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Comfort Food

© Holly Gumpher

It's been one of those days. You didn't get enough sleep last night. The library called to remind you about your overdue books. It's raining so the kids have to play inside. They're playing "who can scream the loudest when the other has you pinned to the floor with a scarf over your head." The checkbook's overdrawn. Your one pair of jeans that fit are buried somewhere in that mountain of laundry. Your husband reminds you that there is no milk, juice, or bread left.

Where do you turn for solace on a day like this? Me, I go for chocolate. If music soothes the savage beast, chocolate soothes this mom's frayed nerves. This is not so unusual. What is interesting, however, is the form of chocolate I might choose. Sure, any chocolate thing will do in a pinch - a candy bar, a brownie - but if I want to really relax I turn to chocolate rooted deep in my childhood.

I distinctly remember eating cocoa and toast for breakfast as a small child. Egads, what was my mother, an otherwise sensible parent, thinking? What an indulgence, chocolate for breakfast! There I sat, dipping the toast into the cocoa in the old orange mugs. If it's been a particularly stressful day, I enjoy taking a break after the kids are in bed with some cocoa and toast.

My other preferred chocolate? Ice cream. Ice cream was a hot commodity at our house. We could never get enough. What makes it so special to me today is that I used to share a bowl of ice cream with my dad at night. After he was home from work and done working around the house, he'd get his shower and sit down to relax, bowl of ice cream in hand. I'd sit right next to him and wait patiently. He always got the hint and we'd share his ice cream.

Comfort foods aren't about taste. They're about comfortable memories associated with particular foods. Some of these associations go as far back as our preschool days. Sometimes it is the small, ordinary things that we don't think are a big deal that our kids really remember.