Monday 17 January 2011

Comfort food

Most of us eat more in the winter. There are lots of reasons why but one is comfort eating. Maybe you want something to warm you up if it's cold outside, something to cheer you up if it's dull and dreary or something that gives you a nice feeling inside as you eat it. My comfort foods are soups and stews, hearty and warming but also on the less healthy end of the spectrum, homemade cakes and cookies to enjoy to with a hot cup of tea!

I was recently reading 10 Food Tips To Keep You Happy During Winter, over on the kitchn. Many of you will be pleased to know chocolate was featured in the list! Three of the ten tips I found particularly interesting and wanted to share with you:

Create a ritual meal. This is a meal you eat weekly and that has some significance to it. For the writer of the article, it's coffee and bagels on a Sunday morning whilst she and her husband read the newspapers, try the crossword and laugh together.

Develop a quest. This would be a food quest of course. The writer mentions that she spent one winter seeking out the best veggie burger in town and had fun trying them out at a different restaurant each week.

Eat something beloved from your childhood on a weekly basis. The idea is that by eating something you enjoyed as a child, it brings back fond memories and you can reflect on your younger years. It therefore tends to be a comforting snack or meal.

These three ideas are fun to think about for yourself. I think we have a similar ritual meal in our household, in that we enjoy egg bagels on a Saturday morning with a big mug of tea. The significance for us is simply that it's the weekend! Rather than a quick weekday breakfast, it's a bigger breakfast that we have the time to enjoy and savour.

The second two tips I need more time to think about. I struggle to remember a single food/snack/meal from my childhood that I could recreate weekly. I always ate lots of yummy things but nothing springs to mind as a regular childhood favourite. As for the quest, that could be a fun and different way to engage with food. I think weekly tests for my quest might be a bit ambitious and unhealthy if I chose to find the best cream tea or something similar!

How about you? What are your comfort foods? Do you have a ritual meal in your household? Is their something beloved from your childhood that you could recreate on a weekly basis? Finally, what ideas do you have for a (food) quest?

---

Photo credit

---

2 comments:

  1. Corned beef hash with baked beans! I add a fried egg too.

    My partner is a major convert so I regularly make it. Even my picky 11 year old stepson eventually decided to like it it after 6 years of refusing to even try it. Gorgeous.

    ReplyDelete
  2. SOUP!! It's got to be soup! I hated it as a child and love it now. Very strange. It's warm, tasty, and comforting.
    With the children, it's the fun of making crèpes. :)

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for reading. I'd love to have your comments and thoughts!