COMFORT FOOD

                                                                 Mom, dad, my brother and I at age 10

I pretty much grew up with little memory of comfort food. As a child I don't remember food being used as a means to appease, to cajole or to numb.

But if I close my eyes and think hard enough, the nearest thing to comfort food would probably be a thick, dark and sweet soy sauce. The Indonesian kind. And that was not even a dish. It was a condiment. 

Nevertheless that is what brings me back to my childhood, the foodie way. Mom mixed it into white rice with filleted fried fish. I savoured every grain of rice and the pieces of fish that clung to it. 

That and Wood's Peppermint Cough Syrup. Oh boy did I love that stuff. I relished the minty, the sweet and the slight bitterness in it. I secretly devoured spoonfuls of the caramel-like panacea clean off the spoon when I wasn't sick. And occasionally toothpaste. I loved that too. (I know....)

Before you go off thinking that I had a deprived and warped childhood...don't. It wouldn't be fair to my parents. We lived comfortably. We enjoyed our meals. But food wasn't the centre of our universe. It wasn't a topic for conversations. Eating was not a form of escapism under stressful conditions or an obsession that my parents encouraged even on a subconscious level. In short, food wasn't at the top of our minds...at least not mine. 

I was too busy frolicking and living an extended childhood. I don't think I ever wanted to grow up. When I remember picnics it is the activity rather than the food that lingers on in my mind.

I never did want to give up the feel of cold, perky water caressing my ankles as I stood squealing in the stream, or the sound of rustling leaves around me, or of the rain that pelted down like bullets, or of the laughing wind that l imagined lifted me and my umbrella a few inches off the ground one sweep at a time, or the abandoned drains that my brother and I crawled through, or our L-shaped house that stood patiently on the hill, or the tree that humoured me or the excitement I partook in the adventures of The Famous Five. Comfort, for me, was in the living. Not in the food.

I'm glad there were no barriers in my childhood at the time. We were free to roam and lose ourselves in our 'wilderness'.  Food wasn't the living force. The world was.

But the world, as I know it now, no  longer opens its arms in welcome, safety and comfort to our children. And buildings have sprouted in places where once there was vegetation. So for my children and theirs, comfort, I suppose, has to be found in food.

Like a  Cappuccino Brownie Cheesecake. For some reason I feel like one right now. Or perhaps I'll have that after a large plate of spicy, hot and confusing Mamak Fried Noodles. I'll admit that these are insanely comforting.....but only because I'm not up to climbing up trees or crawling through drains anymore.

                   Surviving the 'wilderness', aged 6