Israel Romero / Monday, March 20, 2023 / Categories: Blog Comfort Food: What It Is and Why It's Trending Comfort Food This term is mainly associated with the renewed appreciation of home cooking and traditional flavors, a movement increasingly present in both professional and home kitchens. Return to the Past What Is the Essence of Comfort Food? Comfort Food at Made in Spain Gourmet Can Garriga Creams and Broths La Despensa d’Lujo Return to the Past It is a culinary concept with growing followers that emerged a little more than a decade ago. It consists of eating comforting food, especially traditional recipes capable of connecting people with pleasant emotions from their past. Comfort food defines home cooking, the traditional dishes that comfort us, that tend to provide pleasant sensations that not only act on the palate but also produce an emotional reaction that brings pleasure and, without a doubt, happiness. This trend became popular during the 2008 economic crisis, since people needed satisfying experiences to cope with pressure. Cooking served as an escape valve, offering dishes that recalled better times. Today, after the health crisis we have lived through, Comfort Food is reemerging strongly to lift people’s spirits. Nevertheless, it likely means something different for each of us. What Is the Essence of Comfort Food? People don’t just want to eat to satisfy hunger; they also want to feel emotions and evoke memories so the experience is much more pleasant and helps us disconnect from a reality that doesn’t promise a very rosy future. That is why the taste or smell of a dish we enjoyed in the past will automatically bring back the positive emotion or feeling we experienced before. For example, smelling a dish or a dessert we loved as children will make us feel the joy and security we had at that time and will let us disconnect from the present while we savor it. That is what Comfort Food can convey to people who embrace this way of enjoying more traditional cuisine, since this trend pays tribute to family meals, simplicity, abundance, and the pleasure of eating, the opposite of fast, processed, and unnatural food. This is an important point to bear in mind: although it is something relatively new, Comfort Food has nothing to do with avant-garde cooking or the great creations of top chefs. We are talking about traditional cooking, the dishes that remind us of when we were young or of childhood and that undoubtedly make us relive comforting and happy moments. It is literally enjoying the mint soup my grandmother used to make, or my mother’s croquettes, to name a couple of examples that make my mouth water when I think of them. Comfort Food favors homemade, simple dishes that we have all eaten at some point in our lives, recipes passed down from generation to generation and characterized by the use of top-quality ingredients and products, careful preparation, unhurried cooking, and slow heat. Comfort Food at Made in Spain Gourmet And we couldn’t fail to include in our selection of Spanish gourmet products items that take us back to our happy childhood and the gastronomic traditions we enjoyed with our parents, and that we now relive with great pleasure. Can Garriga Creams and Broths Having their broths and creams makes us remember the sacred moment that was mealtime, when the family gathered around the table to share what my mother or grandmother had cooked. The “puchero,” the broth made from many very good ingredients such as vegetables, chicken, pork, beef… was an elixir that would immunize you against any flu or virus in the air. Excellent are the stew, the chicken, or the vegetable broths. Although I prefer fish for my spoon dishes, to which I add prawns and some fish... The organic broths from Can Garriga offer a unique flavor thanks to their great quality and are a very healthy food for your body. Their ingredients come from local farmers and producers who cultivate using organic criteria; with them they prepare traditional recipes to ensure their products are of the highest quality, healthy, and locally sourced. La Despensa d’Lujo Who didn’t enjoy legume stews (chickpea, bean, or lentil stews) on cold days? Recall them with the legumes from these Galician farmers who care for the land as always, selecting their gems that we enjoy in our usual recipes. The milky chickpeas, the broth beans, or the Castilian lentils from La Despensa D'Lujo always have a place on our menus. I’m sure my grandmother Manuela would be moved if she heard me talk about stews as something as special and valuable in our daily recipes, bringing us excellent memories, while also being very healthy and highly recommended. Although each person can have their own most characteristic Comfort Food dishes. In our online gourmet store, you will surely find many products that will remind you of the pleasure of the authentic, the natural, and the timeless. Ibéricos Maldonado: 100% pure Iberian ham The aperitif: something so typically Spanish... but it wasn't always that way. Print 2 Rate this article: No rating Please login or register to post comments.