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Food

Best Of 2014: An Entire Year of Hangover Cures

We did some drinking this year, and we're willing to be that you did, too. But we're professionals, so we know how to set ourselves straight after a night of liver destruction.

Hi there. This is your complimentary wake-up call from MUNCHIES.

We know you want to stay wrapped up in the tangled spiderweb of underwear and plastic bags in which you passed out on your couch last night. And no, we don't know where your other shoe went.

Yes, you might've saved yourself some trouble with the seawater beer that keeps you hydrated as you're raising your blood alcohol levels, or the rooibos-infused wine that gives you a nutrient boost with each sip.

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But it's too late for that, and now you need a Hangover Helper. Lucky for you, we've got some experience in that department.

Photos by the author.

First, we turn to Mexico, the land of morning-after tequila breath. The good people of Guadalajara know to set themselves straight with a torta ahogada, a pork-stuffed baguette that's drowned in enough salsa to make you sweat out last night's indiscretions. For some, it's even better than church.

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From there, we head north to the great nation of Canada, which loves its booze just as much as it loves maple syrup and Rob Ford. (Maybe not him so much.) To cure the effects of a long night of Canadian whiskey-drinking, many turn to the Caesar—an eccentric uncle to America's staid Bloody Mary, often garnished with whole fried chicken and bacon.

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If you want advice on hangovers, ask a man who drinks professionally—or did on TV, at least. John Ratzenberger of Cheers taught us how to make a cabbage and bacon dish that nourished him while he lived in England. "That's how we know that God wants us to be happy," he says. "It's not that he invented beer; it's that we have bacon to go along with it."

Photo via Flickr user Bernadette Simpson

Finally, we turn to an unlikely place for hangover advice: 10th-century Baghdad. Indeed, even under Abbasid caliphate, well-to-do Iraqis were getting smashed on weed-infused wine and honeyed hooch made with hops. They fixed themselves up with a belly-filling porridge called kishkiyya, made with meat and ground wheat.

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As a bonus, let's take a look back at all of Matty Matheson's hangover cures from last year. Nick Liu took him on a tour of Ontario's Chinese restaurants (followed by some curative dumplings and noodles), and Antonio Park of Montreal's Park Restaurant nourished him with kimchi seafood soup. Later, Michael Sangregorio and Fabio Bondi of Toronto's Local Kitchen turned Matty on to mushroom pappardelle and the healing hands of an Italian mom.

If you're hurting that bad from hitting the bottle that hard, you probably need all of these at once.