January 28, 2010
Food is the most primitive form of comfort. -Sheila Graham, columnist and author
Last January, I wrote my column about comfort food. This January, comfort food is all I am thinking about once again. I remember foods my mother and grandmother made, and that is reason enough to want them.
Cookbook author Molly Wizenberg explains, better than I, why we want comfort foods from our past.
"When I walk into my kitchen today, I am not alone. Whether we know it or not, none of us is. We bring fathers and mothers and kitchen tables and every meal we have ever eaten. Food is never just food. It's also a way of getting at something else; who we are, who we have been and who we want to be (From "A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table, 2009").
I am not the only one thinking about comfort food. Just this week in fact, some friends invited us to a "comfort food dinner", and we jumped at the chance. What a great idea, I thought. It is miserably cold outside, the skies are gray, and we are moping around the house with S.A.D. (seasonal affective disorder--lack of sunshine). What could be better than comfort food to make us feel better.
Our hosts served a dinner menu that turned out to be exactly what I used to eat when I was a child. Food from the 50s and 60s, and I was in heaven or at the very least in time warp. Our hosts said that they think food is not about impressing people but more about making them feel comfortable, and that is exactly what happened.
Their menu from the past:
Old-fashioned pork roast, just like my grandma's. Baked apples served on the side, cooked with cinnamon and Red Hots candy, just like they served decades ago at my elementary school cafeteria. Baked macaroni and cheese, all crusty on the top and sides that tasted exactly like my aunt's. Warm cherry pie with the crumbly top, same as Mom used to make.
What can one do after a meal like that but sit down in an easy chair and sigh.
And dream about walking home from school on Monday (bread baking day) and smelling the waft of my grandmother's baked bread and cinnamon rolls from as far away as the street corner. I long for my mom's hot tapioca pudding whipped fluffy with egg whites that she made for Sunday dinner, and my dad's unique cornbread-sausage stuffing recipe he made on Thanksgiving Day.
"Food, like a loving touch or a glimpse of divine power, has that ability to comfort," said Norman Kolpas, cookbook author and editor.
In a harsh winter and in an unsure world, comfort me with food any old day.
