Description of comfort food from Wikipedia:
The term comfort food refers to any food or drink to which one habitually turns for temporary respite, security, or special reward. The reasons that something becomes a comfort food are diverse but include the food’s familiarity, simplicity, and/or pleasant associations. Small children often seem to latch on to a specific food or drink (in a way similar to a security blanket) and will repeatedly request it in high stress situations. Adults, however, are certainly not exempt.
A substantial majority of comfort foods are composed largely of simple or complex carbohydrate, such as sugar, rice, refined wheat, and so on. It has been postulated that such foods induce an opiate-like effect in the brain, which may account for their soothing nature.
Hmmm. Refined wheat and sugar. They forgot butter. Cinnamon toast is my comfort food of choice. It will cure just about any foul mood and reduce stressful situations to trivial annoyances.
My mother used to make it for us as a late night treat. I can remember attending my first sleepover at the next door neighbor’s house and feeling a little homesick. My mother passed a plate of cinnamon toast over the fence and all was well. I think there needs to be love associated with the food too, for it to attain comfort status.
I think if you polled 25 random people on what their comfort food is the combined list would be rather short. And I bet macaroni and cheese would top the list. I have found a fabulous recipe on allrecipes.com. It’s called Cafeteria Macaroni and Cheese but I think it is a little more sophisticated than your average cafeteria fare. Well as sophisticated as mac and cheese can be. Teenage boys, in particular, love this version. In fact I recieved one of the highest accolades after serving this to a group of my sons’ friends, "This is slammin’ mac and cheese, Mrs. P." I assume slammin’ is a positive term.
Okay on to tea. The second component to my comfort snack. While it certainly stands on its own it’s not what I would consider in the comfort food category. It’s just comforting to drink it.
Half the comfort is the ritual of preparing it. I like a nice, loose English Breakfast brewed in a pot and then served with a little bit of milk. My favorite is Winey Keemun from Grace Tea but plain old Red Rose makes a decent cup too. I also found a really good decaffeinated black tea by Taylors of Harrogate. Most decaf teas are rather insipid but this one actually has some body to the flavor.
My second favorite comfort food is Bread Pudding but isn’t that just cinnamon toast in a custard base? The cafeteria where I work used to serve it every third full moon or some such indecipherable schedule but you could always tell when they had it – what sounded like thundering elephants was actually hoardes of my coworkers flying down the corridor following the scent. Shoving and pushing to get to the front of the line; man’s inhumanity towards man was painfully evident on bread pudding day. I think that is why they eventually took it off the menu. Or maybe it fell out of favor during that whole low-carb phase.
Today is the perfect day for comfort food here in California. It’s rainy, gloomy and cold. Just right for a cup of tea and a slice of toast.