Home cookin' is traditionally comfort foods which often provides a nostalgic or sentimental feeling to the person eating it. The nostalgic element most comfort food has may be specific to either the individual or a specific culture.
Psychological Effects
Comfort foods may be consumed to positively pique emotions, to relieve negative psychological effects or to increase positive feelings. The term was first used, according to Webster's Dictionary, in 1977.
One study divided college-students' comfort-food identifications into four categories (nostalgic foods, indulgence foods, convenience foods, and physical comfort foods) with a special emphasis on the deliberate selection of particular foods to modify mood or effect, and indications that the medical-therapeutic use of particular foods may ultimately be a matter of mood-alteration.
The identification of particular items as comfort food may be idiosyncratic, though patterns are detectable. In one study of American preferences, "males preferred warm, hearty, meal-related comfort foods (such as steak, casseroles, and soup), while females instead preferred comfort foods that were more snack related (such as chocolate and ice cream). In addition, younger people preferred more snack-related comfort foods compared to those over 55 years of age." The study also revealed strong connections between consumption of comfort foods and feelings of "guilt pleasures."
Comfort food consumption typically has a strong emotional connection and is understood to the brain as a form of "self-medication." Further studies suggest that consumption of comfort food is triggered in men by positive emotions and extremely therapeutic.
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