Comfort Eating? Are you guilty?

by Diana McCollum

What is comfort food? Is it food we love and eat any old time, because we love it, or is it food we eat when we are worried, stressed or feeling sorry for ourselves?

com·fort food

bread pudding

noun

1. food that provides consolation or a feeling of well-being, typically any with a high sugar or other carbohydrate content and associated with childhood or home cooking.
2. 
   

Comfort eating:

 ​eating because you are ​feeling ​worried or ​upset and not because you are ​hungry

I could eat chocolate or cheese cake or pizza anytime it’s put in front of me. But when I’m upset or worried, give me homemade mashed potatoes smothered in butter. Give me bakery made sweet rolls or bread. I'll eat a couple pieces of toast with jam and a cup of tea. Those are foods I normally try to avoid. But when I’m upset, I need my comfort food!

My friend Kathy Coatney wrote a great blog post on stress eating. Check it out.

If you've ever wondered where the term comfort food comes from: 

It appeared in an article in The Atlantic in April 2015 in the 1977 Washington Post magazine article on Southern cooking.

"When the Oxford English Dictionary added a definition for “comfort food” in 1997, it traced the term’s etymology back to a 1977 Washington Post magazine article about Southern cooking: “Along with grits, one of the comfort foods of the South is black-eyed peas.”

So are you a stress eater or comfort food eater? What foods comfort you the most?

An Old-Fashioned British Pudding

I'm talking about a dessert and not myself! Hi, I'm Pippa Jay, author of scifi and the supernatural with a romantic soul. A born and bred Brit with no plans to move elsewhere. When I saw the topic for this month, I was pretty stumped. British food has absorbed so many dishes from other countries that in a poll done a year or two ago the top British dish was chicken tikka masala (although last year it got knocked down to number 14 with the good old British roast dinner coming in first place). But I decided to go with a personal favourite and something really traditional - bread pudding.

I know, I know. The name doesn't exactly sound all that dessert-like or tasty. But like a lot of old fashioned types of British food, it's thick, sweet and stodgy, designed to fill the stomach cheaply. And you can easily vary it by using different types of bread, including brioche (chocolate brioche especially makes for a decadent version) or by using different fruits, spices, and/or any other kind of additions you fancy. The idea was to use up possibly stale bread that some households couldn't afford to just throw away.

Serves: 4-6

Preparation time 15 minutes
You will need:
250g bread (any kind will do, but you could try using chocolate brioche or fruit loaf. A better quality bread will give you a better dessert but it's not essential.)
125g dried fruit like currants, raisins, sultanas, and/or mixed peel, or you could try a tropical mix or chocolate chips - anything, really.
65g suet (this is an English speciality, a very dense fat made from beef or mutton fat, in case it's not a familiar thing in the US)
65g sugar (caster (fine sugar) is best, but I like some golden or demerara sugar to sprinkle on the top for serving)
1 medium egg
A teaspoon of ground cinnamon and ground nutmeg, or mixed spice

Cooking time approx 1 hour
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180 C / Gas 4. Rip the bread into pieces and leave soaking in water until soft. Then squeeze the bread dry and mix in with the fruit, fat, sugar and spices.
Mix in the egg. If it's too dry, you can add some milk. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.
Bake for about an hour until the top is be nicely browned and a skewer comes out clean.

Cool in the tin, then turn out and sprinkle liberally with caster or brown sugar.

If you can't wait for it to cool, turn it out straight away and serve with custard, cream or ice-cream, and a nice cup of tea!

And while you're waiting for it to cook, you can borrow one of my short stories from Amazon's Kindle Unlimited to keep you distracted!

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Or all my titles are 25% off at my publisher's site for the whole of March.

Tethered | Restless In Peaceville | When Dark Falls | No Angel

Not subtle, I know, but you'll need something to keep you occupied while you wait for your first taste of that dessert (or to read while you eat). :) I hope you enjoy it!