Dissecting Comfort Food

What is the ultimate comfort food?

People are sometimes asked, what is your ultimate comfort food? Personally it is hard to judge as some foods are tied to specific occasions like eggnog at Christmas and chocolate bunnies at Easter so I think you have to narrow it down to two specific instances when one craves the ultimate comfort.

I guess the way I would phrase it could be for either a positive or negative mood, since we turn to comfort foods both when we’re happy and when we’re unhappy.

For the negative I would phrase it what food or drink would make you feel better after having the worst day of your life?

For the positive I would say what food or drink would make you feel most cozy on Christmas Eve (Or any religious holiday for those of different faiths…hell I find Halloween a cozy Holiday even if I’m jumping up and down, running to the door to give kids candy) Or for a Non-Holiday equivalent what food or drink do you most like to curl up with while watching your favorite movie, listening to your favorite music et cetera (Movies and a few Musical soundtracks can become the media equivalent of comfort food for quite a few people, to me Phantom of the Opera original Broadway cast recording always nourishes my soul but unfortunately my love for the original musical is soured due to the fact Andrew Lloyd Webber made a crappy sequel I don’t even need to know the full details I just need to know the synopsis of Paint Never Dries as I like to call it and I want to smash my computer in rage)

Okay all this Phantom talk seems to have strayed from my original purpose. Where were we again? Ah yes Comfort Food…To me a good comfort is not something you have all the freaking time, more like an occasional treat. Not so infrequent you only have it every four years but more, something that at most you only get once a month…it’s not really a treat if you eat it every day after school

To me apple pie is the perfect comfort food, it is sweet but filling and unlike some other desserts it does have some genuine nutrition.

I like other pies to but not so much as apple pie, it feels like the perfectly holiday dessert, so perfect for Thanksgiving or Christmas, or hey you could even have it for Halloween after the trick or treaters have devoured all your candy.

It feels like the perfect food for that warm and cozy feeling, with some nice whipped cream on top (I don’t like ice cream on my pie, as ice cream hurts my teeth and gives me brain freeze)

In short, everyone has their own comfort foods that stem from their own experiences, some like desserts, others like savory main course dishes and some people have a weakness for side dishes, you wouldn’t believe how many people go nuts for green beans.




Some more thoughts on comfort food

After some more thoughts on the subject I asked some people about their comfort foods

My own sister doesn’t seem to have a definitive one comfort food she relies on; she seems to go for whatever she feels like at any given moment. When she took some time to think when I asked my question I impishly suggested/guessed Nutella. As my sister seems to be consuming massive amounts of the stuff as of late, I for one think Nutella is way too sweet and would prefer a slice of apple pie any day! After much thinking over my Sister concluded Oreos smothered in peanut butter is her comfort food, I think that combination sounds horrid but too each his own

My Dad is of the opinion a Burger is the best comfort food (Which I think is easily agreed with, I like burgers more than Nutella but unfortunately I can’t consider them my personal comfort food because I eat them too often) I asked him humorously Specifically a Red Robin Whiskey Burger, and my Dad made Homer Simpson noises (Yes my Dad is the class clown of the family)

I think it has been proven that by and large women prefer sweet foods and men savory meaty foods, there are various reasons why this could be but I’m not going to go into them, that’s another essay for another time.

After some much consideration my Mom decided beef stew was her ultimate comfort food

My life coach Lois who has had some...interesting childhood experiences, decided her comfort foods were chai tea and naan (A kind of flat bread) Which she ate all the time whilst growing up in the Middle East, the conversions we had on comfort foods inspired her to ask her friends about their childhood comfort foods, one young woman said hers was sweet and sour pork, and not the Americanized version either, her family would travel quite a distance to get authentic Chinese sweet and sour pork

Well...Bon appitit comfort food lovers...