by Katerina Nikolas

Created on: January 17, 2010   Last Updated: August 01, 2010

Custard, thick, yellow and gloopy. Crumpets, toasted until crispy on the top, oozing and dripping with butter which runs down ones chin. Mugs of hot chocolate with marshmallows floating on the top, alongside milk skins. Trifle which has that special squelch sound as the spoon sinks in through the sherry saturated sponge, the custard layer jelly, and the fresh cream topping. Tomato soup, Heinz of course, heated from the can, now that's real comfort food.

On a cold wet winter afternoon with the rain pouring down outside and the wind rattling the windows, our thoughts may well turn to comfort food, the traditional standbys of our childhoods. Comfort is a form of security and what could be more comforting than sitting by the fire, indulging in our favourite nostalgic foods, with a good book to escape in or an old black and white film playing on the television. For the English these foods may not even be a sit down meal, but an afternoon indulgence washed down with a cup of tea or a glass of sweet sherry.

English comfort foods aren't going to be the same as American or Chinese comfort foods, as foods from our childhoods weren't as international as foods are now. As the world becomes more health conscious it could well be that a few generations down the line the comfort food of our great grand children will be raw carrots and cottage cheese, but for now at least we have comfort foods of the old sinful variety. One thing that comfort foods tend to have in common is they aren't associated with healthy eating or calories, just nostalgia. Perish the thought that comfort foods ever become politically correct.  

Even now comfort food is generational. The elderly gentlemen who frequent their plush men only dining clubs in the centre of London regress to public school days when they order their old favourites of brown soup, kippers and toad in the hole, followed by such pudding delights as jam rolly polly, spotted dick, and syrup pudding.  A slightly younger generation may well prefer to enjoy shepherds pie, cheese on toast, banger's and mash, followed by treacle tart, trifle, or bread and butter pudding. And flapjacks.

Mashed potatoes must be one of the ultimate comfort foods, that is real potatoes mashed with lashings of butter and milk. Will anyone ever feel nostalgic over pellets of dried potato reconstituted by the addition of hot water. Banish the memories of Cadbury’s smash to the dustbin of  bachelor student days when a Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie was the height of culinary excellence.

Foods which wrap us in a nice warm security blanket are our personal indulgences, not a way of life, and best not to offer them at a dinner party to impress. After all your love of powdered butterscotch Angel Delight may be your idea of  perfect food and someone else's idea of completely naff, and sqeezy cheese from a can should be hidden at the back of the fridge. Everyone has their own favourite memory foods which satisfy something within us, leaving us basking in comfort.

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