Simmer up a pot of soup to ward off winter’s chill.

Let soup be an elixir for California’s worst flu season in memory.

This year’s cold and flu season has been epic. With hospitalization rates for influenza at an all-time high, it’s one of the worst in years.

If the hacking coughs I’ve heard around The Chronicle newsroom, not to mention on public transportation, are any indication, we’ve still got a way to go before the season passes.

In addition to a box of Kleenex and a couple of ibuprofen, what we all could use right now is a nice hot bowl of nourishing soup.

Broth and soups have been considered restorative solutions throughout history, says Ken Abala, a professor of history at the University of the Pacific, and the creator of the school’s food studies graduate degree.

Renaissance chef Bartolomeo Scappi, in his 16th century culinary tome “Opera,” included an entire section of health-focused dishes for convalescents featuring recipes for broths and soups.

Warming, homey and comforting — it’s easy to understand why soup is considered healing. Albala notes that it doesn’t require a lot of energy to eat and is easy to digest.

But even with centuries of anecdotal evidence and folklore, is soup actually a cure-all?

“There’s almost no science behind the claims that soup is healing,” says UC Berkeley School of Public Health’s John Swartzberg, who runs Berkeley Wellness, an online health resource. “All our research is anecdotal.”

But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong, Swartzberg notes.

Soup provides a great way to get a lot of liquid into your diet, in addition to drinking plenty of water, which helps to stay hydrated and loosen phlegm. It’s also a convenient way to pack plenty of nutrition into a one-dish meal.

In Albala’s new cookbook-meetsscholarly-text, “Noodle Soups: Recipes, Techniques, Obsession” (University of Illinois Press; $21.95), he offers a handy guideline for the composition of a basic noodle soup: A single serving should include about 4 ounces of dried noodles, 4 ounces of vegetables, 4 ounces (or less) of meat and about 3 cups of broth.

Albala’s recipes include globally inspired noodle soups, plus more outlandish experiments like gumbo noodle soup, tuna casserole noodle soup and candy noodle soup. Although he loves to experiment with ingredients, when he’s under the weather he keeps things simple.

“Generally, convalescent food isn’t spicy,” Albala says. Not bland, mind you, just nothing super aggressive flavor-wise.

You can see this approach in Albala’s vegetarian-friendly avgolemono soup, which is inspired by a dish his grandmother used to make. It features tiny noodles called trahanas that are found throughout Greece and the Middle East. Albala makes his fresh with bread flour and Greek yogurt. The soup is made with water (though you can also use chicken or vegetable stock), and eggs beaten with a heady dose of lemon juice.

In addition to giving the soup its signature tartness, the lemon juice provides vitamin C. The yogurt in the dough is packed with probiotics. A few handfuls of greens like kale, spinach or parsley give the soup another nutritional boost.

“It just makes you feel good to be warmed inside,” Albala says. “Even if it’s all in your head, who cares? It feels good.”

Sarah Fritsche is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sfritsche@sfchronicle.com Twitter/Instagram: @foodcentric