Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Food

WATCH: Your Jewish Grandmother’s Cure For The Common Cold

The arrival of cold season is loudly heralded by advertisements for flu shots and the sounds of sniffles on buses and trains. Colds are inescapable and still, year after year, armed with folk medicine and fierceness, we resolve to cure the incurable.

Thankfully, Jewish tradition, from Maimonides to the shtetl, offers us some guidance for using food to cure the common cold.

The exact recipe for the guggle muggle varies, but generally consists of egg yolk, sugar, milk and alcohol. This drink (also spelled gogl-mogl, gogol-mogol, gogel-mogel, kogel mogel, gurgle-murgle, and uggle-muggle) is particularly “effective” for the sore throat and cough that accompany a cold. Its origins are a bit murky, but the remedy may have its roots in the “Shulkan Orech”, or code of Jewish law, written in 16th century Spain by Rabbi Yosef Caro. It specifies that a drink of this type may be consumed on the Sabbath for it’s medicinal qualities, without violating the Sabbath laws (Chapter 92:1).

Herbal remedies to treat a cold also exist in Jewish traditions. The website zeigezunt.com, which is devoted to providing a Jewish perspective on health, explains, “Bubbe had a remedy for regular colds as well. Eating garlic cloves or onion was just the ticket when a sore throat signaled the beginning of a cold.”

Bubbe’s remedy has biblical roots as well, garlic is considered a multi-purpose plant in the Bible and Talmud. “We remember the fish which we ate in Egypt freely: the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic,” Jews longed in the desert, according to the book of Numbers. In ancient Egypt garlic was thought to help with general vitality and it was fed to workers to keep them strong. Indeed, the Mishnah (in referencing the Romans’ name for the Jews) refers to Jews as “garlic eaters” and in the Baba Kamma (82a) five things were said of garlic: “It satisfies hunger, keeps the body warm, makes the face bright, increases a person’s potency, and kills parasites in the bowels”.

For the more adventurous, who wish to use a non-food approach to treat a cold, there is the “bankes” or cupping method, which in ancient times was accompanied by blood-letting (but not the kind using leaches). Though it is an undeniably Jewish practice, it is also Chinese, Vietnamese, Balkan, Persian and beyond. Perhaps it’s ubiquitous nature the world over speaks to its perceived effectiveness.

The process of cupping involves placing a heated bell-shaped glass on the chest of someone suffering from a cold. In the shtetl, this cup was supposed to pull phlegm from the chest, relieving pain and pressure. But cupping in association with blood-letting goes back much further and is mentioned in the Talmud (Git. 70a ) and much later in the writings of Maimonides (Yad, De’ot 4:18) as a practice which should be used in moderation to maintain general health and a balanced constitution. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, cupping and blood-letting techniques are also described in later Hebrew literature.

Finally, there is “Jewish penicillin” or chicken soup. The purported effectiveness of chicken soup is most heavily described in the medical writings of Maimonides in his book, “On the Causes of Symptoms,” written in the 12th century, and by Jewish grandmothers the world round. Dr. Fred Rosner, a renowned doctor, who has also written extensively about Maimonides’ medical texts, explains that “boiled chicken soup neutralizes the body constitution” and that “chicken soup can help cure an upper respiratory infection.” Maimonides gets detailed, stating that fresh coriander or green fennel can be added to the soup in the wintertime, and, in writing of the type of chicken to be used to make soup he states: “one should not use the too large…neither the too lean.” Chicken soup as a cold remedy has thus been practiced by Jews for centuries. In Gil “Marks’ Encyclopedia of Jewish Food,” he describes the Sephardic custom of preparing caldo de gayina viejo (old hen chicken broth) for anyone ill.

Having tried all of these remedies during a recent bout with a cold, I can testify to their placebo affect (which is significant in its own right) and nothing more. In the end, most likely, one must simply suffer while the cold runs its course because truly, all of these methods, as the old Yiddish phrase says, “Es vet helfen vi a toiten bahnkes! (Will help like blood-cupping on a dead body!”)

Guggle Muggle (one interpretation)

1 cup milk 1 raw egg yolk 1 teaspoon sugar 1 tablespoon brandy

1) Heat milk until it is warmed, not scorched. 2) Quickly whisk egg, sugar and brandy into milk until it becomes foamy. 3) Gulp for cold relief.

The exact recipe for the guggle muggle varies, but generally consists of egg yolk, sugar, milk and alcohol. This drink (also spelled gogl-mogl, gogol-mogol, gogel-mogel, kogel mogel, gurgle-murgle, and uggle-muggle) is particularly “effective” for the sore throat and cough that accompany a cold. Its origins are a bit murky, but the remedy may have its roots in the “Shulkan Orech”, or code of Jewish law, written in 16th century Spain by Rabbi Yosef Caro. It specifies that a drink of this type may be consumed on the Sabbath for it’s medicinal qualities, without violating the Sabbath laws (Chapter 92:1).

Herbal remedies to treat a cold also exist in Jewish traditions. The website zeigezunt.com, which is devoted to providing a Jewish perspective on health, explains, “Bubbe had a remedy for regular colds as well. Eating garlic cloves or onion was just the ticket when a sore throat signaled the beginning of a cold.”

Bubbe’s remedy has biblical roots as well, garlic is considered a multi-purpose plant in the Bible and Talmud. “We remember the fish which we ate in Egypt freely: the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic,” Jews longed in the desert, according to the book of Numbers. In ancient Egypt garlic was thought to help with general vitality and it was fed to workers to keep them strong. Indeed, the Mishnah (in referencing the Romans’ name for the Jews) refers to Jews as “garlic eaters” and in the Baba Kamma (82a) five things were said of garlic: “It satisfies hunger, keeps the body warm, makes the face bright, increases a person’s potency, and kills parasites in the bowels”.

For the more adventurous, who wish to use a non-food approach to treat a cold, there is the “bankes” or cupping method, which in ancient times was accompanied by blood-letting (but not the kind using leaches). Though it is an undeniably Jewish practice, it is also Chinese, Vietnamese, Balkan, Persian and beyond. Perhaps it’s ubiquitous nature the world over speaks to its perceived effectiveness.

The process of cupping involves placing a heated bell-shaped glass on the chest of someone suffering from a cold. In the shtetl, this cup was supposed to pull phlegm from the chest, relieving pain and pressure. But cupping in association with blood-letting goes back much further and is mentioned in the Talmud (Git. 70a ) and much later in the writings of Maimonides (Yad, De’ot 4:18) as a practice which should be used in moderation to maintain general health and a balanced constitution. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, cupping and blood-letting techniques are also described in later Hebrew literature.

Finally, there is “Jewish penicillin” or chicken soup. The purported effectiveness of chicken soup is most heavily described in the medical writings of Maimonides in his book, “On the Causes of Symptoms,” written in the 12th century, and by Jewish grandmothers the world round. Dr. Fred Rosner, a renowned doctor, who has also written extensively about Maimonides’ medical texts, explains that “boiled chicken soup neutralizes the body constitution” and that “chicken soup can help cure an upper respiratory infection.” Maimonides gets detailed, stating that fresh coriander or green fennel can be added to the soup in the wintertime, and, in writing of the type of chicken to be used to make soup he states: “one should not use the too large…neither the too lean.” Chicken soup as a cold remedy has thus been practiced by Jews for centuries. In Gil “Marks’ Encyclopedia of Jewish Food,” he describes the Sephardic custom of preparing caldo de gayina viejo (old hen chicken broth) for anyone ill.

Having tried all of these remedies during a recent bout with a cold, I can testify to their placebo affect (which is significant in its own right) and nothing more. In the end, most likely, one must simply suffer while the cold runs its course because truly, all of these methods, as the old Yiddish phrase says, “Es vet helfen vi a toiten bahnkes! (Will help like blood-cupping on a dead body!”)

Guggle Muggle
(one interpretation)

1 cup milk
1 raw egg yolk
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon brandy

1) Heat milk until it is warmed, not scorched.
2) Quickly whisk egg, sugar and brandy into milk until it becomes foamy.
3) Gulp for cold relief.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.