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Comfort Food

The word comfort brings images of a large soft pillow or an overstuffed chair. A fleecy clouded sky on a lazy summer day when all is right in the world. The word comfort envelopes a young mother when her baby responds with a first smile. The word comfort as an elderly couple holds hands as they walk on a fall day.

Comfort sings a love song of blessings from God deep inside. Comfort is living a quiet life filled with routine looking up. Comfort is a package tied up with a ribbon of security and safeness as you fall asleep at night with prayer of thanksgiving to God in your heart.

Comfort holds you in an embrace with joy as you give even a smile, a hug or a gift to someone. Comfort sings a melody that cascades like a bubbling brook when you share freely your possessions or gifts with others.

Comfort can be physical. Combine the word comfort with food. The memories are evoked of the foods that bring sweet shared memories. Comfort food for me evokes childhood memories of pluma moos, cinnamon-filled Schnetje and home canned golden peaches. Fried chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy, watermelon and roll-koka. Fresh whole wheat bread with home churned butter melting. Mirangue 2 inches high on chocolate or butterscotch pie. Homemade angel food cake made with egg whites, separated from egg yokes – eggs from our own chicken. Other recipes – http://library.ndsu.edu/grhc/foods/recipe/index.html

I remember the picnics with the teen boys from Dad’s Sunday School class. Mother made molasses gingerbread. I watched as the boys grabbed piece after piece, praying there would be some left. If there was, Mom toasted the left over gingerbread topped with fluffy marshmallows in the oven. Then there was the homemade peppermint ice cream once a year on July the 4th – Mom’s birthday. It was made richer with the cream and eggs from our one cow and chickens. Homemade borscht soup, of Russian heritage, warmed our bodies and hearts on a cold winter day.

Over all these comfort moments of eating arched the rainbow of Mother’s love as she prepared the food, and taught us how to make even hash from left over food.

Comfort can be emotional or it can be spiritual. Man cannot live by bread alone, even Grandmother Suderman’s Zwieback and Christmas Peppernuts (without anise) or Grosmom Siemens’ molasses cookies cannot provide spiritual comfort. These ladies also ‘served’ God’s spiritual food with their examples of love and giving – providing the kind of comfort that brings spiritual strength. The kind of comfort that bridges disappointment and hurt.

My Mother and my two grandmothers taught me about Jesus. He knew that we would need comfort to find our way through the labyrinth of life in the world. Sometimes the disappointments, terror and uncertainties can cause discomfort that threatens our very lives.

It was my thought to provide recipes of the comfort foods I enjoyed, but the spiritual comfort is everlasting and more to be desired than physical comfort food. The words sink into our minds and hearts providing us everlasting comfort that cannot be taken away.
  • Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Psalm 23:4
  • The LORD is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid? Psalm 27:1
  • My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life. Psalm 119:50
  • May your unfailing love be my comfort, according to your promise to your servant. Psalm 119:76
  • Shout for joy, O heavens; rejoice, O earth; burst into song, O mountains! For the LORD comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.
  • John 6:48 – I am the bread of life. Isaiah 49:13
  • Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God ; trust also in me. John 14:1

When we walk into our kitchens to prepare a meal, it can be crowded with memories of our past, our mother, our grandmothers and aunts are there with us. Food is never just food. It’s also a way of getting at something else: who we are, who we have been, and who we want to be. Molly Wizenberg (2010’s Homemade Life)


As you eat, rejoice, give thanks to God, for the real comfort food comes from our Lord.

Comments? eacombs@cox.net

Recommended – Mennonite Foods & Folkways from South Russia, Vol I – Norma Jost Voth