluids at all times assist. And so long as the egg is totally cooked and you are not giving honey to infants, it is high quality.
PAPPAS: I do not know that there are downsides until you set the alcohol in it. I do not know that there is a big upside both.
PRICHEP: Pappas says whereas she will be able to’t ethically prescribe placebos, that have an effect on can play a job in all kinds of issues individuals take, hoping to really feel higher. And Polish meals author Michal Korkosz says there’s additionally the consolation of custom.
KORKOSZ: I at all times examine dishes from our childhood as like a heat blanket. They’re, like, so cozy, and they’re so scrumptious. They reminds you whenever you had been the happiest in your life.
PRICHEP: Which could be the good factor whenever you’re feeling crummy.
For NPR Information, I am Deena Prichep.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “DON’T RAIN ON MY PARADE”)
STREISAND: (Singing) Do not inform me to not reside. Simply sit and putter.
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