There’s been very little cooking in the flat this last week. I’m still to get over whatever this virus is although its currently taking the symptoms of a stinking cough and cold so cooking has relied on tins, packets and preprepared foods.
If I felt up to cooking, I would be comfort eating, but even heating up a tin of soup seems to be hard work at the moment.
Last Sunday, between naps, I was reading an article on the Telegraph website about comfort foods. It was reporting that an academic study has been conducted to produce a “comfort food” formula. Apparently three of the best comfort foods are sausage and mash, beans on toast and macaroni cheese and there is actually theory behind this.
Apparently some foods have neuropsychological effects relating to smell, appearance and taste that they recorded and then worked out this formula from. They found that dishes with simple ingredients and uniform colour got better responses. I can see this theory having some validity.
The Fella is a fan of beans on toast and poached eggs on toast, scrambled eggs, bacon butties and crumpets as his comfort foods.
I’m more in the camp of macaroni cheese but my macaroni cheese isn’t that simple. The sauce made from scratch with wholemeal flour, herbs and mature cheddar. I use tricolour fusilli instead of macaroni and I add bacon pieces and carrots to the pasta. Its delicious, but I don’t think they would get good results from the comfort formula with it!
My sisters Lamb Lasagne is another comfort food (lamb mince instead of beef, spinach lasagne sheets, and homemade tomato and wholemeal white sauces) as is my mums bread and butter pudding (wholemeal bread, sultanas and demerara sugar).
Why are so many of these things homemade? Because my mum was on exclusion diets for ezcema and so certain things were cut out of the diet of the whole family and then there was the mad cow disease scare and we stopped eating beef hence lamb mince instead of beef in lasagne etc.
Other of my favourite comfort foods include porridge, museli and half dried chewy banana chips. Though I’m still obsessing about chewy sultana oatmeal cookies…and probably will be until I’m well enough to bake!
So, what’s your comfort food(s)?
A Bluestocking in Red Lipstick 