Thus I read The Guardian’s Best Cures – by Pub Landlords quite smugly. Some prescriptions involved food (buttered crumpets, fried haggis, honey/banana/ten leaves of spinach), some were liquid (sparkling shiraz, Campari and espresso).
When I drank for a living (ie, as a journalist) only one thing worked: as much water as possible before bed. However there are two problems: (a) being mentally competent enough to remember and submit to this “pre-cure”, (b) overcoming the human’s seemingly finite capacity for water; after the third glassful the throat contracts and the water takes on the nature of a solid; it refuses to go down. Keep on swallowing, man.Inevitably a memory arises. An overnight press visit to Stuttgart, fuelled by a terrible red wine that “didn’t travel well” – that is, from the bottle to the glass. Foolishly I challenged one of the party to an early-morning swim in the hotel pool. Even more foolishly, I flopped into bed without the water treatment.
All the symptoms were there the next morning. As I made sure my legs entered the appropriate orifices of my cozzie I told myself I would profit from the exercise. I didn’t. Poolside my head merely throbbed. Immersed it felt like a depth charge, assuming depth charges have feelings.
My so-called competitor was worse. Too crocked to even imagine swimming. Some people have all the luck.
One further suggestion from The Guardian: homemade chicken stock, miso paste, shitake mushrooms, crispy seaweed, kombu kelp, spring onions, shredded rotisserie chicken, egg noodle, a soft boiled egg. Not forgetting a helping of Dutch courage.
I'm not sure if all those ingredients in the last paragraph are of the same recipe but whether or not I hate recipes that have ingredients that are almost impossible to find in the average supermarket even if you knew which section to find them in. Can you imagine going off in the morning with you hangover to go and purchase some of that stuff before having your hangover breakfast - how unrealistic can you get?
ReplyDeleteSir Hugh: Sounds like a whinge from someone who'd like to be middle-class but doesn't live close enough to Waitrose to achieve this. And don't talk to me about Booth's.
ReplyDeleteAs to your question, who'd drink chicken stock or eat miso paste independently of anything else.
I have never been a great drinker, having seen how it affected my father. Never liked beer. Tipples were usually red wine or G&T. Note the past tense in that last sentence. I have found, since a stroke, that alcohol doesn't mix with my medication so have stopped imbibing - like giving up smoking (always a pipe) I don't miss it it all.
ReplyDeleteAvus: I'm reminded of Robert Altman's brilliantly comic movie, A Wedding, back in 1978. Howard Duff plays a drunk, Dr Jules Meecham:
ReplyDeleteMeecham: What the hell is that?
Rev. David Rutelage: That's a glass of milk.
Meecham: You're kidding?
Rutelage: Dr Meecham as a physician you should know the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
Meecham: You mean you don't drink?
Rutelage: No.
Meecham: In other words, when you get up in the morning that's as good as you're gonna feel all day? (Looks at other wedding guests) Jesus, it's like the last ten days of Hitler.
I was writing specifically about hangovers because the subject - as opposed to the experience - entertained me. I wouldn't say I was an obsessive drinker but I drink more than is good for me. But then that's one of the benefits of being 84; if I wish, I'm able to ignore things that are good for me. I'm fairly sure I could give it up but I'd miss it. Like severing a friendship with someone I meet intermittently, the friend being that version of myself who is intoxicated. From the tone of your comment I take it you think I should be ashamed of myself. But then then shame may also be dispensed with at age 84.
I have a few of those memories from my misguided youth. I'm thankful I have not had a hangover like that for many years. It takes a few years of drinking to learn how to do it right. Which is to say, knowing when to stop before you get sick and/or stupid.
ReplyDeleteColette: "Misguided youth" or just "youth"? It's the time for making mistakes from which one is healthy enough to bounce back.
ReplyDeleteOne other late-life factor. These days I tend to drink just before, during, or immediately after the ingestion of food. A blotting-paper effect seems to ensue.
I was merely expressing my personal experience, RR. I would not judge you on yours. My father's inability to hold his drink made my mother's and my lives miserable and this must have affected the way I have used alcohol in my own life. I have been drunk a few times, mostly whilst in the army, but never enjoyed the experience, or the after effects. The blood pressure medication I take leaves me feeling as if I was lightly drunk at all times - slightly off balance when walking (but never when on two wheels, thank god) and a bit off balance. I can do without enhancing that effect with added alcohol!
ReplyDeleteFried haggis. Never knew such an abomination existed...
ReplyDeleteI suddenly remember when I lived in the old millhouse carpenter's cottage in Carrboro, North Carolina, and my neighbor staggered over one morning for some hair of the dog. I could find nothing in the house but a derelict bottle of creme de menthe. He staggered away, green on the cheeks...
Marly: Perhaps it's just me but it's strange how often creme de menthe figures in anecdotes about drunkenness - AND NOWHERE ELSE. In France it's possible to order non-alcoholic drinks based on a look-alike CdeM cordial. Even adults drink these virulently green concoctions. The colour tempted me when I was much younger but gustatory considerations intervened. This is not mint the herb, but its other iteration often used in cough drops.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'd really like to know about is that - surely rare - impulse that caused you to buy the bottle in the first place. Were you lolling in Toulouse-Lautrec country at the time?
Strange how Americans really detest the prospect of offal. Is it some kind of national terror?