Adopted comfort foods

[mizducky]

Heh. I figured this topic would take off.

A few more of my own adopted comfort foods:

Mapo tofu -- I find the mouthfeel of the simmered tofu really soothing.

Variety-meat tacos -- lengua, cabeza, tripas -- love that offal!

Squid--any style, any cuisine -- just love that soft-yet-slightly-chewy texture.

Plain white rice -- with nothing at all on it. For some reason my mom very seldom made rice, but especially when I'm feeling ill or under the weather or just physically out of whack, a nice bowl of hot fluffy rice really does it for me.

Edited December 30, 2005 by mizducky (log)

[miladyinsanity]

Mashed potatoes

Cheesecake

Pasta

[SuzySushi]

My adopted comfort foods:

Sushi and sashimi.

Chili.

Japanese curry.

Tom yum soup.

Pho.

Risotto.

[Milagai]

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

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When I'm feeling crummy I also immediately revert to

my rasam and rice roots.

I love french fries more for when I am craving the salt-and-grease

kick, which is not related to physical crumminess, more a mood thing..

I too adore the whole idli sambar genre of course but then I was

raised on it and the emotion - food link is strong.

Interesting that you took to it too.....

Milagai

[jmsaul]

And my favorite comfortfood is a dish that consists of chickpeas, chorizo and eggs.

Have you got a recipe for that? It sounds great!

[Pam R]

Fortunately, I have stumbled across a very kosher recipe that brings tears to my eyes, and makes me want to personally circumcise my son!

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That's one of the best lines I've read in a long long time. heh.

Like many others, mine would include sushi / Japanese foods. I crave agedashi tofu - especially when I'm tired and hungry.

I'm a huge Greek food fan. Give me Avgolemono soup 5 nights a week I'm good.

Otherwise my comfort foods are pretty typical for a Jewish girl - soup and Chinese food

[melkor]

Pho, bahn mi, (thai) roti, merguez & harissa, risotto, chicken karahi, duck confit, churros con chocolate.

[annecros]

Fortunately, I have stumbled across a very kosher recipe that brings tears to my eyes, and makes me want to personally circumcise my son!

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That's one of the best lines I've read in a long long time. heh.

Like many others, mine would include sushi / Japanese foods. I crave agedashi tofu - especially when I'm tired and hungry.

I'm a huge Greek food fan. Give me Avgolemono soup 5 nights a week I'm good.

Otherwise my comfort foods are pretty typical for a Jewish girl - soup and Chinese food

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It's interesting, he is in LOOOOOVVVVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEE with a lively and lovely young princess, and bought her some very nice jewelry for Hanukkah.

I love Greek too. Tzatziki is just an incredible insight in how to tantalize the taste bud. I could eat it on most anything. I love the use of nutmeg as well in Greek food. My husband swears he hates nutmeg. Little does he know how much he has consumed.

[Pontormo]

Pasta carbonara.

Soft polenta...

Ragu Bolognese.

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Chufi read my mind and I wasn't even wearing my tin foil hat!

Since the topic is about adopted comfort foods as opposed to the ones that evoke family meals of childhood, I'd have to go with dishes that make me nostalgic about places and people from long ago. The only exception to that rule would be baked mac & cheese with extra white sauce and Gorgonzola, but I've mentioned that already on Sandy Smith's GBC thread.

Smoked salmon, cream cheese and bagels

After moving to suburbs of New Haven and from an Italian-American neighborhood to one with a large Jewish population, I went to quite a few Bat/Bar Mitzvahs, birthday parites and brunches after sleep-overs where the food was different. Until that time, salmon was canned and mixed with other ingredients in a Corning Ware casserole. My g-d! This may have been my first major discovery of how good food was beyond the world of my own home.

Coq au vin

Madame Dowling was a very large woman of Moroccan origin with gout who taught French in a midwestern college town whose native population was primarily blond. Mr. Richards, despite his terrible accent, really was the superior teacher. We spent far too much time singing about planting cabbages and dancing on bridges. However, there were more than one hundred members of the French Club because of Madame Dowling and the recipes she passed out for us to prepare for evening meetings when we actually changed out of our tee shirts, sandals and jeans and dressed up. I can't remember the last time I made a chocolate mousse, and who knows what happened to those bottles of Lancer's that we thought were very classy. I make coq au vin every once in a while and think of her.

Suchard Rochers

The last time I found and tried one, I was sorely disappointed. However, this is a kind of paper-wrapped mass-produced round chocolate studded with nuts that I loved while studying in Paris. Ditto on grated carrot salad made only with carrots, simply dressed, if no longer eaten out of a white cardboard box while standing on the corner or seated in the park. Now that my Mouli Julienne (remember these hand-cranked pre-food processors? Julia Child touted their glories long ago) is completely rusted, I still haven't found the right blade for my Cuisinart to make the stuff again.

Bi Bim Bop

It's interesting how many of us list Asian foods. Korean food, also consumed first in the Heartland, does what pho does for others, especially this wonderful, wonderful stuff. I have yet to find a good local source in D.C.

[MarketStEl]

As a piece of me will always be a Heartlander in spirit, nothing quite satisfies like beef (meatloaf, burgers, steak, you name it), but there are a bunch of other "alien" foods ("alien" in quotes because when it comes to food, an "alien" dish is simply one you haven't yet tried) that rank right up there with it.

First among them is sushi. Love it, love it, love it! Actually, I suspect one of the reasons I love it is because I get a healthy dose of wasabi along with it. Does wonders for my sinuses.

Then there's jambalaya, but I'm not sure it really qualifies as "alien," because I've been told there's a lost branch of my family somewhere in Louisiana.

Jamaican meat patties are also on my list as a great comfort snack. Too bad I can't get them more often (I had one with lunch--jerk chicken, from a Jamaican takeout in downtown Wilmington--today.)

Italian wedding soup also rates.

As do bagels and lox--which my mother occasionally served when she threw big Sunday brunches. It was at those where I first tasted kielbasa as well, and it too is on my list of comfort snacks.

[NYC Mike]

I'm a born and raised Italian NYer and my wife is born and raised in the Dominican Republic. When I made my first trip there to meet her folks they went on a mission to find something the gringo americano wouldn't eat. It became a challenge for them and a big joke to everyone since I eat just about anything happily! Her father shopped for every obscure ingredient and her mother made every Dominican tipico dish she could think of. It was good fun, I was intoxicated by the time I left and did not eat a full meal for at least a week afterwards.

Some of the standouts, now added to our regular menus were, dulce de leche cortada, habichuelas con dulce (this was for the biggest laugh since you cannot eat these in mixed company ), arenque with eggs, pernil, mondongo, mofongo and rabo.

But, the all time comfort food they gave me that replaces all others is sancocho. I cannot look out the window on a fall or winter rainy or bad weather day and not wish I had a little sancochito to warm me up. Not to mention, its the hangover cure from god.

Mike

[ghostrider]

Singapore chow mei fun - because it's one of the best things at my local Chinese takeout parlor

Rigatoni amatriciana - the story behind this will get its own topic if I ever get around to writing it up. (And if I decide whether it's Cooking or Italy.) Suffice it for now to say that I encountered a sublime version of the dish in Venice in the 1990s and have been messing with the dish in the kitchen ever since. (Subject to long hiati - is that the plural of hiatus? - due to lack of decent pancetta.)

[Zucchini Mama]

All of the above!!

I love almost all the comfort foods people have mentioned but have never had the opportunity to try grits and collard greens. It seems strange that I have never seen them in Canada.

About ten years ago I went on a macrobiotic diet for about six months. A really good macrobiotic meal that sorts out my yin and yang makes me smile like a Chesire Cat. It's a good after-Christmas diet. I may have to dust off the old cookbooks after this season's indulgences.

Zuke

[Dinah Sarah]

French Fry Sandwhich

2 slices of white bread - 2 slices of cold butter - super hot french fries lined up perfectly on buttered bread - plenty of salt and a sprinkle of vinegar -

warms you up and keeps you fortified while you making the second sandwhich

[acautrell]

I take comfort in learning how to properly handle meats. My mother is a terrific baker, but cooking is another story.

Chicken with two lemons. My mother has never made a whole roasted chicken ever, but it's now my preference. Pork chops that are still moist and tender. Rare steaks.

Anything with rice. Growing up, rice was reserved for those post-stomach bug days, and served plain or with milk and sugar. In the same vein, pasta. We were very much a meat, canned vegetables and potatoes family and pasta or rice were a rare treat for me.

[MarketStEl]

Singapore chow mei fun - because it's one of the best things at my local Chinese takeout parlor

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Be sure to invite Zippy the Pinhead over the next time you pick up an order.

[TPO]

I have two favorite comfort foods that I never tasted growing up. One is the green curry chicken dish that my husband makes. It's delicious, and the creaminess from the coconut milk makes it very comforting. The other is souvlaki, partly because the tzatziki sauce is comforting but also because it brings back memories of Toronto, where I first discovered souvlaki.

[chromedome]

All of the above!!

I love almost all the comfort foods people have mentioned but have never had the opportunity to try grits and collard greens. It seems strange that I have never seen them in Canada.

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I've seen collards in all the major supermarkets, at one time or another. They seem to only be around for a month or so, so you've got to keep your eyes peeled (am I the only one who finds that colloquialism creepy?). As for grits, the ubiquitous Bob's Red Mill produces them, and you can find their product pretty widely too. You may have to phone around a bit, but somebody in your area should have them.

[chow guy]

My first apartment was on Mott at Spring Street in NYC, where I adopted:

Tortellini en Brodo

Pasta Putanesca

Fried rice and

Hot and sour soup

I still find great comfort in these dishes.

[ghostrider]

Singapore chow mei fun - because it's one of the best things at my local Chinese takeout parlor

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Be sure to invite Zippy the Pinhead over the next time you pick up an order.

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OK I'll be the first to admit that I need an explanation.

I went to the Zippy site & did numerous searches, but only came up with strips that deal with Singapore Slings, clam chowder and Lo Mein Lounges.

If there's a joke here, it's lost on me.

[MarketStEl]

Singapore chow mei fun - because it's one of the best things at my local Chinese takeout parlor

←

Be sure to invite Zippy the Pinhead over the next time you pick up an order.

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OK I'll be the first to admit that I need an explanation.

I went to the Zippy site & did numerous searches, but only came up with strips that deal with Singapore Slings, clam chowder and Lo Mein Lounges.

If there's a joke here, it's lost on me.

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"Are we having fun yet?"

[ghostrider]

(Intemperate comment deleted by self.)

Edited January 1, 2006 by ghostrider (log)

[jgarner53]

pho

hot and sour soup

Thai green curry

miso soup

creamy polenta

risotto

Hmm, seems to be a pattern here. Soup or creamy starchy dishes. I wonder what deep-seated psychological truth that unveils about me?

[mizducky]

I too had noticed a lot of people mentioning risotto, as well as starchy dishes in general. For what it's worth, this Wikipedia article says that some people think carbo-loaded dishes provoke some kind of opiate-like effect in the brain. Mind you, Wikipedia articles sometimes vary widely in reliability, and I don't necessarily want to wander *too* far off into a discussion of the properties of carbohydrates in the diet, but still, I thought the point worth presenting.

Speaking of which, I'm enjoying a nice comforting bowl of mushroom risotto right this very minute!

[BeeZee]

No doubt that carbs rule when it comes to comfort...that warm, fuzzy feeling you get from eating them...my fav's:

1) miso soup

2) chili

3) thai massaman curry

If I need "serious" comfort, it's gonna be bland: mac-n-cheese !