We're sharing this piece because it puts language to something the comfort food trend has been circling for a while: it was never really about the food. As restaurants and home cooks lean hard into nostalgia — grandma's casserole, retro diner classics, "elevated" childhood snacks — this MindSite News essay digs into why that pull is so strong. Food anthropologist Debra Freeman puts it simply: a comfort food is something that makes you feel good and loved in the moment, connected to where you first had it and who prepared it for you — "it's like a hug."
That's the through-line we keep seeing in food trends right now: nostalgia isn't just an aesthetic, it's a coping mechanism. The piece also makes the case that comfort food resists optimization — the goal isn't calorie counts or cholesterol, it's whether the dish will help someone feel better — which cuts against a decade of "healthified" comfort classics. Worth a read for anyone thinking about why nostalgia-driven menus and recipes keep winning right now.
