Adopted comfort foods

[mizducky]

Reading through Fresser's entertaining topic The Anthropology of Poultry, I started thinking about a lot of my own adventures in cross-cultural food exploration ... only to realize a lot of these were no longer "explorations," but dishes that had become personal favorites. Comfort foods, even.

I think the general idea about comfort foods is that part of the comfort comes from associations with childhood and home cooking. And I do have a number of personal comfort foods that hail from my past, like chicken soup the way my mother made it. But I also have adopted a significant number of comfort foods my mother never made. Granted, some of them I frequently had in restaurants growing up, like American-style Chinese food (and we've also visited the topic of the Jewish affection for Chinese food a number of times here on eGullet, most recently here). But in addition, I've added other, more authentic Chinese dishes to my repertoire of comfort foods, like congee and pork belly.

And then there are foods from other cuisines that I never knew about as a child, but have adopted and/or adapted into personal comfort foods. Like southern-style greens with ham-hocks (what business a nice Jewish girl from New York has attempting to make this dish, I can't tell you, but I do a pretty decent job of it if I do say so myself ). And then there's risotto. And sushi. I could go on...

Judging from the vast amount of passionate posts here on eGullet about cross-cultural food exploration, I'm sure I'm not alone in this adoption of comfort foods from other cultures. Personally, I think it's really cool.

So--what are some of your own favorite comfort-food dishes that you didn't grow up with, but it feels like you did? (Stories about how you came to discover and adopt that dish would be cool, too.)

[Megan Blocker]

What a great topic idea, Ducky!

The comfort food I've discovered and really embraced as an adult is Vietnamese - bun xao with chicken. I love it. I love the crunch of the veggies, the smell of the nam pla mixed with the garlicky noodles, I love the chili sauce on the side...the whole thing is delicious. I've never been huge on chicken soup for some reason, but this is my latter-day substitute.

Mmmm, I feel happy just thinking about it.

[Chufi]

Pasta carbonara.

Soft polenta, topped with a juicy stew.

Roast chicken (while this sounds pretty normal, I only had (and cooked) my first roast chicken when I was 25. My mom never did anything to chicken than braising it in butter).

Chili.

Ragu Bolognese.

And my favorite comfortfood is a dish that consists of chickpeas, chorizo and eggs. I never tasted chickpeas and chorizo until I was well in my twenties. Ah, the lost time...

I became a cross-cultural food-explorer kind of late in life...

[I_call_the_duck]

Growing up in New York, it is hard not to know what a bagel is, even if you're the only Chinese family within blocks. To appease the Jewish side in me, I need bagels and lox or a nice pastrami on rye with good deli mustard. Getting good pastrami took a little more effort, but after church on Sunday, we'd get some bagels for brunch.

[Milagai]

french fries! adore them!

(i grew up in pre-liberalized-economy, pre-mcd-kfc, india)

milagai

[jilli42]

-Miso Soup

-Pad Thai

-Pasta Bolognese

-Garlic Mashed Potatoes

-Chicken Phuket

-Pho

[mikeycook]

I grew up in New Hampshire in the 70s and 80s where even Italian outside of spaghetti and pizza was pretty much unheard of. My list includes, in no particular order:

Risotto (Lobster, Mushroom, doesn't matter -- it's all good)

Polenta - Especially the creamy variety with wild mushrooms

Bagels - Reason #1 why I can never leave NYC

Coq au Vin

Pot au Feu

Cassoulet

Jambalaya

Gumbo

Paella

Pelmeni

Pho

Smoked Salmon and Caviar on warm Blini

Almost all Italian sauces other than bolognese, marinara and alfredo

I'll stop there. It probably would be easier to list my childhood comfort foods.

Edited December 29, 2005 by mikeycook (log)

[rich]

M&M's with peanuts. I think they cover your daily requirements for five categories.

Edited December 29, 2005 by rich (log)

[NWKate]

As a convert to Judaism, MATZOH BALL SOUP! But I'll also vote for pasta carbonara, baked ziti, cioppino, and hot and sour soup!

Regards,

Kate

[pam claughton]

Foods that have been added to my comfort food group include,

Risotto

Tortelloni with alfredo sauce, proscuitto and peas

Nachos with chicken, sour cream, and fresh guacamole

Escarole bean soup with Italian sausage

Lobster Newburg or casserole

Thai curries

Thai spicy soup with shrimp and lots of cilantro

Veal Milanese

Andrew's Outrageous Clam dip, which we eat with potato chips while drinking cheap chardonnay and playing cards. Comfort food at its best.

Pam

[kalypso]

Great topic, especially after the food frenzy of the recent holiday. For me --

Chilaquiles

Carnitas

Street tacos

Caldo de Pollo or Caldo de Res

Arroz con Leche

Quesadillas made with corn masa not a flour tortilla

Mexican hot chocolate made with the addition of a few chile flakes, a few cloves and a few drops of orange oil

(yes, there is a trend here )

Also,

Risotto

Pizza

Pho

Almost any Asian noodle dish

[aznsailorboi]

hmmm comfort food for me is ....Cabocha squash in coconut milk with bits of ground pork and shrimps served with piping hot rice.

[petite tête de chou]

Pho with lots of Sriracha and extra herbs.

Miso soup.

Dairy-free Hungarian mushroom soup from Food Front co-op in Portland.

Ochazuke. No toppings, just rice and green tea.

Chai.

[annecros]

Reading through Fresser's entertaining topic The Anthropology of Poultry, I started thinking about a lot of my own adventures in cross-cultural food exploration ... only to realize a lot of these were no longer "explorations," but dishes that had become personal favorites. Comfort foods, even.

I think the general idea about comfort foods is that part of the comfort comes from associations with childhood and home cooking. And I do have a number of personal comfort foods that hail from my past, like chicken soup the way my mother made it. But I also have adopted a significant number of comfort foods my mother never made. Granted, some of them I frequently had in restaurants growing up, like American-style Chinese food (and we've also visited the topic of the Jewish affection for Chinese food a number of times here on eGullet, most recently here). But in addition, I've added other, more authentic Chinese dishes to my repertoire of comfort foods, like congee and pork belly.

And then there are foods from other cuisines that I never knew about as a child, but have adopted and/or adapted into personal comfort foods. Like southern-style greens with ham-hocks (what business a nice Jewish girl from New York has attempting to make this dish, I can't tell you, but I do a pretty decent job of it if I do say so myself ). And then there's risotto. And sushi. I could go on...

Judging from the vast amount of passionate posts here on eGullet about cross-cultural food exploration, I'm sure I'm not alone in this adoption of comfort foods from other cultures. Personally, I think it's really cool.

So--what are some of your own favorite comfort-food dishes that you didn't grow up with, but it feels like you did? (Stories about how you came to discover and adopt that dish would be cool, too.)

←

Thank you so much, darling!

The more I expand my horizons concerning food, the more I find in common between different cultures.

Nourishment is the great equalizer!

Mom's chicken soup was Campbell's from a can. Fortunately, I have stumbled across a very kosher recipe that brings tears to my eyes, and makes me want to personally circumcise my son!

[pam claughton]

Mexican hot chocolate made with the addition of a few chile flakes, a few cloves and a few drops of orange oil

(yes, there is a trend here  )

←

This sounds amazing. Where do you get Mexican hot chocolate?

Pam

[Jason Perlow]

You make it, typically with a brick chocolate brand called Ibarra or Abuelita.

You can buy it at Mexican groceries. They key is to add the hot milk into a blender with the hard chocolate and whiz it up until it gets nice and foamy.

Personally, I prefer to make my Latin-American hot chocolate with stuff of Colombian origin, like Corona, which you can usually get in the same bodegas. We've discussed it previously:

Perfect Hot Chocolate

[divalasvegas]

Soups, especially when I'm not feeling well, from Asian cultures (even though I'm sure some of these are not exactly authentic)

Hot & Sour

Egg Drop

Wonton

Shrimp Dumpling

Pho

Hot Pot

Tom Yum or Tom Kha

Yes even that big bowl of cheap, instant Korean-style ramen you find at convenience stores that's pretty spicy and tasty.

A Thai soup that when it was served looked like a cup of nothing, at least visually, but turned out to be one of the most flavorful delicious soups I've ever had. No idea what the name is.

No miso soup you say? Well I really wanted to like miso soup (this was eaten during my first encounter with sushi which I now love). Found the taste okay, but it seemed to upset my stomach. Went back to the same place, but this time didn't have the miso soup; no stomach upset. Ever heard of anyone having that type of reaction?

Edited for additional comments and grammar.

Edited December 29, 2005 by divalasvegas (log)

[TongoRad]

As a child I grew up with both an Italian Grandma and a Southern Grandma, so I had a lot of comfort food bases covered, and I do love my comfort food. Still- I've also picked up a few more favorites over the years. The first few that come to mind are Aloo Gobi (cauliflower and potatoes) and green chile stew, oddly enough with potatoes as well.

[Eden]

french fries!  adore them!

(i grew up in pre-liberalized-economy, pre-mcd-kfc, india)

milagai

Whereas I grew up in California but believe there is nothing like idli sambar & masala dosa to make me feel better if I'm having a crummy day! That was the special at one of our local restaurants when I was a kid. My best friend & I could almost always scrape together the $4 between us to share an order. Those poor waiters - we literally paid them in stacks of pennies sometimes (but never failed to tip!)

When mom was paying I'd get lamb saag & pooris but while I still love those, they don't elicit the same primal response as sambar & a dosa

[BarbaraY]

Sushi, sushi, and more sushi. It soothes my soul.

[Jake]

Tom Yum

Pho

Miso Soup

Shrimp & Grits

baked cannellini beans with either tuscan style or french style depending on the mood

Fatte

All supplemented with a few comfort foods from my own childhood.

[purplewiz]

Chicken soup. My mother made soup once a year, after either Thanksgiving or Christmas (whichever was at our house that year), to get rid of the turkey leftovers. I loved it, but the rest of the year, soup was out of the red Campbell's can.

I have since learned to make stocks and soups myself, and it is wonderful to have rich, hearty soups when I need that kind of comforting.

Tom Kha Gai. When I am sick with a cold (like I am now, AGAIN), that's all I want. The flavors are bold enough to taste through the worst stuffed nose, and the chili will burn through that congestion. And thank goodness, this thread reminded me that there is apparently ONE Thai restaurant left around here. Time for a trip down there tomorrow.

Marcia.

[pamjsa]

From my newly adopted home state: tortilla soup and Mexican hot chocolate (made with my newly acquired molinillo, while requiring my children to sing the traditional "hot chocolate song," to practice their Spanish.)

From my family history: sugar cream pie. My grandmother made this, and for years I was pretty sure she'd invented the recipe because no one outside my family had ever heard of it. My mother didn't like it, so never made it, and at some point I forgot about it. Then I read Haven Kimmel's terrific memoir, A Girl Named Zippy, in which she mentions sugar cream pie several times--turns out it's a pretty common southern dessert. But the book spurred my memory, compelled me to seek out a basic recipe online, and gradually I developed a recipe of my own that tastes exactly like what I remember of Granny Goode's pie. Brought my mom to tears when she tasted it, too (even though, as I said, it's not one of her favorites.)

I've also developed a fondness for cheese grits, corn cakes and brisket since moving to Texas. None of these items were anywhere near the comfort food menu of my Idaho girlhood.

[kalypso]

Mexican hot chocolate made with the addition of a few chile flakes, a few cloves and a few drops of orange oil

(yes, there is a trend here  )

←

This sounds amazing. Where do you get Mexican hot chocolate?

Pam

←

You've got a number of options depending upon where you live and how well stocked your local grocery stores are. I travel to Mexico a lot and that's where I buy my chocolate. In the States the 2 most common brands are Ibarra or Abuelita. I prefer Ibarra, but neither one, unfortunately, is really very good. Mexican chocolate itself is a blend of chocolate, sugar, cinnamon and almonds. The proportions vary. Both Ibarra and Abuelita seem to be a little heavy on the sugar. But there is an alternative. Chocosphere sells MayorDomo chocolate from Oaxaca on-line, and it is good chocolate of the Mexican variety. I also picked up a brand called Popular in Monterey last year that I like a lot too.

To make the Mexican hot chocolate the way I like it, you put a quart of milk in a sauce pan, add a generous pinch of red chile flakes, 4 or 5 whole cloves and a couple of drops of orange oil, or, lacking orange oil, a couple a swipes across an orange with a zester over the milk will do the trick as well. Slowly bring the milk to a scald. Add one bar of the MayorDomo chocolate and stir until the chocolate and the sugar in it dissolves. Fish out the whole cloves and pour about half the mixture into a blender, loosely put the lid on (or take out the insert in the lid if there is one), an blend until frothy. Pour into mugs. It's pretty easy, the chiles and orange are a nice compliment to the Mexican chocolate

[jsolomon]

Fried chicken.

Beer/wine/liquor

Spicy foods, especially sriracha

Kale

Fried rice