Comfort Food

Comfort food is food which provides a nostalgic or sentimental value to the consumer, and is often characterized by its high caloric nature, high carbohydrate level, and simple preparation. The nostalgia may be specific to either the individual or a specific culture.


Anyone that knows me is well aware that my comfort food is pizza! I didn’t realize until reading the official (Wikipedia) description that pizza fits the bill exactly...high calories, high carbs, and simple preparation. Even frozen-to-oven pizza works for me! Better yet, is hot pizza made in a restaurant by someone else!

Pizza has been comfort food for years. My hubby always knew when I had a bad day at work, as I would greet him at the door with a loud, exasperated, demanding shout-out of “It’s a pizza and beer night!” He knew better than trying to cajole me with other food choices. No way! Not tonight!

I had my first pizza in college at one of several pizza joints in town. It was treat as it was more expensive than a cheeseburger and fries, which is my second choice for comfort food. Usually, there were several of us sharing the pizza to be able to cut the cost for each of us. I quickly learned that I couldn’t get enough of the pizza. I wanted more! The sight of the cheese, sauce and meat….got to have meat...on the pizza provided me with a high feeling! It tingled my sense of sight, smell and then the taste. Ow! I burned my mouth on the cheese. Again! Thinking about how many times I have burned my mouth with cheese, it is a wonder that I even like pizza. What’s the saying, “No pain, no gain!”

There was a time in life, that I had pizza every night! I am not kidding! Just ask my sister, we were living together. It was 36 years ago and I was struggling in my life. What to do for a job? At that point I had three part-time jobs and none were related to my college degree. Where do I live? Though I loved living with my sister, I had recently moved back to my home area from Colorado and I was having regrets about leaving Colorado. How do I make more money? The three jobs did not come close to making a living. So I bought a freezer full of pizzas that cost one dollar each. Yes, I had pizza for dinner every night.

It’s ironic that some people label frozen pizzas as “cardboard pizzas.” They were my sustenance and comfort food. Maybe, as the description of Comfort Food lists, pizza has a sentimental value as it kept me alive during a time in my life.

Sometime in our marriage, my hubby and I started having Sunday night pizza. This was usually in the fall and winter months, and usually affiliated with watching football. Again, I enjoy watching football and I especially like my Packers. Pizza has become a meal of celebration or mourning, depending on the score of the game.

It never fails, that when dining out, I will always look at their pizza selections. No, I do not always order pizza. Actually, rarely do I. As I am retired and no longer working, my “pizza and beer nights” have decreased dramatically. Go figure! But, I don’t think I could go a month without pizza. I think three weeks may be the longest I have gone between pizzas.

The last description of comfort food states “the nostalgia may be specific to either the individual or a specific culture.” Of course, pizza is often associated with Italians and rightly so. It was created in Naples, Italy in the late 1800’s. It was a simple pizza (tomato and basil), compared to today’s choices of toppings. When I first started eating pizza in the 1970’s, our choices were red sauce with pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms and a couple of other veggies that I did not care for. Today, many pizza joints are going back to the basics with a lot of vegetarian choices. But, there are lots of other choices in sauces and toppings too.

So, how in the world did a lady with heritage roots in Scandinavia become addicted to an Italian food? I guess I wanted something more than ketchup for my spice of life! To paraphrase a current commercial…. What’s on your pizza?