History Main / MedicinalCuisine

* ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable'': Tonio and his stand, Pearl Jam, can grant the meals he prepares medicinal properties that can heal an ailment of choice, such as curing indigestion or reliving sleep deprivation. There's a catch though, and it's quite gruesome: the healing process works by painfully destroying or expelling a part of the body and replacing it with a healthy new version. Curing indigestion for example will burst your intestines from your abdomen and create new ones in their place. The customer will feel afterwards though like nothing happened, and feel healthier to boot.

Everyone knows that SoupIsMedicine. When you're sick, nothing makes you feel better than a piping hot bowl of soup.

* In ''Manga/FinalFantasyLostStranger'', Shogo draws on his knowledge of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' to invoke this trope, as [[StatOVision Libra]] allows him to see that food can provide notable increases in certain stats. He tests this theory by swapping his party's meals around to better reflect their chosen professions. Everyone is surprised at how much better they're doing afterward. Sharuru also brings up the idea of sommeliers at ultra high-class restaurants recommending dishes tailored to the clients.
* In ''Manga/FoodWars'', Erina's assistant, Hisako Arato, was born into a family of experts on traditional Chinese medicine. She incorporates this knowledge into her cooking, such a special curry spice blend that can turn even the wimpiest men into buff action movie stars.

* ''VideoGame/ColdAndFluInvasion'' features "anti-flu candy", which cures all the sick NPC's of their colds and flu.
* In the third chapter of ''VideoGame/DarkChronicle'', Max and Monica travel to Balance Valley to [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong restore history]] and bring Crest the Great Sage back into existence. Unfortunately, Crest is dead, and his apprentice Lin is the only person who knows what happened to him -- but she's inhaled a toxic mist that is killing her. Monica recalls that in her time, there's a great chef named Lao Chao who prepares dumplings that can cure any illness, and the first part of the chapter is spent both restoring Lao Chao's bistro to the timestream and procuring the ingredients for the dumplings.
* Enforced in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild''. Cooking and eating is the only way for Link to recover hearts as opposed to drinking health potions in previous games. Depending on the ingredients, and to some extent how Link combines them with each other when cooking, Link can cook up a wide variety of platters with an equal variety of effects that benefit his health. Some of the effects include increased resistance to cold or hot temperatures, while others may only recover a few hearts or completely restore Link to full health and add on several more hearts.

* In ''VideoGame/Persona5'', Joker can cook curry in at Leblanc for use as an item in Mementos or a Palace. Consuming it restores SP to all allies, making it invaluable for protracted fights. Vending machines, stores, and restaurants around Tokyo also sell a variety of food items that can restore HP or SP or in some cases cure certain status ailments.

* This is a standard mechanic for ''VideoGame/TalesSeries''. Players can cook from a menu provided they have the ingredients, and can be used to recover [[HitPoints HP]]/[[ManaMeter TP]] after every battle, as well as removing StatusEffects depending on what is being cooked.

* The Russian food [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor%27s_sausage "Doctor's Sausage"]] was specifically invented as a calorie-rich, easily-digestible foodstuff for sick patients to help them regain or maintain their body weights. People developed a taste for it and started cooking with it.

* A magical (and [[JustForPun punny]]) example shows up in ''Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch''. When Sabrina feels like she isn't getting enough recognition for all of her hard work, she conjures up a "just dessert" that makes people praise everything she does, including blinking and breathing. She eventually realizes that her attention-seeking is taking away accolades from others who deserve them and looks up an antidote to the spell. It turns out to be a literal humble pie -- one bite of the disgusting dish is enough to break the enchantment.

[[folder:Film - Animation]]

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TingaTingaTales'', the giraffe eats honey to cure her stomachache.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Encanto}}'': Julieta's gift is that her food is able to cure people, from simple bruises to broken bones. She even ended up meeeting her husband because of his propensity to get stung by bees. She also seems to be specially fond of making arepas.

* In the ''LightNovel/SpiceAndWolf'' episode "Wolf and the Amber Melancholy", Holo takes ill, and Lawrence discusses the four humors with her, as well as the idea that illness is caused by imbalance in the body, and therefore treatable by moderation to one's diet. He describes the four things to balance as heat, cold, wet, and dry. Since a fever is being too hot, he says one must have cold food, and since she is dry, she needs moisture. He gives her watered-down cider and a concoction using sheep's milk.

* ''Animation/KikoRiki'': In the episode "The Chill", Dokko has a cold, so Olga, Barry, Carlin, and Rosa try to make him better by giving him jam and fruit. Wally tries to catch a cold so that he will be given snacks too but changes his mind when Chiko and Krash catch colds instead and are treated with shots.

** Chickaroo, which causes the infected pet to [[CluckingFunny think they're a chicken]], is cured with herbal scrambled eggs.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Encanto}}'': Julieta's power is to heal people with the food she cooks. Her daughter Mirabel sings about her during the MusicalExposition song "The Family Madrigal":
-->Oh! And that's my mom Julieta, here's her deal (Whoa)
-->The truth is, she can heal you with a meal (Whoa)
-->Her recipes are remedies for real (Whoa)
-->If you're impressed, imagine how I feel (Mom!)

But sometimes it goes further than that. In fiction, food, be it specific recipes or specific ingredients, can work as well as any prescribed medication. These range from treating minor and severe illnesses, energizing and strengthening the body, or even resuscitating those on the verge of death. Expect this medicinal food to be highly sought after, expensive, and hard-to-get.

* ''Manga/DeliciousInDungeon'': When Marcille runs out of mana and is injured trying to deal with a water elemental, TeamChef Senshi prepares nutritious and iron-rich grilled kelpie liver to restore her strength until someone with healing magic can come by to repair her wound. After the other members of the party manage to kill the elemental, reducing it to mana-rich water, Marcille tries drinking it to restore her mana, but is convinced to let Senshi use it as the base for a stew first, under the logic that nutrients are easier to absorb if eaten with food.

* Ken from ''Manga/NobunagaNoChef'' is not just concerned about the flavours of the food he cooks but also their nutritional values, and frequently rattles of the vitamin and mineral contents of his food, as well as the health benefits of the ingredients he used, when presenting his dishes. When he is captured by Shingen Takeda's forces, Akiyama suggests that he should make Ken serve as Shingen's doctor because of this.

* In the ''LightNovel/SpiceAndWolf'' episode "Wolf and the Amber Melancholy", Holo takes ill, and Lawrence discusses the four humors with her, as well as the idea that illness is caused by imbalance in the body, and therefore treatable by moderation to one's diet. He describes the four things to balance as heat, cold, wet, and dry. Since a fever is being too hot, he says one must have cold food, and since she is dry, she needs moisture. He gives her watered down cider and a concoction using sheep's milk.

* In the film ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsonsMovie'', Homer falls ill from being washed up ashore in Alaska and gets nursed back to health from an engorged Inuit woman who makes him drink a spicy liquid concoction. Homer sips some, ''screams loudly from his mouth and tongue being on fire'' and then he asks for more.

* Defied in Creator/MichaelCrichton's thriller ''Literature/TheAndromedaStrain'', when the only two survivors of an alien contagion that wiped out Piedmont, New Mexico, reveal the contagion's one weakness: it can only survive within a narrow pH window. An infant is resistant because going hungry made its body too alkaline, while an alcoholic old sot survived because his blood was too acidic. The Wildfire oncologists instruct the nurse to ''not'' feed the baby, to keep its blood pH above 7.5, and therefore immune to the contagion.

* On ''Series/ChillingAdventuresOfSabrina'', WhiteMage Aunt Hilda is known throughout the coven for her skill not just as a healer, but a SupremeChef as well. She brings the two together with magical dishes that have specific curative effects: for example, her shortbread cookies can provide a healthy dose of LaserGuidedAmnesia (very useful for maintaining TheMasquerade), while her eggnog recipe can cure people's alcoholism with a single cup.

* A magical (and [[JustForPun punny]]) example shows up in ''Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch''. When Sabrina feels like she isn't getting enough recognition for all of her hard work, she conjures up a "just dessert" that makes people praise everything she does, including blinking and breathing. She eventually realizes that her attention-seeking is taking away accolades from others who deserve them, and looks up an antidote to the spell. It turns out to be a literal humble pie--one bite of the disgusting dish is enough to break the enchantment.

* In the third chapter of ''VideoGame/DarkChronicle'', Max and Monica travel to Balance Valley to [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong restore history]] and bring Crest the Great Sage back into existence. Unfortunately, Crest is dead, and his apprentice Lin is the only person who knows what happened to him--but she's inhaled a toxic mist that is killing her. Monica recalls that in her time, there's a great chef named Lao Chao who prepares dumplings which can cure any illness, and the first part of the chapter is spent both restoring Lao Chao's bistro to the timestream and procuring the ingredients for the dumplings.

** The Sharlayan dish "archon loaf" is designed to be a compact, easily-made foodstuff packed with all the nutritions one could possibly need. Unfortunately, it's also disgusting, and its successor panaloaf is even worse. The Faculty of Medicine Studium Deliveries revolve around Debroye's efforts to make it palatable so Sharlayan doesn't suffer a FateWorseThanDeath by having to eat it constantly in the event of a food crisis.

* ''Animation/KikoRiki'': In the episode "The Chill", Dokko has a cold, so Olga, Barry, Carlin and Rosa try to make him better by giving him jam and fruit. Wally tries to catch a cold so that he will be given snacks too, but changes his mind when Chiko and Krash catch colds instead and are treated with shots.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/PostmanPat'', Julian gets sick with what appears to be a very mild cold, since he gets better within a few hours. However, he [[PlayingSick pretends to still be sick]] and Pat gives him some ice cream for his sore throat.

* It is standard procedure for blood centers to give donors water, juice, and snacks rich in salt and sugar following a donation. This helps replenish replenish fluids lost during the donation process and mitigate symptoms of lightheadedness or dizziness. Doctors also recommend blood donors to eat foods rich in iron to prevent iron deficiency anemia.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Dinosaur}}'': As the RagtagBunchOfMisfits take shelter in a cave, the wounded Bruton insists on being TheAloner. Despite his haughtiness, Plio the lemur offers him a cabbage-like herb that she claims aids in healing. Though Bruton doesn't seem grateful, he does take the herb.

* In ''VideoGame/Persona5'', Joker can cook curry in at Leblanc for use as an item in Mementos or a Palace. Consuming it restores SP to all allies, making it invaluable for protracted fights.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Encanto}}'': Julieta's power is to heal people with the food she cooks. Her daughter Mirabel sings about her during the MusicalExposition song "The Family Madrigal":
-->Oh! And that's my mom Julieta, here's her deal (Whoa)
-->The truth is, she can heal you with a meal (Whoa)
-->Her recipes are remedies for real (Whoa)
-->If you're impressed, imagine how I feel (Mom!)

* ''Animation/KikoRiki'': In the episode "The Chill", Dokko has a cold, so Olga, Barry, Carlin and Rosa tries to make him better by giving him jam and fruit. Wally tries to catch a cold so that he will be given snacks too, but changes his mind when Chiko and Krash catch colds instead and are treated with shots.

* ''Animation/KikoRiki'': In the episode "How to Catch a Cold", Eldaph has a cold, and the nurse tries to make him better by giving him jam and fruit. Fluff, who is hungry, tries to catch a cold so that he will be given snacks too, but changes his mind when Joshy and Jumpy catch colds instead and don't enjoy it.

-->--A quote frequently but WrongfullyAttributed to '''Hippocrates'''

[[/folder]]

!!Indexes
* {{Indexitis}}
* FoodTropes
* HealingAndCuringTropes