Undergraduate /
Comfort, Texas Style. - Common Application UNC Supplement [3]
The topic question for this essay is, "What is your comfort food and why?", for the UNC Supplement to the Common Application. It should be around 250-500 and I am currently at 492.
All suggestions, comments, or critiques are greatly appreciated and I will return the favor.
Thank you for taking the time to read my essay and supplying your input!
Sitting in a crowded restaurant, surrounded by close friends and family, cousins running amuck, a waiter walking by with a tray full of the next table's dinner, and suddenly the familiar smell of traditional mashed potatoes and crispy chicken fried steak takes me back to the lovely times at grandma's house. My mind aimlessly wanders to those frigid winter nights when only a home-made meal was enough to defrost one's toes and belly. There was grandma, bent over the home grown potatoes, peeling then placing them in the pan of boiling water, mashing and mixing, adding this and that, until finally the creamy and buttery aroma filled the entire house. It was enough to send your salivary glands into a frenzy. Next came the tender slab of steak. The fresh pieces made their first stop in the flour mixture, then it was on to be dipped in the eggs, before finally landing in the baking mix and into the skillet they went. No matter where you were in that old farm house, the crackling and hissing of meat reaching oil could be heard. My favorite meal being cooked to perfection is a sound I'll never forget.
Food is a language that has no barrier. Whether you grow up in India, a mountainous city in the Alps, or a small Texas town, there is always a meal that conjures up feelings of joy and safety, memories of childhood, or just simple pleasure. Comfort food, as it is known, has the magical ability of conveying the sensation of warmth and contentment, or at least for me it does. Place a heaping plate of mashed potatoes and a hearty serving of Texas' famous chicken fried steak in front of me and you've found the way to my heart. To me, this one meal has a sort of medicinal effect. Being down in the dumps is obviously of no enjoyment and gliding my knife through the succulent piece of steak reminds me of family traditions, being with close friends, and that life is never as bad as it seems.
You learn in science classes everywhere that food is essential to life. Without it our bodies would not function properly and could not thrive, but there is so much more to food than the biological make up that keeps our body running. Along with the physiological benefits, these special meals we call our comfort food stimulate our emotional being as well. The first bite of those white clouds of steamy goodness and the lip-smacking, juicy steak causes me to reminisce on Sunday night suppers at grandma's, traveling cross country and stopping at Cracker Barrel's along the way, or the nights my friends and I would go to the local Trail Dust, line dancing to our favorite songs and only stopping when our chicken fried steak was placed on the table. For so many reasons beyond flavor, this culinary culture of the Lone Star State certainly fulfills me.
