Comfort food is about dishes such as Nigel for mashed potato and includes such nursery Slater’s roast-chicken risotto, using the left- stalwarts as fishcakes and rice pudding, overs from Sunday lunch. A little meditative plus a divine chocolate fudge cake, which chopping of shallots, followed by 20 minutes ‘Serves 10. Or one with a broken heart’. of mindful stirring—accompanied, of course, There’s also a recipe for one of the most by a glass of the wine you’ve sloshed over soothing, restorative things there is to eat: the rice. The result, says Mr Slater in his chicken soup. book Real Food, is ‘as soothing as The inspiration for a bestselling series Chicken soup for the soul sucking a thumb’. of American self-help books, Chicken The secret is how these foods make Soup for the Soul, and known as ‘Jewish us feel, whether it’s the starchy penicillin’, recent studies have found the The rest of the world may laugh, but shepherd’s pie, steak-and-kidney pudding and embrace of rice, potatoes or pasta or the broth to contain anti-inflammatory and pleasurable hit of chocolate. On a physical antibacterial properties. As with the stirring treacle sponge remain on our menus like old friends, lifting spirits in times of need. level, they are uplifting. About 20 years of risotto or ricing of potatoes, it’s doubly Flora Watkins dives into the best of British comfort food ago, there was a book called Potatoes soothing—once in the making and again Not Prozac, which advised people with in the eating. There’s something deeply Illustrations by Annabelle King low mood to eat carbohydrates because satisfying in boiling up the carcass and they boost serotonin and aid sleep. giblets of the Sunday roast with carrots, N victory, I deserve it, in defeat, I need ‘Nothing like mashed potatoes when you’re They’re dishes that ‘take us back to a sup- Then, the low-carb and ‘clean-eating’ onion, celery and some odd fronds of parsley, it,’ said Sir Winston Churchill of his feeling blue,’ declares Rachel in Heartburn, posedly simpler and happier time’. In times movements came along and one can only ensuring that nothing is wasted. favourite tipple, Champagne. When Nora Ephron’s thinly disguised novel about of stress or turmoil, she will turn to ‘roast wonder if there’s a link between this and the I like to savour my soup slowly on a Monday the chips are down, however, most the breakdown of her marriage to the Water- chicken, shepherd’s pie, rhubarb sponge— modern malaise—anxiety. After all, no one Where better to evening, to recover from the hectic start Iof us need a bit more ballast than a bottle gate journalist Carl Bernstein. As Rachel, the foods of my childhood, which still give with a broken heart ever sought solace in to the week. Strictly speaking, the stodge of Pol Roger can provide. Chips, in fact, will a food writer, picks over the bones of the me so much pleasure to cook and eat now’. a bowl of cauliflower rice. retreat than beneath component (non-negotiable when it comes do nicely—preferably with ketchup as well relationship, her ruminations are inter- Comfort food is unpretentious fare, the In her book Nigella Bites (2001), Nigella a fluffy duvet to comfort food) should be knaidlach as mayonnaise—as will most variations spersed with some of her favourite antithesis of molecular gastronomy or the Lawson offers a whole chapter on comfort (little dumplings made with matzo meal on the tuber. On those days when recipes. Potatoes (three ways), bacon Nordic foraged-food thing. It’s the culinary food. It opens with—what else?—a recipe of mashed potato and schmaltz, or chicken fat), but, for the world feels an unfriendly place, hash (bacon, egg, yet more potatoes), equivalent of a big, bosomy hug from a beloved where better to retreat than pot roast and bread pudding, dishes she grandmother, transporting you straight back beneath a fluffy, 15-tog duvet describes as ‘nursery food’. to her kitchen. Pastry scraps rolled out on of mashed potato, melded Our notions of comfort food are ‘bound a flour-speckled farmhouse table, dogs dozing blissfully with lots of up in nostalgia and childhood memories,’ in their baskets, the warm fug of cinnamon butter and cream? says food writer and historian Angela Clutton. emanating from the Aga. ease, I throw in a handful of basmati rice or steak-and-kidney pudding into the rich, melt- orzo soup pasta at the end. Ultimate comfort: The Ivy’s shepherd’s pie ing steak and kidney beneath and suddenly Fat and carbs, together with a heady dose you’re eight years old again, with trees to climb, (Serves 8) of nostalgia, are the essential components The Beano to read and Mum about to dish of comfort food, feels Ysenda Maxtone Ingredients up a delicious lunch—and that’s the point. Graham, author of Terms and Conditions: • 1kg each of good-quality lamb and beef mince ‘We play on that here at the restaurant,’ Life in Girls’ Boarding Schools 1939– Mr Franklin reveals. ‘There are a lot • Vegetable oil, for frying 1979: ‘It has to be stodge; anyone who’s of guests who’ve been doing million- been to a girls’ boarding school has to eat • Three large onions, peeled and finely chopped pound deals all morning. When they’re comfort food on a Sunday evening. It’s about • Two cloves garlic, having lunch, it’s nice for them to have smothering emotions! Something really crushed something that can subconsciously simple and easy to eat—pasta or mashed • A good handful of thyme transport them to the family table.’ potato—that slips down easily.’ • 25g flour His cooking is heavily influenced by Women, she believes, are more likely than • 50g tomato purée the food his mother made for her three men to seek refuge in comfort food. ‘My hus- sons. ‘It was simple, homely fare,’ he • 150ml red wine band, when he’s stressed, starves himself recalls. ‘She’d make chicken pies, fish pies. —he’ll have a comfort cigarette.’ By con- • 50ml Worcester sauce Really good, unfussy cooking.’ trast, many women ‘do slightly associate • 1 litre dark-meat stock Food with such a palpable feel of home food with guilt; an illicit treat’. • 8 servings of firm isn’t light on the carbs or animal fats— Our notion of comfort food, of quality mashed potato with butter, whoever heard of diet comfort food? What’s time with a baked Camembert or a packet but no cream added heavy on nostalgia does, unfortunately, tend of Jaffa Cakes, is ‘relatively recent,’ explains to sit heavily on the hips. Miss Clutton. ‘For centuries, the food on our Method Luckily, when you’re stressed, sad or lonely, tables was dictated by wealth, food, supply, • Continue to simmer the meat until the it’s not the time to worry about what the • Season the meat. Heat the oil in a frying A post-prandial hot chocolate can go the seasons. “Mood” was far less of a factor,’ liquid has almost evaporated. Germans call kummerspeck (literally, ‘grief pan until it is very hot and brown the meat she continues. ‘As we moved into having in small batches. Drain in a colander • Check the seasoning; transfer to a large a long way to putting the world to rights more choice of what we eat, then we began to remove the fat. ovenproof serving dish and allow to cool. to factor in how food makes us feel.’ bacon’: the weight gained by someone who and brown on top, the mince, in its deep • Top with the mashed potato. Furrow Those feel-good dishes we turn to—such • Heat more oil in a cast-iron pan and gently overeats following a trauma). However, even bath of thyme, beef stock and red wine, fry the onion, garlic and thyme until they are with a fork. A little Parmesan as steak-and-kidney pie, treacle sponge, during the most testing times, one doesn’t as unctuous as one of Trollope’s clergymen. very soft (10–15 minutes), but not coloured. can be grated over with macaroni cheese—haven’t been venerated need to overindulge. Just as Mark Twain I always use a recipe I was given for The a microplane, if wished. by the rest of the world. More fool them. • Add the meat, dust with flour. Add tomato could ‘live for two months on a good compli- Ivy’s aforementioned pie (see box), its com- The Ivy’s shepherd’s pie has long been purée. Cook for a few minutes, stirring. • Bake at 200˚C/ ment’, one hit of creamy mash slathered bination of lamb and beef mince making one of the most-requested items on its menu • Add the wine, Worcester sauce and stock 400˚F/gas mark 6 over tender, slow-cooked meat has the it particularly tasty. and Holborn Dining Room, London WC1, and bring to the boil. Simmer for 40 minutes. for 35–40 minutes, clout to buck us up for days. For those occasions when a quick hit until the top is brown has become a destination on account of chef • At this stage, strain off about 200ml of the It’s hardly scientific, but, for me, the is what’s needed, a boiled egg and soldiers, and crispy. Calum Franklin’s pies (Country Life, March sauce to serve with the pie. formula of (buttery carbs) + (rich, soupy crumpets and Marmite, or even beans on 20, 2019). Bite through the suet pastry of his meat) x (thoughts of somewhere safe and toast, will suffice. And for pudding? If you comforting) = shepherd’s pie, every time. have room left for spotted dick, I salute you. Ideally, the furrows of mash will be crisp Otherwise, a few squares of Green & Black’s or a post-prandial hot chocolate can go a long No one ever sought way to putting the world to rights. ‘What a pity we can’t make a cup of Oval- solace in a bowl tine,’ muses Dulcie in Barbara Pym’s No Fond Return of Love. ‘Life’s problems are of cauliflower rice often eased by hot, milky drinks.’

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