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Comforting through food
Yesterday, a friend and I discussed comfort foods.
For man problems, kid problems and money troubles, she migrates toward hot fudge, either on chocolate cake or across the top of an ice cream mountain.
I, however, grab anything of the Little Debbie snack cake variety for any type of crisis.
Later, I bought a small container of cinnamon at the grocery.
Then I went home and sprinkled toast with an overabundance of butter, some sugar and my new cinnamon.
I was taken back to my little-girl days, when this snack with a hot cup of cocoa made me feel safe and loved.
I could see my grandma again, pressing the mouth of a drinking glass into dough for biscuits.
Once they were puffy and brown from the oven, my grandma expertly tore the biscuits into little pieces. She never once complained like I would, that her fingertips had third degree burns.
She added some butter to melt in the mix with sticky sweet white Caro syrup.
And that was absolutely the best stuff in the world.
My only stress in life was to keep my ponytails out of the syrup when I leaned over the bowl to take a bite.
For some reason, I’m thinking a lot lately about what people say with food instead of words.
My grandpa, for example, presented a lop-sided cake with bunches of icing or a loaf of banana bread as a peace offering. That was his apology without words.
When my son visits, I make two specific meals. Chipped beef gravy for lunch and a roast with rice for supper. Those are his favorites.
I make those meals to help him remember that we’ve been together for a long time, since the days when he sat on telephone books to reach the table.
Someday when I’m gone and he’s whipping up some chipped beef gravy, he will hopefully smile and recall the same feelings I do about comfort.
What’s comforting is different for all of us.
Unique in its own way, a comfort food lasts a lifetime of memories.
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