Gogl-mogl: old world home remedy that may comfort — even if it doesn’t cure

So long as there have been scratchy throats, runny noses, and hacking coughs, there have been residence cures completely different cultures have turned to hoping to really feel higher. Hen soup, ginger tea, mustard plasters. And for these with household roots in Jap Europe – a drink often called gogl-mogl.

Additionally referred to as goggle-moggle, kogel mogel, guggle muggle, גאָגל-מאָגל, the drink is mainly like a scorching eggnog, or sabayon, thinned out to be drinkable. It is broadly been used as a treatment in Ashkenazi Jewish communities. Whereas the drink exists in non-Jewish communities as nicely, it is often seen as extra of a dessert.

Eve Jochnowitz, a Yiddish instructor and Jewish culinary ethnographer, jokes that gogl-mogl “appears to be a type of issues like rooster soup – it is at all times been there.”

Jochnowitz says the most typical model begins with sugar or honey combined with egg yolks, after which crushed into scorching milk.

There are barely completely different variations – typically a shot of brandy or slivovitz was thrown in; typically chocolate or butter was added. Jochnowitz says gogl-mogl was discovered throughout Europe.

“Over your entire Yiddish-speaking world – from Czechoslovakia within the West, so far as the borders of the Russian Empire within the East, I’d say.”

And with immigration, gogl-mogl made its method into America. The late New York Metropolis Mayor Ed Koch gave out his model at a press convention in 1987. A novel model, it needs to be famous, that forgoes the eggs and milk, and as a substitute mixes the honey and booze into some fresh-squeezed citrus (he notes that as an elected official he would not drink alcohol on the job, however would have gogl-mogl to recuperate in a single day).

In a latest interview on WHYY’s Contemporary Air, singer Barbra Streisand recalled her mom recommending it after her first actual gig.

“The very first thing she mentioned, I keep in mind, was ‘Your voice wants eggs. You must use a gogl-mogl, trigger your voice must be stronger.'”

In an oral historical past with the Yiddish E book Middle, Al Rosen, a WWII veteran, remembers how his father would additionally put together gogl-mogl to coat his throat earlier than his position chanting Kol Nidre, the melodic service ushering within the excessive vacation of Yom Kippur.

Now some folks have candy recollections of oldsters and grandparents bringing a gogl-mogl to their sickbed. However lots of people dreaded it.

“What the individuals who have adverse recollections appear to have in widespread is that the egg yolk was not crushed with the sugar,” observes Eve Jochnowitz. “You’ll put in a complete egg yolk, and the thought was that you’d swallow the entire egg yolk when you drank the recent beverage. And that does not sound fairly as fabulous.”

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, curator at POLIN Museum of the Historical past of Polish Jews, remembers being given gogl-mogl for chest colds in the course of the harsh winters of her Toronto childhood. And it was not a nice expertise.

“Oh no, hell no,” she laughs. “No, no.”

However she does acknowledge it had a soothing heat. And he or she wonders about its future.

“I am curious to what extent gogl-mogl persists amongst an American-born era – particularly individuals who have been born, to illustrate, 20, 30 years in the past. And to what extent it is a legacy of moms, grandmothers, great-grandmothers from Europe.”

Culinary ethnographer Eve Jochnowitz says the steepest decline most likely got here within the Nineteen Seventies, because the immigrant era aged. Entry to over-the-counter medicines, and a decrease tolerance for giving uncooked eggs and alcohol to youngsters additionally could have performed a task.

In accordance with Michał Korkosz, a meals author in Poland, you may nonetheless discover the dessert model of gogl-mogl in Jap Europe. Although even then, it is seen as a relic of the previous, hearkening again to Communist instances whenever you could not discover any sweets within the shops.

The Polish model is extra like an egg foam – a cloud of simply whipped eggs and sugar, like the start of a sponge cake.

“It is so fluffy, it is so creamy,” waxes Korkosz. “It has its richness.”

However Korkosz notes that typically, when somebody was sick, his grandmother would pour in a bit of scorching milk – turning this dessert right into a treatment.

“Candy deal with, however by some means milk makes it a medication, proper?” he laughs.

Which raises the query – does gogl-mogl truly do something, medicinally? Dr. Diane Pappas is a pediatrician on the College of Virginia who researches cough administration in children. She says… meh?

“We have no actually good proof that honey does a complete lot for cough,” explains Pappas. “There’s a number of research that say it’d assist a bit of bit. They don’t seem to be nice high quality, nevertheless it’s actually all we’ve got.”

Nevertheless it won’t be something particular concerning the honey.

“There may be some suggestion that simply the truth that you’ve gotten some type of viscous liquid type of coating and calming and soothing your throat and growing saliva and no matter, that these issues may assist consolation somebody with a cough or chilly signs.”

Pappas says if you would like a gogl-mogl, go for it. Energy and heat fluids at all times assist. And so long as the egg is absolutely cooked, and you are not giving honey to infants, it is high-quality.

“I do not know that there are downsides – except you set the alcohol in it,” says Pappas. “Do not know that there is a enormous upside both.”

Pappas says whereas she will’t ethically prescribe placebos – that impact can play a task in all kinds of issues folks take hoping to really feel higher.

And Polish meals author Michał Korkosz says there’s additionally the consolation of custom.

“I at all times examine dishes from our childhood as like a heat blanket. They’re so cozy, and so scrumptious, and so they remind you whenever you have been the happiest in your life.”

Which stands out as the good factor, whenever you’re feeling crummy.