My comfort food | Teen Ink

My comfort food

March 18, 2009
By JiEun Roh BRONZE, Fukuoka-shi, Other
JiEun Roh BRONZE, Fukuoka-shi, Other
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

The food that I love most is Bibimbab it is rice and other colorful vegetables mixed up. It is Korean traditional food that uses spicy sauce which tastes really good but also good for your health because it has a lot of vegetables in it. I like it because it's spicy and the many flavors mixed up create one very tasty flavor.

Most people like my friends and even my family don't notice that when I got stressed out or are feeling gloomy because when I have arguments with my friends, I act or pretend to be ok but as soon as I arrive at my house, I close the door and cry. It's actually very easy for me to stress-out.

What do you think I do when I get too much of stress that I can't even breathe? I eat. I open my refrigerator and find anything I can digest. I start to eat and when I get full, I no longer feel any stress. Sometimes I blow off my stress in other ways, but I often over-eat.

I don't know why, but when I'm stressed and looking for something to eat, my mom usually cooks Bibimbab for me. Maybe, this is an incidental thing, but I feel like it is fate that my mom makes Bibimbab for me when I'm sad.

In Korea, word 'Bibim' means mix and 'bab' means rice. When my mom is near me and cooking, I stand there and wait until the rice is ready to mix. When I'm mixing the rice, I put my stress into the bowl and mix with all my power. Sometimes when I've fought with a friend, I even sear while mixing the rice. There's no exact reason, but it makes me feeling lighter and better.

I remember one day I was dying and I felt my anger was jumping and making sick inside of my stomach. At the time I ate Bibimbab like a usual. Because I was so angry, I couldn't swallow or drink anything. I began to panic. But I tried one spoon of Bibimbab anyway. When I had a hard time swallowing and even breathing, I started to cry. I cried for about one hour. But the weird thing was I was crying while eating. I felt so stupid but it made me feel better. I no longer felt angry and stopped crying.

I realized that comfort food can be something that I can lean on. Also it is one way to help me realize the wrong I've done and regret what I did. Nowadays, I don't eat Bibimbab as often as before, but I think it is a very nice thing because I can deal with my stressful feelings secretly without talking to someone who would hover over my feelings too much like I'm baby or a small kid. Eating is not really good way to reduce stress but my experiences made me to think about how food affects our feelings. Maybe you can find your comfort food that you can also lean on.



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