COCINA
Trusting in the healing power of food -- and love
Posted on Thu, Mar. 13, 2008
By MARICEL E. PRESILLA
Nursing an aching back over the past two weeks, I have found more consolation in a steamy bowl of chicken soup than in the analgesics my doctor prescribed.
Yes, I know; chicken soup is for colds and sore throats. But believe me, nothing is more soothing to an achy body than this time-tested remedy -- particularly if you, like me, were raised in a family that put as much trust in the curative power of food as in conventional medicine.
Like most traditional Hispanic Caribbean families, mine had an arsenal of recipes to treat a variety of ailments: a simple puree of malanga (a tropical tuber) for acid reflux and ulcers; green plantain mash or plantain-peel tea for diarrhea; arrowroot porridge (atol de sagú) for sensitive stomachs; braised beef liver for anemia; concentrated pigeon soup for weak constitutions; egg punches with a bit of rum to ward off colds; bifti (a type of beef extract) as a tonic for children with poor appetites; and chicken soup in various concentrations, from clear consommés to hearty sopones with rice or starchy tubers, as a cure-all.
My maternal aunts, the Parladé sisters, were called upon for nutritional advice or tender, loving care when anyone in the family was under the weather. Looking back, I realize these women were gifted healers because they believed in both nature and in science. With great conviction, they deployed the appropriate foods to support the medications prescribed by their uncle, noted Santiago de Cuba physician Dr. Rafael Parladé, or their physician-children, Jaime and Rafael (Felo) Parladé. (Jaime now lives in Miami.)
In every part of the world, from antiquity to the present, people have trusted in the healing power of food. In fact, old recipe collections often have sections dedicated to special foods for the sick. (It is no accident that the medical abbreviation Rx comes from the Latin word for ``recipe.'')
The Latin American understanding of food and healing is informed by many cultures, but especially by Spanish lore. In a 16th century Spanish cookbook by Ruperto de Nola, there are several wonderful broths for enfermos and dolientes (the sick) made with chicken, capon and mutton.
The recipes emphasize the importance of extracting as much substance as possible from these meats, and particularly from the chicken bones. There are also dishes combining cooked poultry with milk and ground almonds, like the famous manjar blanco (blancmange in French), seasoned with sweet spices and sugar.
A Cuban cookbook published in 1891 begins with broth (caldo) recipes for the sick that echo some of those conventions. It also shares the old Spanish belief in chicken and chicken soup as silver bullets for disease. Since the sick and the convalescent have little appetite, the book explains, the broths should be both well seasoned to incite the appetite and have a lot of substance (concentration). (Lighter broths were recommended for indigestion.)
One substantial recipe in the Cuban book calls for boiling chicken, chickpeas and mutton (carnero) in water. Once tender, the meats and legumes are pounded, dissolved in the saffron- and salt-seasoned broth and carefully strained through a cloth. For the seriously ill, the recipe is far simpler: a small chicken boiled with half an onion and a bit of saffron.
As a child, I was a bit of a tomboy who liked to play in the rain and thought nothing of wearing wet socks to school. No wonder I often got terrible sore throats, usually accompanied by high fevers.
To my rescue would come my beloved pediatrician, Jaime Parladé, with his tetracycline and my aunts Belén and Anita Parladé with their soup. Made with our own muscular, backyard chicken, those soups of old had an ineffable flavor of love and purity that I have never been able to duplicate.
Modern science has validated the wisdom of chicken soup for respiratory ailments, but for me, its merit also lies in the way it makes me feel: warmed from the inside, pampered, and protected -- connected to the women who once watched over me.
Culinary historian Maricel E. Presilla is the chef/co-owner of Cucharamama and Zafra in Hoboken, N.J. Her latest book is The New Taste of Chocolate.
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