Finding Comfort
Comfort can be found in so many different places, in so many different forms for so many different people. We all share one common comfort. Food. That’s not to say that we all find comfort in the same foods. Some of us find comfort in Mom’s mac and cheese, or Grandma’s homemade lasagna. Others find comfort in a big bowl of ice cream, piled high with sprinkles and whipped cream, just like we used to eat as a child.
But for those of us who are chefs, bakers or just long time home cooks with a passion for providing our loved ones with amazing foods to make them feel loved and nurtured, it goes beyond the food. We find comfort in the recipes, and in the cookbooks. Or at least I do. Thinking about my tried and true recipes, those things I cook and bake frequently, I’m comforted. Those faded and tattered recipe cards that were passed down to me from generations before me, cookbooks with the hand written notes in the margins and the dog-earred pages. Long before anyone takes the first bite, those recipes and cookbooks comfort me, and I am surely not alone in that, am I?
Why do you think it is that we find comfort in eating and even preparing certain foods? I think it all comes down to memories. Those recipes and cookbooks hold memories for me. I look at those books and remember my childhood. I read the handwritten notes and remember the loving women, and amazing cooks who wrote them. They were passed on to me from some of the people I’ve loved the most. The term comfort food has been defined as being any food that one turns to habitually for temporary comfort, or simplicity. That sounds pretty accurate to me.
