How comfort food got its name

Week 3 in the Me before Mom series, hosted by Carla at All of Me Now, asks the question:

What was your favorite home cooked meal as a kid? Did you help make it? How did it make you feel? Share the scents, sights, and flavors.

My mom found out she had MS when I was 8 years old. She had to go on disability when it got too difficult for her to work. I think she felt guilty about her illness and how it affected my brother and I. She was the most loving parent and, though we had very little money, she always made sure we had home cooked meals. When we celebrated, we got home baked sweet treats. When we were sad or had a particularly rough day, she would make us our favorite meal. This is probably why I associate food with comfort. It was the one thing she could control when her body would not always cooperate.

My mom put a big focus on us eating dinner as a family. Even though our family was just me, my mother, and my brother, we ate together almost every night. No eating in front of the TV, no distractions, just dinner together where we would talk about our day and things that were going on in our lives. As an adult I look back on our dinners together and am glad she didn't let us chomp mindlessly to some show. I now make that a priority in our house and the only food eaten in front of a TV is on football days!

My mom was originally from Indiana. She grew up with all-American meals and we had much of the same. I can pretty much recite our menu staples: Fried Chicken, Spaghetti with Ragu and garlic bread, Polish sausage (always dipped in a combo of ketchup and mustard) and fried potatoes, Americanized ground beef tacos, and my favorite, meatloaf with mashed potatoes and canned corn. While I try to make healthier, more diverse meals for my family, I still make that meatloaf meal. it is not some fancy multi ingredient meatloaf. It is the recipe on the back of the Lipton onion soup mix and I love it...and so do my kids. The only thing I hated about that meal was the "combo". My brother, like all little brothers, lived to torture me. I was a weirdo special and didn't like my food to touch. My brother knew this and would purposely try to gross me out by making his combos. On meatloaf night a combo would be taking his piece of wheat bread, buttering it, layering on meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn, and ketchup and making sure I knew how much he was enjoying it as he ate. Bleh. Thankfully, I have moved past my food issues because my kids make combo bites of that meal now, minus the wheat bread.

While times have changed and I have grown up, certain meals can always bring me back to my childhood. I cherish these memories and hope I am building some for my own kids.