A little context first. I am sick. Not just sort of sick or a bit under the weather, but ragingly sick. I'm not saying this to get sympathy, but it's the context. I am coughing up a lung and all congested. My head is spinning and I am a freaking contagion. A viral miasma wafts around me like a poisonous cloud, augmented by the medicinal sachet of cough drops. They're made from eucalyptus, so I probably smell like a koala, for Pete's sake. (Yes, actually, if you want a visual image, picture to yourself a bleary-eyed, headachy, coughing, evil koala sprawled on the couch with blankets and books everywhere. I have to give a major presentation on campus tomorrow. I am in a truly foul temper. Perhaps instead of a proper koala, I'm a drop bear.)
The thought also occurs to me that I should be walking around campus ringing a bell and yelling, leper-like, "Unclean! Unclean!" I dare not stand too close to anyone lest they shriek out that I'm employing biological warfare. Of course, I have actually threatened people with the dreadful words, "Don't make me breathe on you" -- a horrific thought that usually sends people scattering. Going on!
When I get a cold or the flu, the disease always -- ALWAYS -- settles into my throat first and leaves it last. A few mornings ago, my throat started feeling ticklish and I knew. By the afternoon, it felt like sandpaper. By the next day, I was a miasma. As for the telltale throat? It felt as though someone had taken a cheese grater to it.
So, I'm thinking, soup is always good for a cold, right? Especially in this chilly weather, wouldn't a nice bowl of good hot soup be a great help?
It was lunchtime yesterday and I was too sick and tired to cook anything, so I went to get takeout from my favorite Chinese restaurant. Among other things, I got some soup. I thought about getting the wonton soup, but I defaulted to my favorite, hot-and-sour soup, because I was thinking vaguely and absently about how a little spice would warm me up.
Hm. OK, you can see where this story is going, right?
Well, you can see it coming because you're in full command of all your mental faculties. I wasn't. In fact, I was so out of it that I probably shouldn't have been allowed outside my apartment at all. Still, I came home, unpacked my lunch, and dove into the soup. Ah, it smelled lovely as I poked a spoon into it, that delicious savory warm liquid joy that's always such a pleasu--AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!
What? What was going on? The soup went down like a stream of molten fire. I was flailing around trying to get a glass of water. (It didn't help much.) What was with the soup??? It scratched an agonizing trail all the way down. Drinking it was like drinking pure acid.
WAIT A MINUTE. Drinking acid . . . ? I stopped and slapped my forehead. Geez, I'm an IDIOT. I was drinking acid. One of the key ingredients in hot-and-sour soup is . . . vinegar. Rice vinegar, to be precise, but vinegar! And vinegar's key ingredient is acetic acid. (OK, I can hear all my science/chemistry friends laughing at me.)
So, gentle reader, here is your PSA of the day: if you have a sore throat, do not drink hot-and-sour soup!
(I'm currently making a batch of homemade chicken soup -- nice and bland and acid-free.)
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