
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 16, 1992                   TAG: 9203160143
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COMFORT FOOD NOTHING SOOTHES LIKE SOUP

THEY TELL us spring arrives before the end of this week. But we all know there'll still be cold snaps and long miserable days of rain or sleet before the lilacs bloom.

And, they say, when the winter leaves, so will the flu and cold season. But that, too, we know to be a more hopeful statement than true.

We'll still have some sniffles and shivers before there are leaves on the trees. We'll still need some vegetable soup.

That's my comfort food, the treat I long for when my body aches or my throat feels raw, the warmth I crave when the wind is making the pines by the house creak and whine.

Home-made vegetable soup. You know the kind I mean. The kind with great chunks of stew meat and globes of tomato that float in a glistening brine. The kind with potatoes cut into tiny pyramids, lima beans, peas, raggedy corn shaved right off the cob, and carrots thrown in for color.

The kind you can only make five gallons of at a time.

Of course, there are other comfort foods. Chocolate's comforting properties are renowned. Chicken soup's legendary, too. My grandmother used to bring me little cups of baked custard, the likes of which I've never seen or tasted anywhere since.

I've taken solace in tapioca and in ice cream. There've been times I've been known to dispel black and desperate moods with bags of potato chips and pints of French onion dip. And, of course, there are Girl Scout cookies. Especially the peanut butter.

You don't need to write and tell me that eating is not a wisely picked coping technique. I know that. But I'm not speaking of wisdom here. I'm speaking of comfort.

For sadness or sickness or whatever ails you - I know that we've each turned to food.

Just think of the comfort of vegetable soup on a cold, lonely night when even the cat won't have anything to do with you. The telephone won't ring, there's nothing on the TV, no clean underwear for tomorrow, and the washing machine's on the blink. You need something on a night like that. Something like vegetable soup.

I was horrified to learn, when I married, that the man I'd chosen didn't care much for vegetable soup. "You don't like vegetable soup!" I cried. How would this ever work out?

I've learned that he'll eat it, if there's nothing else. But choose it? He'd rather have chocolate cake.

Well, there's no accounting for taste.

But that, alone, gave me hope. Maybe not vegetable soup, but he has his comfort food, too.

Whatever works, I say now. To each his own.

by CNB