Food: The Universal Balm

No matter where you live or what culture you belong to, if you visit someone, what is the first thing they do after they offer you the most comfortable chair in the house? They feed you. Feeding someone is the surest way to signal to them that they are very welcome in your home. What happens when someone falls ill or dies? The pots and pans come flying out of the cupboards and a casserole marathon ensues. I wonder how many cups of tea were consumed in the course of history as tears were shed and problems discussed and solved. There seems to be nothing in life that a cup of tea cannot fix. Along with a piece of cake or pie. In times of trouble, it gives people- and probably more so with women- great satisfaction to feed other people as it is the most basic way to comfort others. If we are expecting company- what do we do? We run to the store to pick up a few things to feed them. A couple of years ago, my husband's brother stopped one night and I had nothing in the house to give him. And I mean nothing: no pie, no cake, not even a cookie to throw at him. I was mortified. But I'll be damned if I wasn't going to feed him something. I made him two pieces of toast with jam and served that with his tea. Offered my apologies and luckily, he had an excellent sense of humor.
Food also provides physical relief: ice cream in the summer, hot chocolate in the winter, chicken soup for a cold. It is a constant companion to just about all events in our lives. A cake to celebrate a birthday. Someone dies, we go to breakfast after the funeral. There's a luncheon at a christening and we get a dinner at a wedding. We can't watch TV without our favorite snack. Go to a national football, hockey, baseball (insert your sport of choice here) and get yourself a hot dog, a pretzel and some beer. After a night of drinking, we go out for breakfast (in the US) or to the local chipper for a takeaway (in Ireland). Movies are better with popcorn. A first date usually involves dinner and a movie.