Confessions of a Corporate Shopaholic

Comfort food is a fabulous term.  It is broad enough to let each of us define what it is according to our personal tastes and experiences, while at the same time graphic enough to depict the cause as well as the result, i.e., a desire of comfortness.

It’s the choice where you keep returning to even if you have the luxury to consume the most exquisite and exotic cuisines of the world.  It’s one of those nights when you just don’t want to dress up for fancy restaurants and pretentious table manners after a long hard week of work and traveling.  It’s not only the food itself, but also the state of mind that you have attached to the pursuit and consumption of such.  It’s a beautiful and satisfying craving, along with soothing emotional thoughts.

It’s highly individualized, though one can generally find some consensus choices in each culture.  Evidently, a lot of these choices involve sugar, candies, desserts, foods that are deep-fried and filling, or generally anything with strong salt and flavoring that tickles our taste buds.   And why is that?  It’s the kind of food which we craved for when we were young, often prohibited by our parents, and at the time when healthy eating wasn’t the tiniest bit of our concerns.

Eating is one of our most primary sensory forms aside from the obvious need to stay alive.  Aside from the taste and texture of what we put into our mouths, the state of mind around us at the time is a compelling memory.  The steamy soothing bowl of noodles at 4am in my dormitory room has created a lasting impression on – you know what – instant noodles.  I remember my days abroad in a cold lonely night with my books and the tiniest black and white TV, and an empty stomach resulted from unheard of supper times of 5pm.  That remains to be my comfort food until today.  It’s actually my “friend” then.  It’s where I was, what I was doing, and how I was feeling at the time of consumption that makes it my personal choice.

Comfort food is like music.  You love certain oldies because it reminds you of whom you were loving and accompanying at the time.  The scene immediately pops into your head.  You feel the heartache, the tears, the joy, and the simpler times.  We love our mothers’ cooking because it’s familiar, it’s warm, and its unconditional love even though we know it may not be the most delicious or sophisticated cooking we have tried.  Regardless, we still engulf our moms’ cooking, with tiny tears in our eyes and like there is no tomorrow, because it comforts us.

That’s the reason why despite the tens of thousands of exotic and sophisticated eateries in the city, there are still smaller players that continue to provide simpler and fulfilling comfort foods to those in need.  Selling comfort food is like selling warmth and memories.  If there is a place where I can visit and recapture my youthful experiences and dreams, they have secured my wallet.

For now, that place is called home.  My Mom’s home.