Comfort Food, everybody has their favourite, but what properly constitutes comfort food? Although I guess I have my own favourite and indeed my own perceptions of what it should consist of, I still get mildly confused about the concept. It's just one of those phrases that seems to get tagged on to so many food types, but how do we distinguish it?
Talking to my girlfriend yesterday, enjoying the freakishly early summer sun with a picnic, we got into the conversation as to what it exactly entails? (Our relationship definitely revolves around food!) Firstly I think we need to draw some distinctions, categories if you will. Should comfort food refer directly to how it makes you feel physically, such as the warming sensation of a Sheppard's pie on a cold winter's day? Or maybe relating to something Psychological that reminds you of your childhood, maybe something like beans on toast or jam sandwiches?
Whichever way you look at it, comfort food is a glorious concept. Sometimes though it can get confused with all things unholy, the junk of the food world. Disintegrating on the sofa the morning after a heavy night out and your body craves junk food, it's a fact of life. If we put aside the science for a minute and your natural craving for sugar and salt, the comforting nature of junk food is what we really crave. Is it then, for arguments sake, the unhealthy element of food which makes it comforting? A pasta bake without cheese is ok, a pasta bake with cheese is momentous and comforting. Would then a cheese sandwich be comforting, probably not. It is this fundamental difference which I find bewildering.
I see myself, somewhat unapologetically, becoming obsessed with these little personal preferences. I could be talking to someone about something totally unconnected, wheels maybe, when all of a sudden I have managed to turn the converstion around to dippy eggs and soldiers. Which, coincidentally, is my comfort food and cannot be beaten.
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