Comfort food

What do you see there on the breakfast table? I see a coffee sitting next to a lightly toasted white roll, spread with butter. The roll tastes as you would expect something so unexciting to taste. And I'll have it if there's nothing better on offer. All too often there isn't. Brazilian bakeries tend to produce incredibly stodgy food, lacking in subtlety, texture and taste. Croissants are generally dreadful. But my point in asking about this particular toasted roll is that for some Brazilians - perhaps many, maybe all - it is much, much more than a bit of bland, nutritionless carbohydrate. It is ... drum roll please ... the legendary "Pao Na Chapa" or, more prosaically, grilled bread. For P it is a scrumptious, tastebud-titillating treat. If my tone sounds sarcastic, I apologise, it's not meant to. Whatever floats your boat, and if it's an inexpensive treat then so much the better. It just got me thinking about comfort food in general and what a peculiar thing it is, reconnecting us with our own peculiar childhood memories and emotions ... and often making absolutely no sense to anyone else. Fish fingers, anyone ?

PS: P has found a more glamorous picture on Google, presenting this delicacy in a more favourable light. So please click here and ignore my amateurish photo above !

PPS: And here's what a Brazilian blogger has to say about the wonders of milky coffee (Pingado) and pao na chapa. Unsurprisingly, it's in Portuguese but by way of rough transltion she says this combo is one of the most popular Brazilian morning snacks and she often visits padarias (bakery-cafes) solely to get her pao na chapa fix.