Food Comfort

A few days ago, a friend asked me if I had a pig-out food when I'm feeling depressed. I answered that usually what happens to me is that I don't pig out on anything, but I do tend to not eat when I'm depressed. That being said, there are definitely foods which I do enjoy and find comfort in, including a number of Chinese dishes.

Morning Foods (These might be eaten at other times, but for me, I associate it with breakfast)

• Chinese Donuts with sweet soy milk
• Rice Porridge, with sides of soy sauce cucumbers, pork sung, brown egg, sweet egg, broiled fish, eel, or preserved duck egg
  

Lunch Foods

• Braised Beef Noodle Soup
  This is one of my favorites that I can't eat anymore due to my avoidance of cow meat. A great cold-weather dish, I have many memories of coming home after a rainy day and finding heaven in the warm noodles and the spiciness of the broth.
• Imperial Spareribs (sometimes called Peking Spareribs)
  I don't remember how I came to discover the dish -- but I do remember my father always ordering this dish for me at Chinese restaurants enough times that I learned the name of the dish -"gin giu pai goo"

Dinner Foods

• Peking Duck
  One style uses pieces of bread, the other uses mushu wrappers. Either way, duck is the yummiest of all birds, even if a bit greasy.
• Steamed Crab
  

Anytime Foods

• Stir-Fried Rice With peas, carrots, green onion, and slices of chinese sausage
  
• Ba Zhang
  I have to use the Taiwanese name for this food item, since I've never heard it translated into English. Ba, I believe means Meat or Pork. This is a pyramid shaped rice bundle, wrapped in a bamboo leaf. The rice is glutinous (sticky) and mixed with shitake mushrooms, chestnuts, pieces of pork, bamboo and brine shrimp. (I used to pick out the brine shrimp when I was kid, I don't do that anymore).
• Pork Sung Sandwich
  Other kids had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as their favorite, but I preferred the Pork Sung sandwich as one of my favorite afterschool quickies. Two slices of white bread, a heaping spoonful of pork sung, and you were set.
• Curry Pork Horns
  Joli-jau. These little pastries are filled with spiced pork, onion and curry.
• Cha Su Bao
  Barbecue Pork Buns. Yummy. I like them steamed best.