and uncertain times of quarantine,

people from all over the world

are seeking comfort in food.

Comfort food can fix any bad day.

It's typically high in sugar, fat, and/or salt.

And the beauty of comfort food is that it varies

from person to person.

It's rooted in where you're from

and who you grew up with.

We asked 20 people from different cultural backgrounds

to share what comfort food is to them.

I'll start with mine.

My favorite comfort food is kimchi jjigae,

or kimchi stew.

I'm Korean American,

and, growing, up my mom made kimchi jjigae

pretty often for dinner.

My mom's kimchi jjigae has that son-mat.

Son-mat in Korean means, like, hand taste.

The best way I can describe it is my mom's special touch.

Even if I try to make my mom's kimchi jjigae

here in New York City, I can't get that taste

because it lacks my mom's special touch.

So, basically, the flavors that you're getting

are, like, spicy, salty,

fatty, sour.

It's basically everything that I crave

when I'm missing my mom.

Tomi Obebe: I'm Nigerian, and one of my favorite

comfort foods has to be amala and okra soup.

To make it, you take some yam flour

and you pour it into boiling hot water,

stir it up very quickly,

and it gets to this nice thick consistency.

From there, you portion it out to whatever size

you'd like for your meal.

And then you can dip it into your soup of choice.

And not only is it a super-tasty meal,

but after you eat it, [snaps] it hits you,

and it puts you in one of those nice food comas.

I remember sneaking into the kitchen as a toddler

and trying to tear off small pieces of amala,

or, like, the eru seeds that they put in the soup

and taking it back to my playroom.

So, of course, now anytime that I have it,

I just automatically think of home.

Sarah Isoke: I'm Trinidadian,

and my favorite comfort food is bake and saltfish.

Bake and saltfish is a dish comprised of bake,

which is dough rolled out,

and a fish called bacalao.

It's a salted cod that we chop up, we boil,

and we sauté with sweet tomatoes and sweet onions.

I think it's my favorite comfort food just because

it brings back a memory of my grandmother.

She used to own a daycare, and whenever she was

making something with dough, like bake,

she would roll up little pieces of the dough

and give it to the children to play with.

And we would just

go crazy for those little pieces of dough.

Matthew Ferere: My favorite Haitian comfort food is griot.

Griot is fried pork shoulder that has a special cut

where it has just the right amount of fat

and just the right amount of skin on it.

You would season it well,

bake it briefly,

and then fry it.

So, after that, it'll get that nice

crispy on the outside, tender on the inside taste.

I can remember being a child,

you know, at every Haitian gathering, family party,

if you had griot on your plate that night,

you knew it was gonna be a good night.

Lisa Paradise: My comfort food has always been pastina,

which is like a really unhealthy version

of Italian wedding soup.

It has no vegetables.

It's really just pasta and meatballs.

So, the way that my mom makes her meatballs

is really what I always crave.

She does a mix of pork, of ground pork,

ground beef, and ground veal.

And then she adds in just five ingredients.

So, the five ingredients are salt, pepper,

garlic powder, parsley, and cheese.

It's not just, like, Parmesan cheese;

it's always pecorino Romano cheese.

That's, like, the go-to key ingredient.

Whenever I go home or whenever I'm, like,

sad or sick or whatever,

that's what I want my mom to make me,

or that's what I, like, want to eat.

Naja Newell: I'm from New York, and my favorite

comfort food is grilled cheese.

Growing up as picky eater,

grilled cheese was the No. 1 thing I could get

from every single family member

and every single restaurant

and it be almost the exact same every single time.

So, today when I make grilled cheese for myself,

I just use white or wheat bread,

and I'll use white American cheese.

It reminds me of being best friends with my mom.

Alyson Brown: I'm Alyson Brown, and today

we're gonna talk about beef patties,

because that's my favorite Jamaican comfort food.

Growing up, my father used to bring home,

like, a box of beef patties.

And he used to put them on the table

and it was first come, first serve,

and if you did not get your beef patty,

you would be tight.

I love beef patties because of how diverse they are.

You could get a beef patty, a callaloo patty,

a ackee patty, any type of patty.

My family is Jamaican.

The're from Jamaica.

I'm American, I was born here.

But when we go to Jamaica, it's over.

The patties are, like, hot and ready. They delicious.

Manuel Silva-Paulus: I'm from New York, I'm Dominican,

and my favorite comfort food is mangu.

Mangu is basically like mashed potatoes,

but instead of potatoes,

it's plantains.

And it's a breakfast food,

so most Dominicans will eat it in the morning.

Mangu is typically eaten with cebollas on top,

which is onions;

queso frito on the side,

which is fried cheese;

salami, which is a type of meant;

and usually, like, some people will get a fried egg on it.

Personally, I love eggs, so I always get them on it.

The reason why mangu is my favorite comfort food,

besides the fact that it's delicious,

is because it just reminds me of being

in the Dominican Republic and just, like,

being around great weather, sunny,

like, just an all-around great vibe.

Selena Singh: My comfort food is pepperpot.

It came from Guyana's first people,

known as the Amerindians.

Pepperpot is a meal that is boiled with cassareep

and spices and any choice of meat,

but my personal favorite is beef.

It can be eaten with anything;

bread, cassava bread, rice,

anything you would like.

Pepperpot reminds me of Christmastime

and all the family time

and a rich culture in Guyana.

Samantha Lee: My favorite comfort food is congee,

a type of rice porridge.

It's often eaten with yau ja gwai,

also known as a Chinese doughnut.

There are also many different types of congee.

I've had it plain, with dried scallops,

with preserved egg and salted pork,

and just whitefish.

Growing up, my mom would

make this for breakfast some days,

and she would also make it for me when I was sick

and I couldn't keep any solid foods down.

My mom passed away in January of 2018,

so the process of making congee and eating it

reminds me of her love, her dedication,

and her patience as my mother.

Isabella Paoletto: I'm Mexican American,

and my favorite comfort food is tamales.

Every year, my grandma and her sisters get together

and they all make tamales for us to eat on Christmas Eve,

so it really reminds me of home

and of Christmastime and of my family,

so it's really special.

My family makes the dish with shredded pork

in a red chili sauce with green olives.

Basically, right now only my grandma

and my aunts know how to make it,

but they've started to teach me and my mom

and my sisters how to do it, so that way,

we can pass it on to the next generation.

Harry Kersh: My favorite comfort food is Marmite on toast.

It just has this really rich, really savory,

and quite salty flavor.

And it's just really comforting,

especially when it's put on some thickly buttered toast.

I have very vivid memories of eating Marmite on toast,

particularly when I was feeling a bit sick.

I had an operation when I was 3 years old.

I went under general anesthetic.

When I woke up, the nurse said,

"Is there anything we can get you?"

And my first request was Marmite on toast.

Nisha Stickles: My favorite comfort food is kuay teaw,

or Thai noodle soup.

Thai noodle soup is the Thai equivalent

of what a deli sandwich is to New Yorkers.

And you can customize each kuay teaw order to be your own.

My go-to order is kuay teaw ped,

so duck noodle soup with sen mee,

which are the rice noodles that are thinner

than the ones you have in pho.

And I only will eat it in this one noodle shop,

and I refuse to have it elsewhere

because they just make it so special.

And it sucks because I can't really replicate

that experience in any Thai restaurant here

since they don't really specialize in that.

Jennifer Hernandez: My favorite comfort food

are Colombian arepas.

Arepas are cornmeal patties that are typically made

with salt, water, and masarepa.

This is my favorite comfort food

because when I was a kid, my dad and I

didn't have matching schedules at all.

So by the time he would get home, I was already sleeping,

and we wouldn't see each other till the weekend.

And at the weekends, our favorite

family-time activity was to make arepas.

It was also the first meal I learned how to make.

So, we're gathered in our tiny kitchen.

Mold them together, put it in the stove top,

and then once they were ready and hot,

my dad would put butter on top,

sprinkle it with a little bit of cheese,

and it was delicious.

And it's still one of my favorite meals.

Cory Villegas: My favorite comfort food is

Puerto Rican pasteles de yuca.

In Spanish, we call it amasa.

It's like a doughy kind of thing.

It has, like...

you can put stuff in it.

So, you can put, like, meat, chicken,

you can put vegetables.

I mean, they wrap it around a banana leaf,

and then they boil it.

And we make them in bulk.

I mean, it takes two to three days to make.

It's my favorite comfort food

because my aunts and my mom, they sit around,

we talk, and they're making this dish

that is so reminiscent of our Puerto Rican culture.

Caroline Aghajanian: My comfort food is lahmajun.

It's a thin flatbread, almost like pizza,

that's enjoyed in and around the Middle East.

It's typically made by taking small dough balls

and flattening them into really thin pieces,

and then it's topped with beef or lamb,