The idea of comfort food came to mind as I read through your comments about healthy eating. Comfort food is a powerful thing, isn’t it? With one taste or even just an aroma wafting through the air, it can simultaneously send you happily back to a wonderful memory and cause you to miss it desperately. I’d love to know what food takes you home, and I asked three friends to begin the conversation. Tell me: What’s the one dish that makes you homesick and feel completely content, all in one bite?
Aran Goyoaga of Cannelle et Vanille:
I grew up in the Spanish Basque Country where the rolling hills of the Western Pyrenees Mountains hit the Atlantic. My grandparents on my father’s side were farmers and my maternal grandparents ran a pastry shop – a pastry shop that defines my upbringing and that shaped who I am and what I cook today.
Memories of my family and how I grew up are very tied to the changing seasons and I could not pick a favorite recipe without taking the time of year into account. Apples in the fall, hearty lentil stew in winter, peas in the spring, and refreshing salads in the summer. As spring approaches, I thought of the recipes that make me long for my family back in the Basque Country and that I continue to cook for my young family now miles and miles away.
I remember my grandfather’s garden and the baby carrots that he pulled out of the cold soil for us to taste. I remember them crunchy, sweet, and with a slight pepperiness that ended up in a simple carrot soup similar to this carrot and apple soup I make today.
For dessert, there was always arroz con leche (rice pudding). Cinnamon and vanilla-scented milk and rice that simmered on the stove for over an hour. Those are the smells of my childhood.
Jane Flanagan of Ill Seen, Ill Said and Coterie:
The one dish that makes me simultaneously feel homesick and completely at home is a simple meal of soft-boiled duck eggs, Irish soda bread and greens. This is one of those perfect breakfast-for-dinner meals and also the meal Mum would make us when we were under-the-weather as children. At home, the duck eggs would come from a Co. Wicklow farm. Many housewives sell their eggs straight from the farmhouse and we’d often drive those winding roads, eyes peeled for signs on driveways.
Here in Toronto, I buy duck eggs from a Mennonite farmer at my local farmers’ market. They’re larger and much more flavourful than regular chicken eggs and such a beautiful shade of blue. Irish soda bread recipes have been handed down mother to child in our family for a long time and naturally I follow that Flanagan family recipe. It’s a secret I won’t share, but this Avoca recipe is very, very close. I love baking it and feeling connected with my family and homeland.
Karey Mackin of Mackin Ink:
I live in a constant state of homesick. Our little family has moved so much, and I feel like I’ve many third-world tastes and not-so-local dishes on my list of foods that will comfort even when I’m feeling all kinds of uncomfortable.
I grew up in a home with a mom who hated to cook. There were seven of us, though, and she couldn’t find a way out of it! It still makes me smile at how frustrated she’d be in her curlers and half of a cute outfit and traces of quickly applied shadows and blush, warming up a turkey loaf and unwrapping a Pepperidge Farms cake and mashing a million potatoes. It was an annoyance. I could see that she felt a little lost, too, much more comfortable in the stacks of the library or in the backyard inspecting my Daddy Long Legs hospital after usually-accidental amputations, or on a long bike ride over country gravel roads where I complained the entire way. She kept Juicy Fruit gum in the junk drawer and Twinkies in the freezer and was a sucker for a hot fudge sundae.
But now there are five of us, and she grills salmon and spinach and makes the perfect oatmeal and allows herself only a little sugar now and then, although she is still a sucker for a hot fudge sundae. No one ever asks her what ingredients she’s used; it’s all right there. And it’s this pure and simple love-on-a-plate that my girlies three crave when they’re feeling homesick, and exactly what they need to fill them up with home again. Me, too. No matter where we’re calling home.
It’s funny. I’m the same kind of mother in the kitchen – lost and more than a little annoyed – but hopefully half as good as she was and is the rest of the time. If you look in my freezer, hidden under the spinach and salmon filets, you’ll find one box of Twinkies. And I will always be a sucker for her.
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Thank you, ladies. You’ve made me hungry – for good ingredients and home, wherever that may be! Your turn, Friends. Will you tell me the one dish that makes you homesick and feel completely content, all in one bite? I can’t wait to hear your memories; my stomach’s already grumbling!
The first three photos were taken by Aran, the fourth by Jane, and the final image was supplied by Karey via Justaholic.
{ 53 comments… read them below or add one }
1. Macaroni and tomatoes–no spices, no fancy pasta, but a can of stewed tomato chunks and lots of butter and salt.
2. Mashed potatoes and gravy, served hot.
Josh was making fun of me a couple of weeks ago about mac and tomatoes. It would definitely be in my top five.
Wonderful post! I’m sure we can all relate to how much food can be used to transport us back to places, times, periods in our lives. When I’m cooking for my family, I’m constantly being reminded of and inspired by meals that my extended family made while I was growing up. Just last week I was making pavlova that could only bring back memories of our Kiwi friend, and it made me long for a roast leg of lamb with mint sauce to start. I hope once my girlies are out of the picky toddler stage they’ll have meals that remind them of their childhoods forever.
Chicken and noodles if the chicken is long simmered with onions, carrots, celery and parsley with lots of black pepper and the noodles are handmade and cut thick. Nothing beats it.
For me, it’s probably the lentil soup that I make myself… my mom wasn’t a great cook when I was growing up. Not that she cooked badly, just that she had no time. So I don’t have any heart warming memories of food from my childhood. Possibly a big Sunday style European breakfast? Laid out with sliced meats and cheeses (of which I eat neither, but they look lovely) and jams and croissants and dark bread and butter and honey. With a boiled egg for everyone and lots and lots of tea.
Okay, so I guess I do have one. A comfort meal, just not a comfort food.
My mom is a ridiculously prolific cook, both now and when I was a child. So much so that when she asks what I would like to eat when we visit, I have a hard time choosing among my many favorites. Roast chicken with tons of apples and vegetables roasting underneath; pot roast; her special dill-laced chili; fish chowder; creamy white clam sauce on linguine; broiled salmon with pamesan on top; dill and lemon chicken over potatoes; chicken paprikas with spaetzle…and there are more. SO many good ones, many of which I make for my family now. Our home’s comfort food, however, if one must be chosen, is homemade *by my Scandinavian husband* waffles with jam on lazy Sunday mornings.
To me – the love in the process of cooking is the key comfort ingredient.
Love this! For me, it’s my mom’s golabki, which are little cabbage rolls she cooks in stewed tomatoes. It takes a very long time to prepare them, so she only makes them once in a while, but when she does, it takes me back to helping her make them and all the special occasions (or just rare ambitious sundays?) when she’d serve them for dinner.
For my husband, I recently learned it is his great grandma’s Kuchen recipe. He got it from his mom to make for me to try, and when he took the first bite of it, his eyes teared up…it’s amazing how powerful food can be.
Duck eggs – we get them everyday from our ducks, we have runners. But I am still trying to develop a taste for them, my children prefer them, perhaps they will end up as a comfort food for them.
My favorite comfort food is Matzo ball soup – we are not jewish but I grew up in a jewish community and friends would offer it tour family when we were in need.
We just had matzo ball soup for breakfast and dinner this week and it hit the spot!
p.s. we mixed duck eggs into the matzo meal
Thanks for having me, Gabrielle.
Wonderful post. I love how food can transport you back to a certain time or place and have so enjoyed reading these memories :-)
Oddly, mine is green tea. Not because it reminds me of home, but because it has a strong calming effect on me. Go figure! Otherwise, it is homemade bread hot out of the oven with local goat cheese or salty butter spread atop. Aaaah, those were the pre-’gluten-is-evil’ days! How I miss them.
I relate food to many of the experiences I have gone through and the times I have gone through them. I used to feel the need to eat things that reminded me of home but this year I made the resolution to embrace everything about this Country I live in. There’s nothing wrong with Brazilian food but it didn’t give me the comfort I was looking for until I adopted them as my own.
I grew up in a family obsessed with food. We talk about future meals while eating and I realized while typing this that all my comfort foods have a slightly Spanish influence.
1) Arozz a la Cubana (ground beef in tomato sauce with raisins), steamed vegetables and fried bananas and rice. It’s the meal I tell people I wish to have before I die.
2) Silvanas, (cashew-meringue wafers with buttercream in the middle and covered in cake crumbs) remind me of my maternal grandfather, he used to bring a box with him to Sunday lunches and because we were many and there was only one box, the silvanas were rationed. As a child I always wanted more. 3) Spanish hot chocolate (thick and creamy) with pan de sal (salt bread buns) and butter. My favorite breakfast as a child and to this day it’s still one I find hard to pass on.
Caddy! I feel in love with Spanish hot chocolate while in Spain 13 years ago. I’ve never found a recipe or way to replicate it. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Hey Gillian! I asked my mother about how to get it thick and she said that Spanish hot chocolate is made with milk (no water), sugar and cocoa powder or cocoa tablets, that you boil and stir till it thickens. To get it thicker she recommends adding more cocoa. My grandmother adds some spoonfuls of peanut butter to her recipe and that makes it even thicker and gives it a slight kick of peanut. Hope this helps.
thank you! it is maybe one of best things on earth so i will try your advice!!
You’re welcome! I hope it turns out great! :D
My dad’s plov (pilaf) was always a staple in our house. He learned how to cook it from Uzbek friends quite a while back and just the thought of it makes me hungry and reminiscent. He makes it the right way, in a kazan, seasoned with barberries and cumin and lots of other spices. The smell of it drifting through the house would bring everyone down to the kitchen asking when’s supper!
Y’all make me want to learn to cook much better than I do – or come to your homes and experience your fabulous skills. I hadn’t thought of my family’s shrimp boil in quite some time – now you have me missing summer ocean days and salty skin.
I enjoyed reading this post and all of the responses so much! What a great conversation. As I read through, I couldn’t help but identify a little with Karey. Mom was- and still is not- much of a cook. But she has her three go-to recipes: Arroz Con Leche, Arroz Con Pollo and Steak and Rice. I just realized that there is a lot of rice going on there… I must say, that I am not surprised to see Aran contributing here. Her blog Cannelle et Vanille is almost an ode to the smells of her childhood kitchen. I’m sure her lucky kids will have many of the same memories she does.
Mexican Food. I am a total white girl but I grew up in Los Angeles so it’s very familiar to me. Especially when I am sick I need abondigis soup. I make a really good Posole myself.
My family is part Italian and it’s pasta with homemade sauce and meatballs. It makes me think of mom and my grandmother who thought a huge plate of pasta could cure anything and put a smile on your face.
I am suddenly feeling nostalgic for foods I have never even tried. I love Jane’s description of the soft-boiled duck eggs!
There are plenty of comfort foods that remind me of home — my mom’s chili, my grandmother’s cornbread dressing — but the one food that conjures the strongest memories of a very particular time and place for me might be boiled peanuts. I wrote about making them for the first time in years a while back (http://goo.gl/vl82h); I was immediately whisked back to family road trips as a child, and summers at my grandparents’ cottage in the Florida panhandle.
Nothing brings back memories for me quite like food!
barbecue ribs. enchiladas. good refried beans. potato salad.
i’m homesick now just thinking about them. must. eat.
My mom used to make me migas (basically, scrambled eggs with bits of crispy tortillas mixed in) and toast a bagel when I got home late from theater rehearsals. When I was about to have my second child, she came and stayed and made it for me for breakfast, lunch, and dinner each day until I went into labor. I can’t explain this, but nobody can butter a bagel like my mother — it’s always the perfect amount, spread just right, and I can never replicate it. So simple, a little ridiculous, but that’s the thing for me.
I think baked goods would be my comfort food. Chocolate chip cookies and brownies, specifically.
The combo of butter and brown sugar makes me weak at the knees!
Last night I had to smile, because I was cooking dinner while still in my work clothes. I remember seeing my mom in the kitchen, preparing dinner in her work clothes and her slippers, and I used to wonder why she didn’t get changed first. Last night I wanted to get dinner going so that I could change once the chicken was in the oven, in the hopes that we could eat by 7pm. I wanted nothing more than to be on my couch in my sweats relaxing, but it wasn’t an option.
My mom is not much of a chef, but there are two meals that, however hard I try or what fancy ingredients I use, I can never get to be quite as delicious as hers: standard lasagna and pork cube steak with mashed potatoes. Mom knows I love these meals and still makes them for me on my birthday…until she moves out of state this spring. What will I do without her and her lasagna???
For me, comfort and an immediate trip down memory lane is tune souffle. weird eh? but my mom does it well and I find myself craving it when I’m feeling overwhelmed or stressed out.
my favorite always has and will be a warm loaf of french or italian bread with butter spread on it and a dish of ravioli with my grandpa’s homemade tomato sauce.
however, with my gluten-free “ness” now, i settle for a loaf of udi’s white gf bread, and i still haven’t found to this day a gf ravioli. if you know of one, let me know!!
Anything with white gravy. Biscuits and gravy with eggs and sausage or bacon for breakfast, or mashed potatoes and gravy with either steak or fried chicken for dinner (supper, as we call it ;)).
I dont think I could ever date a Yankee, because they don’t appreciate white gravy…and I take that personally! :p
I grew up on a farm in the Midwest, where meat and potatoes are expected at most meals. My Grannie still likes to tell us how big her potato patch was when she was raising four hungry boys. Meatloaf and mashed or scalloped potatoes will always remind me of childhood, and I still prefer my mom’s meatloaf recipe to any other, using oats instead of breadcrumbs, with a sauce of ketchup, mustard, and brown sugar applied liberally to the top.
Tea & toast.
Mashed potatoes and gravy.
Meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy.
French fries and ketchup.
A warm brownie.
A black & white cookie (it’s a NY thing) and a hot cup of coffee.
Pierogies and caramelized onions with sour cream.
Chicken Pot Pie. My version is somewhere between Martha Stewart’s and my mom’s. It defines winter comfort food for me.
Molasses cookies. Autumn: from Oktoberfest to Halloween to Thanksgiving and Christmas, this cookie fills our home with holiday smells, and both the taste and texture are divine.
Corn-on-the-cob and BLT’s. Summer. Actually August in the Midwest when each is ripe and ready for picking. Fresh just off the vine and stalk.
That leaves Spring… Has to be fresh asparagus. To-die-for tender young stalks. Steamed. Grilled. Roasted. Fresh out of the garden, eaten on-the-spot with nothing between the glorious taste of spring and my sensory pleasure.
Thanks for stirring up the memories.
My mother makes this great egg omelette with loads of garlic, tomatoes and onions. Much as I try I can never replicate in my kitchen the taste I have from my childhood. Brings back so many memories. Thanks for this post!
Lox and bagels, rye bread, smoked whitefish, pickled herring in sour cream… Those foods will always evoke memories of my entire family eating ‘Sunday Breakfast’ at my grandparents’ home in Millburn, NJ. My Grandpa and I would get up early – always exactly at 7:00 – and go shopping for each part of the meal. We’d get the rye bread in one shop, the bagels and bialys in another, and the smoked fish in yet different market. It was a little ritual that I enjoyed just a few times per year, but to this day those foods bring me such happy memories. Eating a meal with my whole family: my cousins, aunts and uncles, great-aunts and uncles and especially my grandparents is one of the dearest memories I have. My grandparents and great-aunts and uncles are all gone now, but those memories? They’ll always fill my soul (and my belly) with the warmest feelings of love and laughter.
Chocolate chip cookies!!! Fresh baked from the oven… and eaten while warm. My mom has never enjoyed cooking, but my younger sister was (and still is) an amazing cook. She loved baking for our dad, so we had these often.
My grandmother is also an excellent cook. Two dishes that can send me right back to childhood are her baked beans and potato salad. She still makes both of these for our family get-togethers, and I think of her whenever I make them for my own family.
Homemade blackberry pie. When I was young, we would risk being ripped by thorns, stung by bees, stained by berries and traumatized by the fat garden spiders that made their homes in the patches, because we knew that if we came home with a heavy pail of berries, Mom would bake us a pie when we got home. She hated to cook, and suppers often incorporated canned soup or came in boxes, but her pie crust was the lightest, flakiest I have ever had. I enjoy cooking, and think I am pretty good at it, and my crusts are good…but not quite as good as Mom’s. What a happy memory. Thanks for conjuring it up!
oh my goodness, there are so many….where do i start. I’m French , grew up in France with a spanish dad, soooooooooooooooooooooooo, i f i must pick….can i at least pick two????Please???
Okay, a perfect brioche and a seafood paella….and i didn’t mean to imply together.
And i could continue listing yummies….Do you want me to?LOL
Yes of course we do!
The meal my grandmother always made for me. Fried chicken, coleslaw, fried apples, green beans, cornbread with gravy and chocolate cake. She was such and wonderful cook and person. I think the green beans are so special because all of the adult women would sit on the back porch and break the beans before they were canned. There was so much laughter and fun. I was always allowed to help and felt such a sense of family. I miss her and my grandfather dearly.
Where to begin? I too miss my grandmother dearly and the smells of her home. Even as she was older (in her 90′s) she’d still prepare something for us after our hour or so drive to visit. It always tasted like love! My parents have grabbed the torch and are running a close second:) They cook for us on Sundays, and do most holidays and still enjoy it. These acts of love are delicious! I do my part sometimes, and hope to continue these moments one day…when it’s my turn.
Pasta is my comfort food….tonight, as the wind howls outside and it continues to snowstorm in Canada’s capital, I made a beef & vegetable gluten-free spaghetti for my family and I…oh the delight of comfort food!
Freshly baked whole wheat bread with hot tomato juice! I’ve never heard
of another family that had that for breakfast. We dipped the toasted and
generously buttered bread into the hot cup of tomato juice. I don’t know that
I’ve ever served this, but I love remembering and savoring the growing Groberg breakfast.
My Grandma’s pork roast with corn dressing and her pull-apart rolls, oh yum! Almost anything my mom used to make. Even the homey casseroles, my mother had a magic touch in the kitchen…
Home canned tomato sauce with a pinch of clove and cinnamon and a tablespoon of honey – all slow cooked together – then smothered onto hand made meatballs that rest on a bed of homemade pasta. Top that with parmesan cheese and you have my Mom’s go-to recipe for a cold winter’s night. The smell and the taste (she prepares this dish for my young family now) bring me home everytime. My Mother is such a wonderful cook and I feel fortunate to have such vivid memories involving good, healthy, hearty and nourishing food. I strive to provide the same for my family!
Definitely, Pot-au-feu. It makes you love a cold, bleak winter day.
A quick fix in a hurry? My two new best friends: Ben and Jerry.
Though classified as very different comforts, the first one is the comfort of the mind, the Proust’s madeleine effect combined with the satifying feeling that everyone is getting a nurturing meal(on all levels). The second kind of comfort food is very different, it’s the it’s friday night- I’ll just crash on the sofa when the kids are in bed and watch Mr Darcy kind of food. No time for anything real, tub and spoon……. And the haunting memory in the recycling bin tomorrow!
Spaghetti Bolognese. I just love it.
For me the best comfort food is my mother-in-law’s Pho noodle soup. Eating Pho brings back memories of trying Vietnamese food for the first time and falling inlove with my Vietnamese husband. His mom taught me how to cook so many of my husband’s favorite dishes and now they are my favorite too. I think that spending so much time with my mother-in-law in the kitchen and all the meals with family crowded around the kitchen table are the reason I don’t feel like a daughter-in-law at all.
Karey’s bit was just perfect. I felt like I was in her mom’s kitchen and on that dirt road. She never ceases to amaze me.
a lovely tribute to the foods we turn to in times of need. or want. or comfort. good stuff from three talented women.
now i wish my answer wasn’t processed nonsense! aran and jane are the real deal. nice to be in their company. and always fun to be on your blog, gabby. even twinkies seem prettier over here!
xoxo and thanks again.
I’m usually a healthy eater, and my mom is a great cook, but when I need comfort food, it ends up being the things my dad made for me when I was sick. White rice with butter, salt and pepper or white toast and black cherry koolaide. Healthy right?
Pancakes- When I was 11 or 12 my parents converted the formal dining room into a bedroom for me so I wouldn’t have to share a room anymore. It was right next to the kitchen and no matter how quiet he was in the morning I could hear my dad getting up and ready for work. I would get up and join him, for years every morning I would wake up early with my dad and have pancakes, his family recipe and homemade syrup. They are still my favorite food. I hate pancakes from a mix but homemade pancakes and maple syrup will always remind me of early mornings with my dad.