Comfort food anyone?

Strange how many people resort to eating whenever they feel down and low. While chocolate has been one of the favourites with depressed people, of late, the conept of comfort food has been on a steady rise in the country. Significantly, several well-known brands or chain of restaurants, or even food joints, have risen to the task of catering to the fast increasing consumer of this segment.

"These food items, which are categorized under comfort food, are connected to happy memories which add to the pleasure of consuming them," explains Aksheya Shetty, a Mumbai-based IT executive. "It so happens that we connect the food items with people or moments just like we connect gifts to happy occasions," he adds.

Comfort food essentially refers to any food item consumption of which helps to enhance the emotional well-being of a person. Some of the most popular comfort food items in the country are soups, baked beans with rice or boiled vegetables, puddings, spaghetti, stews and pasta or Continental dishes, among others.

Nidhi Bhatia, 25, a media executive from Hyderabad, however, insists that for her comfort food means ghar ka khaana. "Staying away from home, in another city altogether, brings with it nostaligic feelings and near-cravings for home-made food. I miss the rajma chawal and chaas, more than anything," she says. If comfort food is anything that brings warm feelings with it, well, people have more reasons to feel happy now.