Comfort Food

Astral Facts, February 2012

Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.

Comfort Food

On a cold rainy and windy day, isn’t it nice to sit down to a nice hot bowl of chicken noodle soup with favorite music in the background, curl up in front of the fire with a good book and a bowl of hot buttered popcorn, or even watch a classic movie while nibbling on a chocolate bar (movie theater size, of course!)?

While these and others (fill in the blank with your favorite _____ ) classified as “comfort food” are enjoyed by most of us in one way or another, frequently it is the association with some aspects of the “humanities sciences” that completes the comfort. It’s hard to imagine the comfort food without the accompanying “art” – a Polish dog at Costco just doesn’t have the pleasant ambiance as the same item at Safeco Field, Century Link Field, or even Yankee Stadium while the artists are performing on the field.

Have you ever noticed how frequently idiomatic expressions relate to food and reveal cultural values? For example, humans tend to value dessert, as indicated below:

Piece of cake
Easy as pie
The icing on the cake
Takes the cake
Pie in the sky
[Be} in apple pie order
Smart cookie
           And so on.

These all refer to good things. It is not a coincidence that "stressed" is "desserts" spelled backwards!


As the old Pillsbury commercial tune used to go, 

Nothing says lovin'
Like something from the oven,
And Pillsbury says it best!

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waiAcbUcoK0

But of course, rather than having to mix everything and then waiting six minutes for the microwave to finish, what if we could just have it drop from the sky, like manna from heaven!?

That was the concept for the recent (2009) family movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, as revealed in the theater trailer:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEyjj-L5Mv8

If you can’t wait to find it at the Red Box, the entire 90 minutes is available online:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsLE_Zqz57g

So get that large tub of popcorn (or your preferred comfort food) while you can still justify doing so, and enjoy.

Walter Lowe

Astral Facts is a monthly presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices.