There’s something mystical about the healing power of wonton soup.
I’ve been coming off a miserable stomach bug that landed me in the emergency room in a state of dehydration.
My blood vessels were so shrunken from the lack of fluids that it took four nurses and a dozen pokes of the needle to find a vein they could use to get an IV bag going.
The infusion of H2O perked me up, but the doctor was concerned that I hadn’t eaten anything in 2 1/2 days.
"If you don’t find something you can keep down, I’m probably going to be seeing you again," he said.
When we returned home, my wife and I went over the options we had in the house.
Bananas and cottage cheese? Yuck. Leftover kalbi and rice? Blech. Canned chicken noodle? Retch.
Then in the freezer, she found a container of frozen shrimp wonton soup from Costco and my suffering stomach didn’t recoil.
I’m not a fan of the dried ramen cups my grandkids are endlessly microwaving, but noodles frozen fresh sounded palatable.
My wife heated it up and I knew I had made the right choice as soon as the sweet vapors hit my nostrils and steamed my glasses.
I started with little sips of the lightly spiced soup and it was liquid comfort going down. When the half-dozen wonton were exposed, I scooped one up with my spoon and the soft noodle melted in my mouth, yielding a plump piece of shrimp.
I could feel the life returning, and by lunch the next day I was ready for a big-boy bowl of the real thing from the local Chinese restaurant.
The strange thing is that I seldom eat wonton soup during normal times. But I should have known to turn to it when I was sick.
Years ago, I took a chemotherapy treatment for my multiple sclerosis that wasn’t as frequent or severe as cancer patients must endure, but still poisonous enough to leave me feeling rotten for a couple of weeks afterward.
Then, too, wonton soup was about the only food I could keep down during the worst times and it kept my strength up through some tough days.
My big decision every day was to choose between Chinese wonton soup, Korean wonton soup, Japanese wonton ramen or Zippy’s wonton min.
It’s difficult to explain the comfort I get from a food to which I have no natural cultural or culinary affinity.
Maybe it reminds me of the chicken soup with matzo ball or kreplach my Jewish mom fed me when I was a kid, but the thing is, I like the wonton better.
Mom would probably understand; to Jews, Chinese food is a close cousin to kosher.
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net Opens in a new tab.
