Healing through my childhood comfort foods. 

Food is more than a means to fuel your body; it is connected to your past, especially when it comes to comfort meals. A “comfort food” is recognized by the memories and feelings you associate with it, transporting you back to familiar times, places, and people with your senses. They fill more than just your stomach, but the part of you that craves connection and nostalgia. These meals are meant to make you feel good and heal from the inside out. The simple joys of comfort food have helped me to cope during the hardest times, even when I struggled to find that joy in the food itself. 

As someone with a complicated relationship with food, thinking about the good memories associated with eating has helped me as I repair my relationship with it. Food is a convoluted topic for me. I love food, but I harbour a deep-seated discomfort when I look back on my struggles with it. The idea of “comfort food” has not always been comforting. There have been times when I only found discomfort in the act of eating. When it consumes your everyday thoughts, it’s difficult to change the way and amount of time you obsess over this aspect of yourself. 

I've always been sentimental, which has its highs and lows. On the one hand, letting go and keeping things in the past has proven to be a trying challenge when it feels like a part of me is slipping away. I find it difficult to let go of my habits since they feel safe, they’re what I’ve known for years. Who would I be without them, this extension of myself? On the other hand, I have been able to harness my sentimentalism as a tool through reflection and reconnection with myself. 

Nostalgia is a strong emotion. The taste buds and olfactory organs in the human body associate experiences with meals from childhood. These activate the hippocampus and amygdala: the regions of the brain controlling emotion and memory. Given that nostalgia is so powerful, I try using it to my advantage. There was a time before food controlled me, I think back to that. I reflect on the good memories, when instead of guilt there was innocence, instead of shame there was excitement. When I didn't think twice about what I ate, only about how food brought me joy. To do so I ask myself, “What memories associated with food made my childhood self happy?” 

Crêpes made by my dad are one of my earliest memories and my favourite breakfast food. When I was 5, I would wake up extra early every morning before my dad left for work to have breakfast with him and watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and almost all those days I would ask to make crêpes. Together we would mix the ingredients and he would cook them while I sat and admired as he successfully flipped the pancakes or laughed when they didn’t quite make it over. We’d load the pancakes with butter, maple syrup, fresh fruit, berry sauce, or whipped cream, then swaddle the sugary mess by twirling the crêpes using our fork prongs. Crêpes remind me of when I would wake up and be excited about food, when I would have time to spend with my dad every morning and I would always ask for seconds. 

Homemade bread that I used to make with my grandmother is another cherished memory. To her grandkids, my dad’s mum was Beste, Danish for ‘the best,’ and at baking she was. As Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald CDs played in the background, we would mix the dough, let it rise, knead and punch it down with flour-covered hands. Then we’d mold them into different shapes and patterns like loaves and buns, knots and braids, turtles and flowers, snails and swirls. The smell of freshly baked bread wafting through the house was pure comfort and filled every room with its warmth. This food was part of my heritage, a skill my Beste passed down and an activity that allowed us to share precious moments. Homemade bread reminds me of connecting with my grandmother and creating food with love. 

S’mores remind me of summers around a campfire, on warm nights where we’d wear shorts and layers of bug spray. I can still hear crickets chirping, the spitting logs in the fire pit, the graham cracker crumbs rattling around inside the box, my friends’ laughter and high-pitched squeals after someone made a joke or dropped their marshmallows on the ground. While sharing stories and playing games, we’d turn the roasting sticks slowly over the fire, and the marshmallow would either come out with a perfect, golden tan or be engulfed in flames. Either way, it would be salvaged by the chocolate and graham crackers. S’mores were more than just sugar, they reminded me of the sweet memories of girlhood and of easy-going moments that felt timeless and where worries melted away around the fire pit with every bite. 

My mum’s homemade ice cream cake has always been a birthday staple. With a base layer of crushed Oreos, then ice cream, and whipped cream, it was a treat my family always looked forward to. My brothers moved out when I was young, so birthdays meant I would get to see them and my sisters-in-law. This dessert reminds me of sitting around the dinner table, playing games, my brother taking painstakingly long to rip wrapping paper apart just to get on our nerves, and how I adopted the same habit because that’s what younger siblings do. My mum’s homemade ice cream cakes remind me of being surrounded by the people I've looked up to my entire life, laughing while I can admire how lucky I am as the birthday cake acted as a method to bring the people I love together. 

These comfort meals are more than just food to me. Thinking about these memories from my childhood, when food was not an enemy or something to fear, but a necessity, a luxury, a treat, helps me to link it with happy moments. Food is about more than survival, it is a means to celebrate being alive. The ability to taste the sweetness of my favourite desserts, the warm, aromatic spices in a home-cooked dinner, or the crunch of the flakey bread crust into its soft, buttery interior, invokes a feeling of safety and the simplicity of carefree days. There was a time when food was associated with the good, so I know it can be part of it once again.