Eat. Drink. Repeat.       

Comfort Foods- Unleashed              

        Comfort foods- a generic name that tries to describe the exhilarating feel you get as you survey the majestic buffet table at Thanksgiving complete with mashed potatoes, fried chicken, baked beans, potato salad, rice, apple pie, sweet potatoes, curry chicken, turkey, and homemade fries spiced with onion powder, and a dash of salt. If this word- "comfort foods"- is new to anyone, that’s okay because not many chefs use the term(on Emeril Live©, anyway). I only heard the term watching a televison show on the Food Network © a couple of years ago. I found it to be a perfectly self- explanatory word for what I called ‘Toilet Runners’. I actually prefer my name now because it is very truthful. Do not expect to go throught the night and not take a long vacation to the restroom. If you find the next morning that I am lying, check your drawers........
        Back to the point, comfort foods( as they are called to my half satisfaction) are bursting with homemade flavor. These are the foods that are NOT found at Mc Donalds©( Despite what Ronald says). Despite contrary belief, French Fries, a Big Mac©, an apple pie in its little red box( oh plllllllllleaassssssse), and a large Coke© are not good ‘ole fashioned home cooking. You may argue: " Mc Donald’s apple pie is homemade!"- give me a break. Their apple pie is nothing but a frozen, sugar- high, bland, crusty piece of chalk( no offense to Mc Donalds© fans). Real apple pie is made from scratch- as in no canned apples. Everything comes directly from the earth that grew it- except for the foil, or the oven, or the baking sheet, or the pie crust holder- but you get my point. It used to be that only the products that had the name "Grandma’s something or the other" in the title or had an emblem with a little old lady tasted like they were made from scratch.
       Now, other small companies have sprung up advertising "new recipes, same old- fashioned techniques " are sometimes true to their word. Even some fast- food chains like Wendy’s© have introduced new food items that do not taste like a factory. Boston Market, though, rises above all the rest. The ingenious restaurant serves warm watch-as-it-roasts chicken( seasoned of course) and has the best sides including, but not limited to: dill potatoes, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, cinnamon apples with just the right amount of cinnamon, green beans and moist cornbread- to go! For dessert, they have fresh, sweet- smelling cake and cookies with "Grandma something, something.." in the name- so you know they taste good. Boston Market combines fast food with real cooking to produce what I like to call ‘Toilet Runners that help you get to the toilet faster!’( Heh, Heh, bad joke, I know.) Moving on, there is the looming question of what comfort foods are exactly. In this next needlessly long sentence, I will explain to the confused and the about to be confused.
       Comfort foods are the moist, succulent, spicy, juicy, fluffily overpowering in taste, plate bending, sweet like white chocolate, too good to be true, make you warm all over, no preservatives added, made from scratch( not actually by scratching), wow I gained three pounds after dinner, I cannot stop eating it, ohhhh I need fifths on this, non Mickey D’s tasting foods that are essentially anything you can put in your mouth and say: "I am definitely going to need a bigger plate."             
        There is also some confusion as to what the phrase "made from scratch" means and where it originated. The phrase means ‘made without the aid of pre- concocted garble. Only the very bare ingredients are allowed to be bought. It most- likely originated from an itchy chef who, every time itched, said to himself: "scratch, scratch, scratch". One day a reporter was interviewing him at the chef’s restaurant and asked him about his success. At the same time the chef began to itch and his response to the question was: "scratch, scratch, scratch". The reporter ,confused as he was, published the phrase and everyone who could read began saying it. Soon the phrase was shortened to "scratch" and " made from" was added on. From then on when a successful recipe was created or made, the term to describe it was "made from scratch". ( I have no clue what I am talking about, but it was worth a try.)
- Allan La Grenade- Finch (FormI)