Eating Well with an Ulcer

Harold Ross, editor of The New Yorker, knows about peptic ulcers; he has had several himself.

His first doctors gave him plenty of advice about what not to eat, too little about what he should eat. This led to a sorry circle: "Eating became a worry, and worry generates hydrochloric acid, and hydrochloric acid induces ulcers." After his "third or fourth ulcer," he took dinner with Dr. Sara Jordan of Boston's Lahey Clinic, picked a fruit compote for dessert. Dr. Jordan suggested meringue glacee.

Ross was shocked. "Meringue glacee has a French name, which is bad, and it is an ornamental concoction, which is bad. It sounds and looks evil." But it went down so satisfactorily that Ross got an idea: Dr. Jordan ought to collaborate on a cookbook for ulcer victims. The result, published this week: Good Food for Bad Stomachs (Doubleday; $2.95), by Dr. Jordan and Recipe-Maker Sheila Hibben, with a laudatory foreword by Ross himself.

For patients whose ulcers are still active, there are such conventional horrors as poached eggs and milk toast. But for quiescent ulcers, there is a wide range, from broiled beefsteak, boiled lobster, venison and wild duck to cheesecake and pumpkin pie. Still on the forbidden list (along with strong drinks): pork, nuts, baked beans, clams, corn, cabbage, tomatoes, radishes and cucumbers.

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