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When words sound different in isolation vs. in a sentence, look up the pronunciation first in a dictionary, then use https://youglish.com

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Comfort food is food that provides a nostalgic or sentimental value to someone, and may be characterized by its high caloric nature, high carbohydrate level, or simple preparation. The nostalgia may be specific to an individual, or it may apply to a specific culture.

The term comfort food has been traced back at least to 1966, when the Palm Beach Post used it in a story: "Adults, when under severe emotional stress, turn to what could be called 'comfort food'-food associated with the security of childhood, like mother's poached egg or famous chicken soup." According to a research by April White at JSTOR, it might have been Liza Minnelli who used the term for the first time in its modern meaning in an interview, admitting to craving a hamburger.

When the term first appeared, newspapers used it in quotation marks. In the 1970s, the most popular comfort food in the United States were various potato dishes and chicken soup, but even at the time, the definition varied from person to person. During the next decades, the nature of comfort food changed in the USA, shifting from savory dishes to sweet ones, while comfort food themed cookbooks started to spread and restaurants started to offer items labelled as such, when originally the term was used for food items consumed 'home alone'. Worldwide diet trends, emerging in the 1990s, like the low fat or the low-carb diet were unable to end the cravings for comfort food. According to White, the COVID-19 pandemic that hit the world in 2020 further strengthened people's need for comfort food that evokes nostalgia and the feeling of belonging.

Consuming energy-dense, high calorie, high fat, salt or sugar foods, such as ice cream or french fries, may trigger the reward system in the human brain, which gives a distinctive pleasure or temporary sense of emotional elevation and relaxation. These feelings can also be induced by psychoactive ingredients found in other foods, such as coffee and chocolate. When psychological conditions are present, people often use comfort food to treat themselves. Those with negative emotions tend to eat unhealthy food in an effort to experience the instant gratification that comes with it, even if only short-lived.

One study divided college-students' comfort-food identifications into four categories (nostalgic foods, indulgence foods, convenience foods, and physical comfort foods) with a special emphasis on the deliberate selection of particular foods to modify mood or affect, and indications that the medical-therapeutic use of particular foods may ultimately be a matter of mood-alteration.

The identification of particular items as comfort food may be idiosyncratic, though patterns are detectable. In one study of American preferences, "males preferred warm, hearty, meal-related comfort foods (such as steak, casseroles, and soup) while females instead preferred comfort foods that were more snack related (such as chocolate and ice cream). In addition, younger people preferred more snack-related comfort foods compared to those over 55 years of age." The study also revealed strong connections between consumption of comfort foods and feelings of guilt.

Comfort food consumption is seen as a response to emotional stress and, consequently, as a key contributor to the epidemic of obesity in the United States. The provocation of specific hormonal responses leading selectively to increases in abdominal fat is seen as a form of self-medication.

Further studies suggest that consumption of comfort food is triggered in men by positive emotions, and by negative ones in women. The stress effect is particularly pronounced among college-aged women, with only 33% reporting healthy eating choices during times of emotional stress. For women specifically, these psychological patterns may be maladaptive.

A therapeutic use of these findings includes offering comfort foods or " happy hour" beverages to anorectic geriatric patients whose health and quality of life otherwise decreases with reduced oral intake.

A partial list by region of comfort foods around the world.

Comfort foods in Afghanistan are:

Australia, New Zealand and South Africa

Comfort foods in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa may include:

A plate of classic poutine at a Montreal restaurant.

A madeleine. A madeleine de Proust is a French expression specifically referring to Marcel Proust's description of comfort food in In Search of Lost Time.

German comfort foods may include the following foods:

Bubur ayam (chicken congee) is an Indonesian comfort food.

Some popular Indonesian foods are considered to be comfort food, usually served hot or warm, and either soupy or with a soft texture. Most of them are high in carbs or fat, such as congee, fried rice, and noodles which are high in carbs; while meatballs and grilled skewered meats contain fair amounts of fat and salt. Comfort foods often are the kind of food that provides nostalgic sentiments, as they often called masakan rumahan (home cooking) or masakan ibu (mother's dishes). In Indonesia, the warm and soft texture of bubur ayam is believed to help people to recover during convalescence. Sayur sop or sup ayam is Indonesian chicken soup that often sought during flu. The warm soup contains chunk of chicken, bits of potato, carrot, and common green bean served in chicken stock.

Some Indonesian comfort foods are traditional Indonesian food and some are derived from Chinese influences. For some Indonesians, especially those who are abroad, comfort food might also be a certain brand or type of Indonesian instant noodle, such as Indomie Mi goreng. Indonesian comfort foods include:

Steamed pierogi, with fried onions on top

Some Polish comfort food include:

Some Puerto Rican comfort foods include:

Russian comfort foods may include:

Chocolate con churros

Comfort foods in Catalonia include:

Pa amb tomàquet (bread smeared with tomato and olive oil, and sometimes garlic)

Allioli (Aioli) (sauce which is an emulsion of garlic and olive oil. The name literally means "garlic and oil" in Catalan)

Catalan-style cod (with raisins and pine nuts)

Escalivada (various grilled vegetables)

Escudella i carn d'olla (a broth, it may be served as soup with pasta and minced meats and vegetables, or as the soup first and then the rest)

Canelons (Cannelloni with a bechamel sauce)

[Fricandó es]

Esqueixada (salted cod salad with tomato and onion)

Mongetes amb botifarra (beans and pork sausage)

[Suquet es] (a seafood casserole)

Savoury coca

[Mar i muntanya ast] ("Sea and Mountain") dishes, which combine meat and seafood

, a generic name for different kinds of cured pork meat, including fuet (a characteristic type of dried sausage), salchichón or llonganissa (salami) and different kinds of cold cut botifarra.

(specially cultivated onion, grilled and served as a "Calçotada")

Sonsos and many other Mediterranean fresh fish

Crema catalana (custard made from egg yolks, milk, sugar, lemon zest and cinnamon)

Panellets (bite-sized cakes in different shapes, mostly round, made mainly of marzipan)

Fondue is an emblematic comfort food[144]

Traditional Swiss cuisine is characterized by its simplicity and extensive use of dairy products like cheese, cream and butter. Fruits (often apple compote) are also used in many (main) dishes, notably Älplermagronen and Maluns.

Mantı, with yogurt and red pepper sauce

Some Turkish comfort foods are:

Börek - baked filled pastries, a wide variety of regional variations of börek exists

Ukrainian comfort foods include, but aren't limitied to:

Bangers and mash is a British comfort food.[157]

United Kingdom comfort foods include:

Macaroni and cheese is an American comfort food.[171]

American comfort foods may include the following foods:

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Comfort food is food that provides a nostalgic or sentimental value to someone, and may be characterized by its high caloric nature, high carbohydrate level, or simple preparation. The nostalgia may be specific to an individual, or it may apply to a specific culture.

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In language studies, the non-linguistic information that helps a reader or listener interpret the meanings of words and sentences. It is also referred to as extra-linguistic knowledge.

Examples and Observations

"'Oh, how do you know that word?' Shimizu asked.
"What do you mean, how do I know that word? How could I live in Japan and not know that word? Everybody knows what the yakuza is,' I answered with slight irritation." (David Chadwick, Thank You and OK!: An American Zen Failure in Japan. Arkana, 1994)

"Crucial to comprehension is the knowledge that the reader brings to the text. The construction of meaning depends on the reader's knowledge of the language, the structure of texts, a knowledge of the subject of the reading, and a broad-based background or world knowledge. First language reading authorities Richard Anderson and Peter Freebody posit the knowledge hypothesis to account for the contribution these elements play in the construction of meaning (1981. p. 81). Martha Rapp Ruddell refines their hypothesis when she claims that these various knowledge elements interact with one another to build meaning...
"Interestingly, it seems as though reading is an excellent source of the knowledge that is needed for reading comprehension. Albert Harris and Edward Sipay, in discussing first-language reading development, state that 'wide reading not only increases word-meaning knowledge but can also produce gains in topical and world knowledge [italics added] that can further facilitate reading comprehension' (1990, p. 533)." (Richard R. Day and Julian Bamford, Extensive Reading in the Second Language Classroom. Cambridge University Press, 1998)

A Child's Development of World Knowledge

"Children develop their knowledge of the world around them as they interact with their environment directly and indirectly. The direct experiences children have in their homes, schools and communities certainly provide the greatest amount of input to the world knowledge base. Much of this knowledge base is developed incidentally without direct instruction. For instance, the child whose commute to the main road takes her along a bumpy, gravel driveway with cows on either side incidentally develops a world map in which driveways embody these characteristics. For this child to develop an understanding of driveways that is more encompassing - in which driveways can be cement, blacktop, dirt, or gravel--she must experience many different driveways either through her own travels, through conversations with others, or through various media..." (Laura M. Justice and Khara L. Pence, Scaffolding With Storybooks: A Guide for Enhancing Young Children's Language and Literacy Achievement. International Reading Association, 2005)

Relating World Knowledge to Word Meanings

"In order to understand a natural language expression it is usually not enough to know the literal ('dictionary') meaning of the words used in this expression and compositional rules of the corresponding language. Much more knowledge is actually involved in discourse processing; knowledge, which may have nothing to do with linguistic competence but is rather related to our general conception of the world. Suppose we are reading the following text fragment.

'Romeo and Juliet' is one of Shakespeare's early tragedies. The play has been highly praised by critics for its language and dramatic effect.

This piece of text is perfectly understandable for us because we can relate its meaning to our general knowledge about culture and everyday life. Since we know that the most famous Shakespeare was a playwright and the main occupation of playwrights is writing plays, we conclude that the word tragedy in this context refers to a work of art rather than to a dramatic event and that Shakespeare has written it rather than, for example, possessed [it]. The time attribute early can refer only to an event, therefore we infer that it modifies the event of Shakespeare writing 'Romeo and Juliet.' Time attributes of art creation events are usually defined relative to the lifetime of the corresponding creators. Therefore we conclude that Shakespeare has written 'Romeo and Juliet' when he was young. Knowing that a tragedy is a kind of play, we can relate 'Romeo and Juliet' to the play in the next sentence. Similarly, the knowledge about plays being written in some language and having dramatic effect help to resolve the anaphoric it."(Ekaterina Ovchinnikova, Integration of World Knowledge for Natural Language Understanding. Atlantis Press, 2012)

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In language studies, world knowledge is the non-linguistic information that helps a reader or listener interpret the meanings of words and sentences.

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Things we need to know about the customs and traditions in the Anglosphere, general knowledge about the world...

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Things we need to know about the customs and traditions in the Anglosphere, general knowledge about the world...

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English definitions

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