Cure Your Hangover

Had a rough night?

Here's an idea, from the bottom of an interesting NYT piece on the peculiar status of alcohol in Iraq:

"These days some of Baghdad's most popular drinking places, apart from the speakeasies, are those that sell a brew that Iraqis know as pacha. With a history going back to Ottoman times, pacha comes from boiling goat's heads until the bones dissolve into a creamy broth.

According to the legend among hard-drinking Iraqis, a glass or two of pacha, after a night on the bottle, will cure the most stubborn hangover."

Makes mustard gas sound appealing.

Comments

[Mark S.]

Reminds of in a rather sick way of "The 13th Warrior" (the under-rated film version of Chriton's "Eaters of the Dead") where one of the Norsemen convinces Antonio Bandaras's arab character that mead was accaptable to drink because it was made from honey rather than the "fermentation of grape, or of wheat" that the Koran expressely forbids. Fermented goat's head must provide a convient, yet disgusting, loophole.

My other question is: Do you serve it with pork, beef, or fish?

[JB]

"...a creamy broth."

Gag. This could go a long way towards explanation of the revulsion towards alcohol in most of the Muslim world...truly, a case where the cure is far worse than (and, thereby, obliterates the desire for) the source of the affliction.