Different dishes are considered comfort food around the world, but they’re all typically high in sugar, fat, and salt.
These flavors are key in not only making us feel happy but also in solidifying these dishes in our memories. Twenty people from different cultural backgrounds shared what their favorite comfort food is and what it means to them, and we looked at how their dish of choice is made.
These flavors are key in not only making us feel happy but also in solidifying these dishes in our memories. Twenty people from different cultural backgrounds shared what their favorite comfort food is and what it means to them, and we looked at how their dish of choice is made.
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00:00In these stressful and uncertain times of quarantine, people from all over the world
00:09are seeking comfort in food.
00:12Comfort food can fix any bad day.
00:14It's typically high in sugar, fat, and or salt.
00:18And the beauty of comfort food is that it varies from person to person.
00:21It's rooted in where you're from and who you grew up with.
00:24We asked 20 people from different cultural backgrounds to share what comfort food is
00:28to them.
00:29I'll start with mine.
00:31My favorite comfort food is kimchi jjigae or kimchi stew.
00:36I'm Korean American, and growing up, my mom made kimchi jjigae pretty often for dinner.
00:41My mom's kimchi jjigae has that sonmat.
00:43Sonmat in Korean means like hand taste.
00:47The best way I can describe it is my mom's special touch.
00:51Even if I try to make my mom's kimchi jjigae here in New York City, I can't get that taste
00:55because it lacks my mom's special touch.
00:58So basically, the flavors that you're getting are like spicy, salty, fatty, sour.
01:06It's basically everything that I crave when I'm missing my mom.
01:10I'm Nigerian, and one of my favorite comfort foods has to be amala and okra soup.
01:15To make it, you take some yam flour and you pour it into boiling hot water, stir it up
01:20very quickly, and it gets to this nice thick consistency.
01:23From there, you portion it out to whatever size you'd like for your meal, and then you
01:26can dip it into your soup of choice.
01:28Not only is it a super tasty meal, but after you eat it, it hits you and it puts you in
01:33one of those nice food comas.
01:35I remember sneaking into the kitchen as a toddler and trying to tear off small pieces
01:39of amala or like the irises that they put in the soup and taking it back to my playroom.
01:44So of course now, any time that I have it, I just automatically think of home.
01:49I'm Trinidadian.
01:50My favorite comfort food is bacon saltfish.
01:53Bacon saltfish is a dish comprised of bake, which is dough rolled out, and a fish called
02:02bakalao.
02:03It's a salted cod that we chop up, we boil, and we saute with sweet tomatoes and sweet
02:10onions.
02:11I think it's my favorite comfort food just because it brings back a memory of my grandmother.
02:16She used to own a daycare, and whenever she was making something with dough, like bake,
02:21she would roll up little pieces of the dough and give it to the children to play with,
02:25and we would just go crazy for those little pieces of dough.
02:29My favorite Haitian comfort food is grillo.
02:32Grillo is fried pork shoulder that has a special cut where it has just the right amount of
02:37fat and just the right amount of skin on it.
02:39You would season it well, bake it briefly, and then fry it, so after that it'll get that
02:45nice crispy on the outside, tender on the inside taste.
02:49I remember being, as a child, at every Haitian gathering, family party.
02:55If you had grillo on your plate that night, you knew it was going to be a good night.
03:00My comfort food has always been pastina, which is like a really unhealthy version of Italian
03:05wedding soup.
03:06It has no vegetables, it's really just pasta and meatballs.
03:09So the way that my mom makes her meatballs is really what I always crave.
03:13She does a mix of ground pork, ground beef, and ground veal, and then she adds in just
03:18five ingredients.
03:19So the five ingredients are salt, pepper, garlic powder, parsley, and cheese.
03:25It's not just like Parmesan cheese, it's always Pecorino Romano cheese.
03:28That's the go-to key ingredient.
03:30Whenever I go home or whenever I'm sad or sick or whatever, that's what I want my mom
03:35to make me, or that's what I want to eat.
03:37I'm from New York, and my favorite comfort food is grilled cheese.
03:42Growing up as a picky eater, grilled cheese was the number one thing I could get from
03:46every single family member and every single restaurant, and it'd be almost the exact same
03:52every single time.
03:54So today when I make grilled cheese for myself, I just use white wheat bread, and I use white
04:01American cheese.
04:02It reminds me of being best friends with my mom.
04:06I'm Allison Brown, and today we're going to talk about beef patties, because that's my
04:11favorite Jamaican comfort food.
04:12Growing up, my father used to bring home a box of beef patties, and he used to put them
04:16on the table, and it was first-come, first-served, and if you did not get your beef patty, you'd
04:19be tight.
04:21I love beef patties because of how diverse they are.
04:24You could get a beef patty, a callaloo patty, an ackee patty, any type of patty.
04:27My family is Jamaican.
04:29They're from Jamaica.
04:30I'm American.
04:31I was born here.
04:32But when we go to Jamaica, it's over.
04:34The patties are hot and ready.
04:35They're delicious.
04:36I'm from New York.
04:37I'm Dominican, and my favorite comfort food is mung boo.
04:40Mung boo is basically mashed potatoes, but instead of potatoes, it's plantains, and it's
04:46a breakfast food, so most Dominicans will eat it in the morning.
04:50Mung boo is typically eaten with cebollas on top, which is onions, queso frito on the
04:55side, which is fried cheese, salami, which is a type of meat, and usually some people
05:00will get a fried egg on it.
05:01Personally, I love eggs, so I always get it on it.
05:03The reason why mung boo is my favorite comfort food, besides the fact that it's delicious,
05:07is because it just reminds me of being in the Dominican Republic, and just like being
05:13around great weather, sunny, like just an all-around great vibe.
05:17My comfort food is pepper pot.
05:19It came from Guyana's first people known as the Amerindians.
05:23Pepper pot is a meal that is boiled with casserole and spices and any choice of meat, but my
05:28personal favorite is beef.
05:30It can be eaten with anything, bread, cassava bread, rice, anything you would like.
05:36Pepper pot reminds me of Christmas time and all the family time and all the rich culture
05:41in Guyana.
05:42My favorite comfort food is congee, a type of rice porridge.
05:46It's often eaten with yau za guai, also known as a Chinese donut.
05:51There are also many different types of congee.
05:53I've had it plain, with dried scallops, with preserved egg and salted pork, and just whitefish.
06:02Growing up, my mom would make this for breakfast some days, and she would also make it for
06:06me when I was sick, and I couldn't keep any solid foods down.
06:10My mom passed away in January of 2018, so the process of making congee and eating it
06:18reminds me of her love, her dedication, and her patience as my mother.
06:24I'm Mexican-American, and my favorite comfort food is tamales.
06:28Every year, my grandma and her sisters get together, and they all make tamales for us
06:32to eat on Christmas Eve.
06:34So it really reminds me of home and of Christmas time and of my family, so it's really special.
06:40My family makes the dish with shredded pork and a red chili sauce with green olives.
06:44Basically, right now, only my grandma and my aunts know how to make it, but they've
06:49started to teach me and my mom and my sisters how to do it, so that way we can pass it on
06:53to the next generation.
06:55My favorite comfort food is mamey on toast.
06:57It just has this really rich, really savory, and quite salty flavor, and it's just really
07:01comforting, especially when it's put on some thickly-buttered toast.
07:04I have very vivid memories of eating mamey on toast, particularly when I was feeling
07:08a bit sick.
07:09I had an operation when I was three years old.
07:11I went under general anesthetic.
07:13When I woke up, the nurse said, is there anything we can get you?
07:15And my first request was mamey on toast.
07:17My favorite comfort food is kutio, or Thai noodle soup.
07:20Thai noodle soup is the Thai equivalent of what a deli sandwich is to New Yorkers, and
07:25you can customize each kutio order to be your own.
07:29My go-to order is kutio pet, so duck noodle soup, with sen mee, which are the rice noodles
07:35that are thinner than the ones you have in pho.
07:37I only will eat it in this one noodle shop, and I refuse to have it elsewhere because
07:42they just make it so special, and it sucks because I can't really replicate that experience
07:46in any Thai restaurant here, since they don't really specialize in that.
07:49My favorite comfort food are Colombian arepas.
07:54Colombian arepas are cornmeal patties.
07:55They're typically made with salt, water, and masarepa.
07:58This is my favorite comfort food because when I was a kid, my dad and I did not have matching
08:02schedules at all.
08:03So, by the time we would get home, I was already sleeping, and we wouldn't see each other until
08:07the weekend.
08:08And at the weekends, our favorite family time activity was to make arepas.
08:12It was also the first meal I learned how to make.
08:15So we would gather in our tiny kitchen, mold them together, put it on the stovetop, and
08:21then once they were ready and hot, my dad would put butter on top, sprinkle it with
08:25a little bit of cheese, and then it was delicious, and it's still one of my favorite meals.
08:30My favorite comfort food is Puerto Rican pasteles de yuca.
08:34In Spanish, we call it a masa.
08:35It's like a doughy kind of thing that has, like, you can put stuff in it.
08:39So you can put, like, meat, chicken, you can put vegetables, and then they wrap it around
08:44a banana leaf, and then they boil it.
08:46And we make them in bulk, and it takes two to three days to make.
08:50It's my favorite comfort food because my aunts and my mom, they sit around, we talk,
08:57and they're making this dish that is so reminiscent of our Puerto Rican culture.
09:02My comfort food is tlatmachan.
09:05It's a thin flatbread, almost like pizza, that's enjoyed in and around the Middle East.
09:10It's typically made by taking small dough balls and flattening them into really thin
09:14pieces, and then it's topped with beef or lamb, some vegetables and spices, and then
09:20it's cooked in the oven for just a few minutes.
09:23My family and I typically buy a dozen or so of them from Armenian bakeries or grocery
09:28stores here in L.A. because they make them really tasty.
09:31My comfort food is aji de gallina.
09:34It's a spicy chicken mixture that my grandma used to make all the time.
09:38A yellow pepper that's found in Peru, aji amarillo, is mixed with, you sauté some onions.
09:44Then you're going to add some chicken broth, milk, and crackers or bread.
09:49It's a nice little paste sauce.
09:51And then with some boiled chicken that you shredded.
09:54Aji de gallina reminds me of just Peru in general, living there.
09:58My grandfather had 50, 80 chickens, and my grandma would just grab one, and they would be fresh.
10:06I'm British-Pakistani, and my favorite comfort food is a dish called aloo gurdal gari.
10:11The reason I love this dish so much is because it's a curry.
10:14It's very carby, as opposed to one with lots of gravy.
10:17My mum usually adds to it aloo, potatoes, mirch, chilli, namak, salt, haldi, turmeric,
10:25and then she adds something called panch bharan, which is a blend of five spices.
10:29You blend the spices, you fry them, you add your chopped up potatoes, add water, boil
10:33the water off and let the potatoes break up.
10:35It's really heartwarming, very flavoursome, and it also reminds me of coming home from
10:40school and cooking with my mum, learning to cook with my nani, my mum's mum, who passed
10:45away a few years back.
10:46My two favorite Brazilian comfort foods are cheese bread and feijoada.
10:52For cheese bread, there's definitely not an occasion, it's just everywhere, all the time.
10:56You can eat it at any time of the day.
10:58It's without a doubt the food that I miss the most because it's just the perfect snack.
11:03Feijoada is basically a giant black bean soup.
11:07It's definitely something that I grew up eating and it's very iconic in Brazil.
11:13Almost everyone eats it.
11:14My favorite comfort food has to be ful, which is fava beans, and it's usually served hot,
11:22and it's really easy to make, so that's why we make it all the time.
11:25It contains tomatoes, onions, some people put tahina in it, we put in it a lot of spices.
11:32Usually people eat it with peanut bread.
11:35It's my favorite comfort food because over the summer, my grandpa would make it for breakfast
11:39a lot so he'd wake up and it would be there, so it reminds me a lot of home.
11:43As social beings, social distancing may not be easy.
11:46Let's do what we can and make the most of it by enjoying our favorite comfort foods.
11:50Let us know what your favorite comfort food is and why in the comment section below.