Comfort food

Recently, there is a discussion about "comfort food" in a mailing list. But I thought these people were talking about favourite food rather than comfort food.

Can food actually give comfort? Apparently it can and frequently it is due to pleasant association of childhood.

In the animation Ratatouille, the harsh food critic Ego was won over by a dish ratatouille (a French vegetables stew) because it was a dish his mother cooked for him when he was a child. It brought him memories of his mother's love.

My comfort food is not my favourite. It is not something I eat frequently or even yearn for it. But when I am sick or down, I find a bowl of hot porridge extremely comforting. Perhaps that's because whenever I am sick, that's what my mother would cook for me. It is something I associate with care and concern. Also, being plain on its on, I like its blandness when I do not have appetite and just want something simple.

The following is something I wrote a while back.

The porridge of my life

May 21st, 2007 by laink

Haven’t been sick for a long time. Almost had forgotten how bad it can be.

My head was throbbing, my nose dripping and my mouth was dry and bitter. But when I tuck into the hot bowl of porridge my mother cooked for me, I suddenly found it so comforting.

I am not much of a porridge person. But when I am sick and have not much appetite, a bowl of hot plain porridge with a bit of preserved bean curb and salted beans is still the best. It may not be something I eat much when healthy and well. But when sick, there is something very comforting in a bowl of porridge.

And I remember the time when I was living alone in the USA, as sick as I was, I had to get out of the bed to cook myself some porridge.

And I remember, in the show My Lovely Samsoon, how Samsoon cooked porridge for Hyun Bin when he was sick.

And so I am thankful, for my mother for the love she put in in the bowl of porridge.

And so I wonder, if there will be some one else who will cook porridge for me when I am sick, and for whom I will cook porridge when he is sick.

红尘路上，我不敢期望太多。只想，生病时，有人给我煮一碗热腾腾的粥。