On Sun, 29 Dec 1996, Jeffrey Weiss (Dallas Morning News reporter) wrote:
HH sez (on the authority of experience) two things-- get thee both to a decent small neighborhood Chinese restaurant and order two bowls of War-won-ton-mien soup. This is a rich broth (unfortunately it is often pork stock but make an exception this time-- you can repent and atone later and do penance with a healthy body in future). Some rare Chinese restaurants also have beef stock. Anyway, this soup is filled with all manner of veggies--request that it include black mushrooms and slivers of ginger. Eat heartily and drink hot green tea with no sugar in it. Be sure to add soy to this soup; two meals of it will work its magic on you--see about a take-out for later. At home, drink warm to hot pure mint tea; add only a SMALL amount of sugar--about 1/2 teaspoon at best. Drink this tea about a cup every 45 minutes or so...only every few cups need to be slightly sweetened-- sugar is necessary for a slight chemical reaction which aides the body to fight discomfort and mild depression--if you're diabetic, disregard the sugar!
This soup approximates a local Creek recipe that really works--REALLY! It is a healthy chemical compound that positively affects/effects the body. See if your local library has a copy of a video series called "A Taste of China" which explains the time-honored use of food as a medicine in China, even today. Also, get one or two of the funniest videos you can find and watch them--with tea in hand! Laughter helps the body release a chemical that aids in healing. Creeks have a winter comic mask dance performed by the Healing society to accomplish this--it really works too! Don't question but simply do it! Get a Chinese friend to write the soup name in Chinese so you are sure of getting the right soup unless you know a good restaurant with fluent bilingual staff/chef. If allergic to shrimp or seafood, be sure to ask the restaurant to leave it out--'cause its usually included in soup.
BUT--To make a chicken soup that will actually do something for you but surely won't win any taste contest (but I like it very much) get a chicken, drop in a pot of pure (non-chemical water--use bottled) and boil the hell out of it. When the meat is falling off the bones pick them out and break them or at least crack them to allow marrow to seep out. Return them to the boiling and add dill at this point. Put in finely chopped celery, SMALL amount of carrots but no potato or salt--at least no yet! Also add good quality brown or bas-mahti or tex-mahti rice in place of half of any good noodles of your choice--no egg noodles, though--NO EGG ANYTHING for this soup. Add about three or four drops (only drops) of vanilla, a few thin slices ginger root or a goodly sprinkle or two of ground ginger. IF you can get ginseng put in a little but not too much. Top off with a few lettuce leaves torn (not cut) into pieces... cook, cook, cook.... let cool, skim off obvious fat, reheat and prepare to eat---add salt and any seasonings of your choice only to the serving bowl but not during the cooking.
Now, to really enrich it, take the peelings only from a nice lemon or an orange (1/2 at most will do it) and add them with the lettuce...won't win a taste contest--but, its good and interesting to the palate anyway--but it works wonders for the body. A food nutritional chemist at FSU helped me come up with this to match equally a native soup mama made from the woods and its many treasures not always available everywhere. Ideally, find a freshly killed yard chicken from the outskirts of town or a kosher chicken. We often add hickory nuts but others such as peanuts, cashews, almonds etc., will do; walnuts, though healthy for the heart, often imparts a bitterness to it but most nuts work well. Your body needs vitamin K to properly diffuse liquids throughout body. K is made in the intestinal tract by adding a hydrogen atom to oils, fats or greases in food.
Unfortunately, most foods use hydrolyzed, hydrogenated or "H-processed" fats to retard spoilage...this is bad for the body and can intensify any illness by denying nutrition to individual cells. Drop any processed fats from your diet during illness (and hopefully, afterwards)...find an oil or fat that is not hydrolyzed and get at least a tablespoon each morning...or use it in salad or add it to your soup or other food. Or, eat a spoonful of such oil before you brush your "little toothees." With vitamin K in the body, fluids pass through the cell membranes easier, more rapidly and evenly distributes nourishment throughout whole body. With hydrolyzed oils, you don't get enough K and spent fluids build up = water weight!--just like women experience monthly...Vitamin K insures rapid healing and contributes to better emotional state...this is why many women really get poor marks for emotions during that time each month when female body quits making vitamin K. Read the short chapter on vitamin K in Adele Davis' book "Eat Right to Keep Fit" or talk to a good TRAINED nutritionist in your area about this poorly understood vitamin which can only be made by the body and not synthesized.
Make sure you get iron, too, to ensure that oxygen is quickly available through blood stream. Iron atoms are what oxygen hitchhikes upon in body. There, you have a modern equivalent to traditional practices suitable for downtown Dallas or anywhere USA...late & I'm off to bed--get well soon and call me sometime.
Excuse the typos please. Tomorrow I will fast for you all for a while and pray for you as will a few others--relief is on the way.
OOPS—HH FORGOT: to the homemade chicken soup, add at least one or more strands of saffron and a small onion. Use a Vidalia or better yet, a Texas-Sweet onion. If they are not available use a yellow or white onion but cut up and sauté in virgin olive oil and then add to soup--this will equal the Vidalia or glorious Texas-Sweet (which IS superior to the Vidalia, even if you didn't ask). If I didn't mention it, also add a little bit of ginseng to soup but not too much. There, think I got it all in this time. When I make it, its just automatic and everything is put in by force of habit, not memory--bye all and get well.
ERNIE MARC WROTE : Good thoughts from friends should help, too.
Jeffrey Weiss SHOT BACK WITH: I note that garlic is not in your recipe. I normally add it for taste, but there are also supposed to be medicinal properties ascribed to it? Any reason you know of *not* to use it?
HH admits that he just forgot to mention garlic--help yourself to it! but keep the lemon or orange peel minimum 1/4 to 1/2 at best. bye
Subject: Re: One more culinary curative query from JEFF WEISS--who else!
HH, et al, sez Either way or BOTH 'cause they all have a nourishing decent oil/fat content that's not hydrolyzed. BTW, I once visited a food processing plant and saw giant stainless steel vats of hot fats through which jet nozzles were spewing hydrogen gas...was a most amazing cite/sight! They didn't like Adele Davis but my late Dr. did...bye. All you'll who try any of this let me know what you think and any improvements you stumble upon or create. Thanks. HH, the one armed old one...the BOF (which stand for "beloved ol' .........!)
Date Mon, 30 Dec 1996 230125 JEFFREY WROTE:
OY VEY yourself sez HH:! Will send a note in Chinese for you to take to your favorite Chinese chow shop on your next visit.
EDWARD B. HANNA WROTE Oy Vey HH! Orange peels in chicken soup...you'd make some kinda of Jewish grandmother yent'l now wouldn't you! Whats wrong....wouldn't the sink fit?
Subject Soup Report--Cloves
BTW. I made the soup, sorta. I added *way* too much rice, so it's more of a mush. I had no saffron. And I used tangerine peel because that's what I had. Aside from that, I followed your instructions pretty well. Marni and I think it tastes pretty good. Her quote when I came home (She had been home for a while and smelled the soup in the crock pot) was "It's just like a restaurant." The combo of fresh ginger, garlic, citrus, etc. was lovely. (How about adding say, one whole clove? I have no idea what that might do for healing, but I was thinking about adding that flavor to the mix..) Marni and I both feel better, I'll give HH Stew some of the credit..., Jeffrey Weiss
Date Wed, 1 Jan 1997
HH continues: BTW, Barley also works very well in place of rice or noodles or as a third ingredient. Be sure NOT to salt until it is in the bowl on the table ready to eat--add any other spices you wish, too. AND POTATO may be used but you should cut them up first and soak them in water for a good long while, changing it often--this is to remove the starch that you don't need at this time. In fact, I've soak the spuds until soup almost done, softened them in microwave a little bit and then added them near the end...Its important that you remove potato starch which contributes to sogginess; remove starch to save and protect the delicate flavors which potatoes have tendency to absorb. In fact, if you over salt a soup or stew, just throw in some raw potato and they will absorb a lot of the salt--then, ditch the potatoes. Maybe this concludes all we can think of about this neat little "Salvation Soup." Good luck--eat hearty.
From Rosemary McCombs Maxey
Here's the famous Rocky Ridge "Chicken Corn Soup." A lot of the folks around here are of German heritage. They like plain foods. I like their plain foods--with a dash of Tabasco and a lot of green chilis. Sometimes I add garlic and whole pepper corns.
1 gallon Chicken broth
To broth and base, add celery and onion. Cook until tender. Add corn and bring to a boil. Add noodles and cook until tender.Add chicken. If soup becomes too thick, add more broth or water. I'm not sure it cures anything much beyond hunger. It does warm the body and soul. And, the green chilis help my sinuses.-)
NOW, LETS CONTINUE WITH PART TWO:
Date Mon, 23 Feb 1998:
Heles-Hayv's Chicken Soup Medicine
(Chef Jon Bullard prepared this updated version of a traditional Muskogee healing soup, as
Ingredients:
Allowing the marrow to escape produces an opaque, dark colored soup with a reddish tint, not the golden yellow of the Campbell's standard.
Add onion.
HH says Use a Vidalia or better yet, a Texas-Sweet onion. If they are not available use a yellow or white onion but cut up and sauté in virgin olive oil and then add to soup--this will equal the Vidalia or glorious Texas-Sweet (which IS superior to the Vidalia).
HH continues add dill at this point. Put in finely chopped celery, SMALL amount of carrots but no potato or salt--at least not yet! Also add a good quality brown or bas-mati or tex-mati rice in place of half of any good noodles of your choice--no egg noodles, though. add about three or four drops (only drops) of vanilla, a few thin slices ginger root or a sprinkle of ground ginger. If you can get ginseng put in a little but not too much. Top off with a few lettuce leaves torn into pieces. Also add garlic, here. And saffron. And the citrus peel.
HH continues Cook, cook, cook.... (Jeffrey lets it stay in the crock pot from morning until at least lunchtime, If he plans to use early, he uses the higher heat setting. Otherwise, he lets it stay on low until later in the day.)
Let cool, skim off obvious fat (but do NOT completely de-fat), reheat and prepare to eat---add salt and any seasonings of your choice only to the serving bowl but not during the cooking.
More HH, We often add hickory nuts but others such as peanuts, cashews, almonds etc., will do; walnuts often impart a bitterness to it but most nuts work well. These can be added during the cooking or as a garnish when serving.
Even more HH: