Comfort foods bring together families, cultures, with tradition and memory

By Cailyn Corbett

December 31, 2025

Youthcast Media Group®

My family is one with many old traditions —some good, some bad, and some that have surely been forgotten. But one stands out to me the most: If you were sick, sad, or just having a rough day, somebody would make you a cup of tea and some hot chicken soup. 

It didn't matter if you even liked tea or soup, it was my family’s way of showing that they cared. As I’ve grown older, tea and hot chicken soup have become a dish I make for myself when I’m down or when I just want to feel happier. When I’m sipping, even though nobody’s there to comfort me, I feel like I’m not alone.

Cailyn Corbett

Many people and families have similar traditions; maybe it’s a dish you make yourself, or one that has been passed down from your family's cultural origin. Wherever they might come from, comfort foods are everywhere. But what exactly makes a food comforting and why are they all so different?

“It’s something that makes you feel good and loved in the moment and I think it makes you feel connected to where you were when you first had it, who prepared it for you,” says food anthropologist Debra Freeman, creator of the Setting the Table podcast. “I love a great steak, but [I don’t] associate it with a tangible memory. So a comfort food is something that makes you feel better. It's like a hug.” 

When food historian Leni Sorensen thinks of comfort food, she thinks of tender, flavorful foods that are “easily edible by everybody, from the two-year-old to the 95-year-old.” 

“For a lot of people, it's what they had as children, when they were sick or at special family functions, where they were indulged and allowed to eat as much of whatever it was as they wanted,” Sorensen says. For her, a BLT with fresh-picked, homegrown tomatoes is the taste of summer. When she mentions it, I am suddenly transported to my own summers, when we would enjoy a BLT to mark the end of swim meets.

Leni Sorensen

Comfort foods are everywhere because they can be eaten by anyone. And with comfort food, anyone can remember what they are looking for when they think of it. “[It’s] that association with memory, and a family connection,” Freeman says. “Although I never met my great, great grandmother … I've had her food. There's this immediate connection, that's three generations back that connects this line of women. I think it's pretty powerful. A woman I never met who lived a life very different from mine, we have that in common, we have that connection, and I am passing that down to my daughter.” 

The connection between family and tradition is what connects people to their respective comfort foods and their histories. Even if everyone has a different comfort food, we can all understand that connection through the feeling the food brings. “Individuals have individual items, [but] whole culture groups have items they think of in that way,” says Sorensen. “They even have items that they don't actually eat but they think of as iconic, family food.” Sorensen gives the example of chitterlings, also known as “chitlins,” a traditional Southern food made from stewing or boiling pig intestines until they’re tender. “That's a country food very strongly associated with African Americans,” Sorensen says, and even though most people don’t eat chitlins much these days, they still think of them as an iconic food.  

But if comfort foods are so based on tradition and the specific way they’re made, do they lose their charm if the recipe is changed, for example, to make it healthier? 

“I think they can certainly be [changed],...but I don't think that's the intent of a comfort food,” Freeman says. "You're not thinking about calorie count, you're not thinking about cholesterol or high blood pressure, or any of those things. I think the immediate goal is, will this make someone emotionally feel better?” Freeman says. “It will help them get through something rough, whether they're sick or had their first breakup.”

Comfort foods are meant for comfort, and that comfort is for the soul, more than the body. When someone wants to be comforted, they probably aren’t worrying in that moment about making themselves “healthier” in the long run. If making it healthier is what makes someone happy, then that could be done, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be the case. 

Whether you’re sick, sad, or something else, comfort food is something that you can turn to and feel better. Everyone has their own comfort food and way of eating, but even beyond individuals and cultures, comfort foods are something that connects everyone. 

“I think culturally… even though we may be eating different things, we're all still trying to get the same thing back,” Freeman says. “Our foods may be different, our cultures may be different, but in the end, the goal is still the same: to make you feel loved, to make you feel better, to make you feel good. Food is really such a great way to show how we're much more similar than we are different.”

Cailyn Corbett is a freshman at Annandale High School, one of Youthcast Media Group’s journalism class partners. She worked with YMG mentor-editor Hannah Gaber on this story.