20 Best comfort foods across the globe

 Herrine Ro: In these stressful

and uncertain times of quarantine,

people from all over the world

are seeking comfort in food.

Comfort food can fix any bad day.

It's typically high in

sugar, fat, and/or salt.

And the beauty of comfort

food is that it varies

from person to person.

It's rooted in where you're from

and who you grew up with.

We asked 20 people from

different cultural backgrounds

to share what comfort food is to them.

I'll start with mine.

My favorite comfort food is kimchi jjigae,

or kimchi stew.

I'm Korean American,

and, growing, up my mom made kimchi jjigae

pretty often for dinner.

My mom's kimchi jjigae has that son-mat.

Son-mat in Korean means, like, hand taste.

The best way I can describe

it is my mom's special touch.

Even if I try to make

my mom's kimchi jjigae

here in New York City,

I can't get that taste

because it lacks my mom's special touch.

So, basically, the flavors

that you're getting

are, like, spicy, salty,

fatty, sour.

It's basically everything that I crave

when I'm missing my mom.

Tomi Obebe: I'm Nigerian,

and one of my favorite

comfort foods has to

be amala and okra soup.

To make it, you take some yam flour

and you pour it into boiling hot water,

stir it up very quickly,

and it gets to this

nice thick consistency.

From there, you portion

it out to whatever size

you'd like for your meal.

And then you can dip it

into your soup of choice.

And not only is it a super-tasty meal,

but after you eat it, [snaps] it hits you,

and it puts you in one

of those nice food comas.

I remember sneaking into

the kitchen as a toddler

and trying to tear off

small pieces of amala,

or, like, the eru seeds

that they put in the soup

and taking it back to my playroom.

So, of course, now anytime that I have it,

I just automatically think of home.

Sarah Isoke: I'm Trinidadian,

and my favorite comfort

food is bake and saltfish.

Bake and saltfish is a

dish comprised of bake,

which is dough rolled out,

and a fish called bacalao.

It's a salted cod that

we chop up, we boil,

and we sauté with sweet

tomatoes and sweet onions.

I think it's my favorite

comfort food just because

it brings back a memory of my grandmother.

She used to own a daycare,

and whenever she was

making something with dough, like bake,

she would roll up little

pieces of the dough

and give it to the children to play with.

And we would just

go crazy for those little pieces of dough.

Matthew Ferere: My favorite

Haitian comfort food is griot.

Griot is fried pork shoulder

that has a special cut

where it has just the right amount of fat

and just the right amount of skin on it.

You would season it well,

bake it briefly,

and then fry it.

So, after that, it'll get that nice

crispy on the outside,

tender on the inside taste.

I can remember being a child,

you know, at every Haitian

gathering, family party,

if you had griot on your plate that night,

you knew it was gonna be a good night.

Lisa Paradise: My comfort

food has always been pastina,

which is like a really unhealthy version

of Italian wedding soup.

It has no vegetables.

It's really just pasta and meatballs.

So, the way that my

mom makes her meatballs

is really what I always crave.

She does a mix of pork, of ground pork,

ground beef, and ground veal.

And then she adds in

just five ingredients.

So, the five ingredients are salt, pepper,

garlic powder, parsley, and cheese.

It's not just, like, Parmesan cheese;

it's always pecorino Romano cheese.

That's, like, the go-to key ingredient.

Whenever I go home or whenever I'm, like,

sad or sick or whatever,

that's what I want my mom to make me,

or that's what I, like, want to eat.

Naja Newell: I'm from

New York, and my favorite

comfort food is grilled cheese.

Growing up as picky eater,

grilled cheese was the

No. 1 thing I could get

from every single family member

and every single restaurant

and it be almost the exact

same every single time.

So, today when I make

grilled cheese for myself,

I just use white or wheat bread,

and I'll use white American cheese.

It reminds me of being

best friends with my mom.

Alyson Brown: I'm Alyson Brown, and today

we're gonna talk about beef patties,

because that's my favorite

Jamaican comfort food.

Growing up, my father used to bring home,

like, a box of beef patties.

And he used to put them on the table

and it was first come, first serve,

and if you did not get your beef patty,

you would be tight.

I love beef patties because

of how diverse they are.

You could get a beef

patty, a callaloo patty,

a ackee patty, any type of patty.

My family is Jamaican.

The're from Jamaica.

I'm American, I was born here.

But when we go to Jamaica, it's over.

The patties are, like, hot

and ready. They delicious.

Manuel Silva-Paulus: I'm

from New York, I'm Dominican,

and my favorite comfort food is mangu.

Mangu is basically like mashed potatoes,

but instead of potatoes,

it's plantains.

And it's a breakfast food,

so most Dominicans will

eat it in the morning.

Mangu is typically eaten

with cebollas on top,

which is onions;

queso frito on the side,

which is fried cheese;

salami, which is a type of meant;

and usually, like, some people

will get a fried egg on it.

Personally, I love eggs,

so I always get them on it.

The reason why mangu is

my favorite comfort food,

besides the fact that it's delicious,

is because it just reminds me of being

in the Dominican Republic and just, like,

being around great weather, sunny,

like, just an all-around great vibe.

Selena Singh: My comfort

food is pepperpot.

It came from Guyana's first people,

known as the Amerindians.

Pepperpot is a meal that

is boiled with cassareep

and spices and any choice of meat,

but my personal favorite is beef.

It can be eaten with anything;

bread, cassava bread, rice,

anything you would like.

Pepperpot reminds me of Christmastime

and all the family time

and a rich culture in Guyana.

Samantha Lee: My favorite

comfort food is congee,

a type of rice porridge.

It's often eaten with yau ja gwai,

also known as a Chinese doughnut.

There are also many

different types of congee.

I've had it plain, with dried scallops,

with preserved egg and salted pork,

and just whitefish.

Growing up, my mom would

make this for breakfast some days,

and she would also make

it for me when I was sick

and I couldn't keep any solid foods down.

My mom passed away in January of 2018,

so the process of making

congee and eating it

reminds me of her love, her dedication,

and her patience as my mother.

Isabella Paoletto: I'm Mexican American,

and my favorite comfort food is tamales.

Every year, my grandma and

her sisters get together

and they all make tamales for

us to eat on Christmas Eve,

so it really reminds me of home

and of Christmastime and of my family,

so it's really special.

My family makes the

dish with shredded pork

in a red chili sauce with green olives.

Basically, right now only my grandma

and my aunts know how to make it,

but they've started to teach me and my mom

and my sisters how to do it, so that way,

we can pass it on to the next generation.

Harry Kersh: My favorite comfort

food is Marmite on toast.

It just has this really

rich, really savory,

and quite salty flavor.

And it's just really comforting,

especially when it's put on

some thickly buttered toast.

I have very vivid memories

of eating Marmite on toast,

particularly when I

was feeling a bit sick.

I had an operation when I was 3 years old.

I went under general anesthetic.

When I woke up, the nurse said,

"Is there anything we can get you?"

And my first request was Marmite on toast.

Nisha Stickles: My favorite

comfort food is kuay teaw,

or Thai noodle soup.

Thai noodle soup is the Thai equivalent

of what a deli sandwich is to New Yorkers.

And you can customize each

kuay teaw order to be your own.

My go-to order is kuay teaw ped,

so duck noodle soup with sen mee,

which are the rice

noodles that are thinner

than the ones you have in pho.

And I only will eat it

in this one noodle shop,

and I refuse to have it elsewhere

because they just make it so special.

And it sucks because I

can't really replicate

that experience in any

Thai restaurant here

since they don't really

specialize in that.

Jennifer Hernandez: My

favorite comfort food

are Colombian arepas.

Arepas are cornmeal patties

that are typically made

with salt, water, and masarepa.

This is my favorite comfort food

because when I was a kid, my dad and I

didn't have matching schedules at all.

So by the time he would get

home, I was already sleeping,

and we wouldn't see each

other till the weekend.

And at the weekends, our favorite

family-time activity was to make arepas.

It was also the first meal

I learned how to make.

So, we're gathered in our tiny kitchen.

Mold them together, put

it in the stove top,

and then once they were ready and hot,

my dad would put butter on top,

sprinkle it with a little bit of cheese,

and it was delicious.

And it's still one of my favorite meals.

Cory Villegas: My favorite comfort food is

Puerto Rican pasteles de yuca.

In Spanish, we call it amasa.

It's like a doughy kind of thing.

It has, like...

you can put stuff in it.

So, you can put, like, meat, chicken,

you can put vegetables.

I mean, they wrap it around a banana leaf,

and then they boil it.

And we make them in bulk.

I mean, it takes two

to three days to make.

It's my favorite comfort food

because my aunts and my

mom, they sit around,

we talk, and they're making this dish

that is so reminiscent of

our Puerto Rican culture.

Caroline Aghajanian: My

comfort food is lahmajun.

It's a thin flatbread, almost like pizza,

that's enjoyed in and

around the Middle East.

It's typically made by

taking small dough balls

and flattening them

into really thin pieces,

and then it's topped with beef or lamb,

some vegetables, and spices,

and then it's cooked in the

oven for just a few minutes.

My family and I typically

buy a dozen or so of them

from Armenian bakeries or

grocery stores here in LA

because they make them really tasty.

Arturo Valenzuela: My comfort

food is aji de gallina.

It's a spicy chicken mixture

that my grandma used to make all the time.

A yellow pepper that's

found in Peru, aji amarillo,

is mixed with, you sauté some onions,

then you're gonna add

some chicken broth, milk,

and crackers or bread.

It's a nice little paste sauce,

and then with some boiled

chicken that you shredded.

Aji de gallina reminds me

of just Peru in general.

Living there, my grandfather had

50, 80 chickens,

and my grandma would just grab one,

and it would be fresh.

Ruqayyah Moynihan: I'm British

Pakistani, and my favorite

comfort food is a dish

called aloo ki tarkari.

The reason I love this dish so much

is because it's a curry.

It's very carby as opposed

to one with lots of gravy.

My mum usually adds to it

aloo, potatoes; mirch, chili;

namak, salt; haldi, turmeric;

and then she adds something

called panch phoron,

which is a blend of five spices.

You blend the spices, you fry them,

you add your chopped-up

potatoes, add water,

boil the water off, and

let the potatoes break up.

It's really heartwarming, very flavorsome.

And it also reminds me of

coming home from school

and cooking with my mom,

learning to cook with

my naani, my mom's mom,

who passed away a few years back.

Barbara Corbellini Duarte:

My two favorite Brazilian

comfort foods are cheese

bread and feijoada.

For cheese bread, there's

definitely not an occasion.

It's just everywhere, all the time.

You can eat it at any time of the day.

It's without a doubt the

food that I miss the most

because it's just the perfect snack.

Feijoada is basically

a giant black bean soup.

It's definitely something

that I grew up eating,

and it's very iconic in Brazil.

Almost everyone eats it.

Aynour Elkasaby: My favorite comfort food

has to be ful, which is fava beans.

And it's usually served hot.

And it's really easy to make,

so that's why we make it all the time.

It contains tomatoes, onions,

some people put tahini in it,

and we put in it a lot of spices.

Usually, people eat it with pita bread.

It's my favorite comfort food

because, over the summer,

my grandpa would make

it for breakfast a lot.

So we'd wake up, and it would be there.

So it reminds me a lot of home.

Herrine: As social beings,

social distancing may not be easy.

Let's do what we can

and make the most of it

by enjoying our favorite comfort foods.

Let us know what your

favorite comfort food is

and why in the comment section below.