20 Comfort Foods From Around The World _ Around The World

Discovery Islam

#food #comfortfood #aroundtheworld #20comfortfoodsfromaroundtheworld _ Around The World  #foodinsider   20 Comfort Foods From Around The World _ Around The World _ Food Insider

Transcript

00:00In these stressful and uncertain times of quarantine, people from all over the world

00:09are seeking comfort in food.

00:12Comfort food can fix any bad day.

00:14It's typically high in sugar, fat, and or salt.

00:18And the beauty of comfort food is that it varies from person to person.

00:21It's rooted in where you're from and who you grew up with.

00:24We asked 20 people from different cultural backgrounds to share what comfort food is

00:28to them.

00:29I'll start with mine.

00:31My favorite comfort food is kimchi jjigae or kimchi stew.

00:36I'm Korean American, and growing up, my mom made kimchi jjigae pretty often for dinner.

00:41My mom's kimchi jjigae has that sonmat.

00:43Sonmat in Korean means like hand taste.

00:47The best way I can describe it is my mom's special touch.

00:51Even if I try to make my mom's kimchi jjigae here in New York City, I can't get that taste

00:55because it lacks my mom's special touch.

00:58So basically, the flavors that you're getting are like spicy, salty, fatty, sour.

01:06It's basically everything that I crave when I'm missing my mom.

01:10I'm Nigerian, and one of my favorite comfort foods has to be amala and okra soup.

01:15To make it, you take some yam flour and you pour it into boiling hot water, stir it up

01:20very quickly, and it gets to this nice thick consistency.

01:23From there, you portion it out to whatever size you'd like for your meal, and then you

01:26can dip it into your soup of choice.

01:28Not only is it a super tasty meal, but after you eat it, it hits you and it puts you in

01:33one of those nice food comas.

01:35I remember sneaking into the kitchen as a toddler and trying to tear off small pieces

01:39of amala or like the irises that they put in the soup and taking it back to my playroom.

01:44So of course now, any time that I have it, I just automatically think of home.

01:49I'm Trinidadian.

01:50My favorite comfort food is bacon saltfish.

01:53Bacon saltfish is a dish comprised of bake, which is dough rolled out, and a fish called

02:02bakalao.

02:03It's a salted cod that we chop up, we boil, and we saute with sweet tomatoes and sweet

02:10onions.

02:11I think it's my favorite comfort food just because it brings back a memory of my grandmother.

02:16She used to own a daycare, and whenever she was making something with dough, like bake,

02:21she would roll up little pieces of the dough and give it to the children to play with,

02:25and we would just go crazy for those little pieces of dough.

02:29My favorite Haitian comfort food is grillo.

02:32Grillo is fried pork shoulder that has a special cut where it has just the right amount of

02:37fat and just the right amount of skin on it.

02:39You would season it well, bake it briefly, and then fry it, so after that it'll get that

02:45nice crispy on the outside, tender on the inside taste.

02:49I remember being, as a child, at every Haitian gathering, family party.

02:55If you had grillo on your plate that night, you knew it was going to be a good night.

03:00My comfort food has always been pastina, which is like a really unhealthy version of Italian

03:05wedding soup.

03:06It has no vegetables, it's really just pasta and meatballs.

03:09So the way that my mom makes her meatballs is really what I always crave.

03:13She does a mix of ground pork, ground beef, and ground veal, and then she adds in just

03:18five ingredients.

03:19So the five ingredients are salt, pepper, garlic powder, parsley, and cheese.

03:25It's not just like Parmesan cheese, it's always Pecorino Romano cheese.

03:28That's the go-to key ingredient.

03:30Whenever I go home or whenever I'm sad or sick or whatever, that's what I want my mom

03:35to make me, or that's what I want to eat.

03:37I'm from New York, and my favorite comfort food is grilled cheese.

03:42Growing up as a picky eater, grilled cheese was the number one thing I could get from

03:46every single family member and every single restaurant, and it'd be almost the exact same

03:52every single time.

03:54So today when I make grilled cheese for myself, I just use white wheat bread, and I use white

04:01American cheese.

04:02It reminds me of being best friends with my mom.

04:06I'm Allison Brown, and today we're going to talk about beef patties, because that's my

04:11favorite Jamaican comfort food.

04:12Growing up, my father used to bring home a box of beef patties, and he used to put them

04:16on the table, and it was first-come, first-served, and if you did not get your beef patty, you'd

04:19be tight.

04:21I love beef patties because of how diverse they are.

04:24You could get a beef patty, a callaloo patty, an ackee patty, any type of patty.

04:27My family is Jamaican.

04:29They're from Jamaica.

04:30I'm American.

04:31I was born here.

04:32But when we go to Jamaica, it's over.

04:34The patties are hot and ready.

04:35They're delicious.

04:36I'm from New York.

04:37I'm Dominican, and my favorite comfort food is mung boo.

04:40Mung boo is basically mashed potatoes, but instead of potatoes, it's plantains, and it's

04:46a breakfast food, so most Dominicans will eat it in the morning.

04:50Mung boo is typically eaten with cebollas on top, which is onions, queso frito on the

04:55side, which is fried cheese, salami, which is a type of meat, and usually some people

05:00will get a fried egg on it.

05:01Personally, I love eggs, so I always get it on it.

05:03The reason why mung boo is my favorite comfort food, besides the fact that it's delicious,

05:07is because it just reminds me of being in the Dominican Republic, and just like being

05:13around great weather, sunny, like just an all-around great vibe.

05:17My comfort food is pepper pot.

05:19It came from Guyana's first people known as the Amerindians.

05:23Pepper pot is a meal that is boiled with casserole and spices and any choice of meat, but my

05:28personal favorite is beef.

05:30It can be eaten with anything, bread, cassava bread, rice, anything you would like.

05:36Pepper pot reminds me of Christmas time and all the family time and all the rich culture

05:41in Guyana.

05:42My favorite comfort food is congee, a type of rice porridge.

05:46It's often eaten with yau za guai, also known as a Chinese donut.

05:51There are also many different types of congee.

05:53I've had it plain, with dried scallops, with preserved egg and salted pork, and just whitefish.

06:02Growing up, my mom would make this for breakfast some days, and she would also make it for

06:06me when I was sick, and I couldn't keep any solid foods down.

06:10My mom passed away in January of 2018, so the process of making congee and eating it

06:18reminds me of her love, her dedication, and her patience as my mother.

06:24I'm Mexican-American, and my favorite comfort food is tamales.

06:28Every year, my grandma and her sisters get together, and they all make tamales for us

06:32to eat on Christmas Eve.

06:34So it really reminds me of home and of Christmas time and of my family, so it's really special.

06:40My family makes the dish with shredded pork and a red chili sauce with green olives.

06:44Basically, right now, only my grandma and my aunts know how to make it, but they've

06:49started to teach me and my mom and my sisters how to do it, so that way we can pass it on

06:53to the next generation.

06:55My favorite comfort food is mamey on toast.

06:57It just has this really rich, really savory, and quite salty flavor, and it's just really

07:01comforting, especially when it's put on some thickly-buttered toast.

07:04I have very vivid memories of eating mamey on toast, particularly when I was feeling

07:08a bit sick.

07:09I had an operation when I was three years old.

07:11I went under general anesthetic.

07:13When I woke up, the nurse said, is there anything we can get you?

07:15And my first request was mamey on toast.

07:17My favorite comfort food is kutio, or Thai noodle soup.

07:20Thai noodle soup is the Thai equivalent of what a deli sandwich is to New Yorkers, and

07:25you can customize each kutio order to be your own.

07:29My go-to order is kutio pet, so duck noodle soup, with sen mee, which are the rice noodles

07:35that are thinner than the ones you have in pho.

07:37I only will eat it in this one noodle shop, and I refuse to have it elsewhere because

07:42they just make it so special, and it sucks because I can't really replicate that experience

07:46in any Thai restaurant here, since they don't really specialize in that.

07:49My favorite comfort food are Colombian arepas.

07:54Colombian arepas are cornmeal patties.

07:55They're typically made with salt, water, and masarepa.

07:58This is my favorite comfort food because when I was a kid, my dad and I did not have matching

08:02schedules at all.

08:03So, by the time we would get home, I was already sleeping, and we wouldn't see each other until

08:07the weekend.

08:08And at the weekends, our favorite family time activity was to make arepas.

08:12It was also the first meal I learned how to make.

08:15So we would gather in our tiny kitchen, mold them together, put it on the stovetop, and

08:21then once they were ready and hot, my dad would put butter on top, sprinkle it with

08:25a little bit of cheese, and then it was delicious, and it's still one of my favorite meals.

08:30My favorite comfort food is Puerto Rican pasteles de yuca.

08:34In Spanish, we call it a masa.

08:35It's like a doughy kind of thing that has, like, you can put stuff in it.

08:39So you can put, like, meat, chicken, you can put vegetables, and then they wrap it around

08:44a banana leaf, and then they boil it.

08:46And we make them in bulk, and it takes two to three days to make.

08:50It's my favorite comfort food because my aunts and my mom, they sit around, we talk,

08:57and they're making this dish that is so reminiscent of our Puerto Rican culture.

09:02My comfort food is tlatmachan.

09:05It's a thin flatbread, almost like pizza, that's enjoyed in and around the Middle East.

09:10It's typically made by taking small dough balls and flattening them into really thin

09:14pieces, and then it's topped with beef or lamb, some vegetables and spices, and then

09:20it's cooked in the oven for just a few minutes.

09:23My family and I typically buy a dozen or so of them from Armenian bakeries or grocery

09:28stores here in L.A. because they make them really tasty.

09:31My comfort food is aji de gallina.

09:34It's a spicy chicken mixture that my grandma used to make all the time.

09:38A yellow pepper that's found in Peru, aji amarillo, is mixed with, you sauté some onions.

09:44Then you're going to add some chicken broth, milk, and crackers or bread.

09:49It's a nice little paste sauce.

09:51And then with some boiled chicken that you shredded.

09:54Aji de gallina reminds me of just Peru in general, living there.

09:58My grandfather had 50, 80 chickens, and my grandma would just grab one, and they would be fresh.

10:06I'm British-Pakistani, and my favorite comfort food is a dish called aloo gurdal gari.

10:11The reason I love this dish so much is because it's a curry.

10:14It's very carby, as opposed to one with lots of gravy.

10:17My mum usually adds to it aloo, potatoes, mirch, chilli, namak, salt, haldi, turmeric,

10:25and then she adds something called panch bharan, which is a blend of five spices.

10:29You blend the spices, you fry them, you add your chopped up potatoes, add water, boil

10:33the water off and let the potatoes break up.

10:35It's really heartwarming, very flavoursome, and it also reminds me of coming home from

10:40school and cooking with my mum, learning to cook with my nani, my mum's mum, who passed

10:45away a few years back.

10:46My two favorite Brazilian comfort foods are cheese bread and feijoada.

10:52For cheese bread, there's definitely not an occasion, it's just everywhere, all the time.

10:56You can eat it at any time of the day.

10:58It's without a doubt the food that I miss the most because it's just the perfect snack.

11:03Feijoada is basically a giant black bean soup.

11:07It's definitely something that I grew up eating and it's very iconic in Brazil.

11:13Almost everyone eats it.

11:14My favorite comfort food has to be ful, which is fava beans, and it's usually served hot,

11:22and it's really easy to make, so that's why we make it all the time.

11:25It contains tomatoes, onions, some people put tahina in it, we put in it a lot of spices.

11:32Usually people eat it with peanut bread.

11:35It's my favorite comfort food because over the summer, my grandpa would make it for breakfast

11:39a lot so he'd wake up and it would be there, so it reminds me a lot of home.

11:43As social beings, social distancing may not be easy.

11:46Let's do what we can and make the most of it by enjoying our favorite comfort foods.

11:50Let us know what your favorite comfort food is and why in the comment section below.

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