Nancy Matos

Reader Question: “I miss my grandma and her Sunday evening comfort food.”

Could you explain “comfort food”?

My comments: Ah, “comfort food”. Ice cream, donuts, chocolate, and in the case of Sunday evening dinners at grandma’s, roast beef and mashed potatoes with gravy. Usually, comfort food is high in calories with little or no nutritional value that one eats when they are down. A girl who breaks up with her boyfriend may be so depressed that all she wants to do is drown her sorrows in a tub of H?agen-Dazs ice cream. That cookies and cream flavor may be just the thing to bring her some (temporary) joy during her difficult time. Likewise, a bad day at work may lead someone to a McDonald’s where they can get an emotional release through a Big Mac and large fries.

But as in the case given in the example above, comfort food isn’t always junk food. It can also be food that brings a person back to a special place or memory by eating it. Chinese students studying abroad who miss home, for example, may find solace by visiting a local Chinese restaurant and having some jiaozi. The taste and smell of the dumplings can remind them of food from home, bringing them comfort in simply one bite.

本文僅代表作者本人觀點(diǎn)，與本網(wǎng)立場無關(guān)。歡迎大家討論學(xué)術(shù)問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發(fā)布一切違反國家現(xiàn)行法律法規(guī)的內(nèi)容。

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Nancy Matos is a foreign expert at China Daily Website. Born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, Nancy is a graduate of the Broadcast Journalism and Media program at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Her journalism career in broadcast and print has taken her around the world from New York to Portugal and now Beijing. Nancy is happy to make the move to China and join the China Daily team.