Exploring Cross-cultural Comfort Food Narratives in Beryl Shereshewsky’s YouTube Videos

Introduction

People are intrinsically unique, and yet some facets bind them together. People from across the globe have their own varied cultures and traditions. Their attire, way of living, food and other details are heavily influenced by their geographical, cultural and historical background. However, the similarities in these aspects are noteworthy, especially when it comes to food. Due to colonisation, globalisation and the widespread reach of technology, cultural borders have blurred, and there has been a tremendous transfer and integration of culture. Food and foodways, that is, the social, historical and cultural intersections associated with food, have undergone a marked change. It has also become prominent that all cultures share specific components of food. They may have varying terms for different things such as bread, salads and sides, but they all have these components that constitute the traditional notion of a meal.

Additionally, people share certain ideas and notions regarding food: for example, specific foods that are to be consumed during rituals surrounding birth, death, marriage and the like. These rituals and the human tendency to associate memories, experiences and feelings with materialistic things have led to the notion of affect and emotions being linked to food. One such emotion that is evoked through food is the locus of examination in this article—comfort. The food that people derive comfort from is quite simply termed as ‘comfort food.’ Comfort foods take many different tastes, textures, sights and smells across countries, but the emotions that these dishes spark remain universal and comfort food is now understood as ‘a significant social category of human behavior around food’ (Jones & Long, 2017, p. 8).

For the purpose of this exploration into the comforting aspect of food, the popular YouTube channel run by Beryl Shereshewsky has been chosen as the site of evaluation. Beryl Shereshewsky is a producer, writer and videographer from New York City, USA. Shereshewsky started her own YouTube channel in October 2020 and gained an audience of 100,000 in less than three months. As of November 2021, her channel has around 394,000 subscribers and has 83 published videos. Her appeal for inclusivity concerning people, cultures and food stands out as an exceptional quality. She pitches the aim of her channel as a space where she can learn more about different cultures of the world through the gateway of food, and in turn, provide a space where her audience can learn about the same.

Shereshewsky invites her viewers to share recipes and related video stories on a given theme centred on food. She runs the guest presenter’s audio in the background or their videos on a split-screen as she prepares the food herself. She finally eats and reviews the food suggested by each of the chosen guests. Due to her international popularity, she gets suggestions and entries from different countries. An intensive perusal of her videos reveals a lot of scope for academic research focusing on Shereshewsky’s contributions to the popular cultural arena of food studies, wherein she focuses on bringing people closer together through food. To limit the scope of this article, seven videos which fall under the purview of comfort food, from October 2020 to November 2021, have been analysed. Additionally, the interactions between the video creator and the content consumers regarding food, particularly the various ideas of comfort food, are studied. The study focuses on how Shereshewsky and her audience have created harmony, trust and a sense of belonging and community through food.

Comfort Food

The way in which people treat and think about food separates them from animals. There is an entire industry based on food, right from growing, refining, producing or manufacturing, packaging, selling and consuming. People spend most of their waking hours thinking about food, with daily schedules being set around the markers of mealtimes. One’s mood affects the way they handle food and food alters one’s mood as well. Food provides not only physical nourishment but also emotional nourishment. Food, in a society, works in realms beyond the bodily need for sustenance. It carries immense meaning, for it functions as ‘a system of communication, a body of images, a protocol of usages, situations and behavior’ (Barthes, 1961/2013, p. 24).

Food is a subject of research in various fields such as anthropology, history, food science, psychology and cultural studies. Considering its role in various disciplines and its treatment as a multidisciplinary field of study, ‘the study of food lies at the cross-section of communication theory, media studies, affect theory, popular culture and identity politics’ (Malhotra et al., 2021, p. vii). Food is a feast when consumed during celebrations, and it is also a mourning meal at funerals or last rites (Cann, 2018; Lee, 2007). When one is stressed, excited, or experiencing any other heightened emotion about any personal event, it affects their behaviour towards food (Köster & Mojet, 2015). They could either overeat or not eat at all (Christensen, 1993; Rutledge & Linden, 1998; Sproesser et al., 2014).

One such feeling that is central here is that of comfort. Comfort food is often understood to provide comfort because of its linkage to positive experiences from the past and fond childhood memories (Smith, 2002; Williams et al., 2005). Comfort food is also thought to be ‘catalytic because of its soothing material properties’ (Flowers & Swan, 2016, p. 68). ‘[C]omfort foods are affective,’ write Flowers and Swan (2016), and the affective responses evoked are often ‘nostalgic and remind us of being cared for; we eat them to connect us to others’ (p. 69). Comfort food is usually seen as ‘any food consumed by individuals, often during periods of stress, that evokes positive emotions and is associated with significant social relationships’ (Locher, 2002, p. 442).

Food inspires a multitude of emotions through the association of memories and experiences, so much so that the relationship between food and memory is seen as being ‘symbiotic’ (Lupton, 1994, p. 668). Food creates associations that create and are linked to memories, and these memories influence our food choices (Abarca & Colby, 2016; Sutton, 2001). Hence, food can act both ‘mnemonically and symbolically’ (Ingram, 2016, p. 32), leading it to function as ‘a vehicle for memory’ (Holtzman, 2006, p. 365). Marcel Proust is credited to have created ‘the most iconic scene of gastronomic recollection in European literature’ (Tigner & Carruth, 2018, p. 107) with the famous scene of the madeleine biscuit dipped in tea evoking a barrage of memories. Such sensory stimulation involuntarily triggering memories is often referred to as the Proust phenomenon (Herz & Schooler, 2002; Smith, 2016). Personal and individual memories (Assman, 2008) are often flavoured by experiences centred on and encompassing food and drink (George, 2022), echoing Tigner and Carruth’s (2018) assertion that ‘[t]aste structures memory’ (p. 107).

Food and its link with memory produce a food memory through the evoked affective and sensory responses (Abarca & Colby, 2016) wherein comfort will always be a crucial emotion. Food memories are recollected in various narratives, whether oral, written, or performative ones. These narratives greatly negotiate social and cultural subjectivities (Abarca & Colby, 2016). These are capable of bridging and negotiating bridges between cultures as food can serve as a mediator that allows itself to influence and be influenced in return (Montanari, 2004/2006, p. 133; Wenzel, 2016). Food also provides a perfect medium for cross-cultural study as the basic need for sustenance is echoed by everyone across all cultures with only food preferences reflecting cultural differences (Leeds-Hurwitz, 1993). Every culture has a set of meanings associated with food. Food also plays a vital role in serving as a unifying practice (Plester, 2015), especially in religious rites and rituals (Marshall, 2005; Ratcliffe et al., 2019). Sulmont-Rossé et al. (2019) find that a cross-cultural perspective on the positive emotions evoked through food and drink shows that the practices and values associated with food vary across cultures and countries and involve the consideration of ‘emotional, physical (health-related aspects) and social’ dimensions (p. 299). Iqani and Resende (2019), through their consideration of Pereira de Sa’s (2019) study, put forth the notion that certain practices become cross-cultural by virtue of their presence in the digital world of social media. The attention to social media is especially relevant in the current digital turn that has influenced food (Nanjangud & Reddy, 2020; Pennell, 2018), wherein the popularity of food in social media has even resulted in the term ‘Generation Yum’ being reserved for the current generation (Turow, 2015, p. 26). All this reiterates the understanding of food—and comfort food in particular—being a cross-cultural narrative that invites more scholarly attention.

Herbert Blumer (1969/1986) touches upon food while discussing self-interaction in Symbolic Interactionism. He refers to a situation when a person is hungry, wherein he works with the assumption that a person eats when they are hungry. But there is a process which takes place behind this simplistic action. When a person feels uncomfortable and their stomach rumbles, the person deduces that it is due to hunger. The person has an entire discussion with themselves about what, when, where and with whom to eat (p. 95). Although Blumer mentions food only while talking about self-interaction, many researchers have used Symbolic Interactionism to look at food in a cultural context as well. Locher et al. (2005) use Symbolic Interactionism as a theoretical approach to explore the meaning of food. They further categorise comfort food into four types: ‘nostalgic foods, indulgence foods, convenience foods, and physical comfort foods’ (p. 279) and the inclusion into these categories often overlap. Ochs and Shohet (2006) look at different mealtime scenarios which help children develop the sense of food being charged with sociocultural meaning, symbolic morals and emotional meaning. Fraser (2017) uses Symbolic Interactionism as one of her theoretical approaches to understand the choices people make regarding food. She states that a person’s choice of food depends on aspects such as their locality, parental influences, economical background, taste, identity and the like. Panicker et al. (2020) use Symbolic Interactionism to analyse the communications and interactions during meal times.

This article adds to this larger academic discussion by exploring how certain food and the stories linked to the same are capable of evoking feelings of comfort and security. As stated, Symbolic Interactionism, while used as an approach in the context of food studies in the past, was only used to study interactions had in-person and not online. As online interactions influence people immensely as well, these narratives are analysed through the lens of Symbolic Interactionism to explicate how these food narratives shared through social media bring people together from across the world by evoking the universal needs of food and comfort.

Theoretical Underpinning

Symbolic Interactionism is a key theory in social psychology. Its origin lies in the lectures delivered by George Herbert Mead, who focused on the interaction between an individual and the society. Though Mead expounded on the concept of social interactions having symbolic meaning, Herbert Blumer was the first to do a substantial amount of work in this field. Symbolic Interactionism is based on the premise of three basic ideas: first, individuals develop their attitude and perspective towards things based on the meaning they attribute to them; second, these meanings grow while interacting with another individual; and finally, these meanings are dynamic and develop with changing perspectives (Blumer, 1969/1986).

In order to understand human behaviour, it is essential to know how they attribute meaning to different things. Individuals interact with everything around them right from their birth until their death. Each interaction has its own meaning and leads to the development of new meaning based on the context in which people use it. People develop the meaning of a thing or a person based on their interaction with them or the situation. They then create their version of meaning by merging their understanding of their experiences with that of the society. Abraham (2006) refers to social interaction as a ‘reciprocally oriented action or the way people respond to one another in social settings’ (p. 81). He claims that it is impossible to make meaningful relationships without interactions and calls them ‘the building blocks to creating a society’ (p. 82).

‘The basic premise of symbolic interactionism,’ write DeLamater and Myers (2010), is that ‘human nature and social order are products of symbolic communication among people’ (p. 14). This article investigates the cross-cultural communication that takes place amongst people online. The data for this research are collected from Shereshewsky’s interaction with her audience in videos on comfort food and videos about similar concepts of offering comfort through hangover cure foods or food typically consumed during certain weather conditions. Shereshewsky uses food and associated emotions to create a largely accessible online community that shares common thoughts about food. The chosen videos use a format wherein she invites her audience to partake in their comfort foods and features them in the video, thereby building a conversation with select audience members. In doing so, this reflects the interaction of her larger audience consuming her content. She articulates that this presentation style truly embodies the motive behind her YouTube channel, which is ‘to share our cuisines and our cultures with one another’ (Shereshewsky, 2020a).

Methodology

This research takes a qualitative approach to undertake an in-depth analysis of how food, specifically comfort food, can ease someone in a state of distress. The theoretical perspective of Symbolic Interactionism is used to support the analyses of the interactions Shereshewsky establishes with her audience through videos and comment sections in the online space. The objective of the article is to explore cross-cultural narratives in these online interactions centred on comfort food. In the process, the article answers the following research questions:

How do people find comfort in food and its associations?

Shereshewsky compiles the videos sent by her presenters accompanied by the stories of their memories associated with these dishes, along with her replications of the same. Her audience also shares some elements in the narratives centred around these dishes, such as nostalgia linked to a particular time, place, or person associated with those comfort foods. In the contemporary world that is strife with division and discrimination, Shereshewsky’s videos play a small yet significant role in bringing people together and fostering humanity through her interactions with the audience and the interactions among the audience.

As people interact online to create and discover new meanings associated with food, this article uses the theories of Symbolic Interactionism to discuss the interactions surrounding the concept of comfort food. The notion that different cultures share certain ideals regarding food is also affirmed by the concept of Jung’s (1954/2012) Collective Unconscious. Shereshewsky’s videos bring people together from across the globe to enhance their understanding of unfamiliar cultures. This interaction between Shereshewsky and her audience influences, what Jung calls, the personal psyche. Using Symbolic Interactionism to analyse these interactions will help understand how people interact and develop their personal understanding of this concept of comfort food.

Analysis and Discussion

Shereshewsky makes it a point to communicate with her audience and interact with them on her community page, a YouTube feature that serves as a communication board between the creator and the audience. As DeLamater and Myers (2010) point out, ‘communication involves the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols whose meanings depend on the shared context created by the participants’ (p. 174). Shereshewsky’s content resonates with the audience primarily because it is the audience who provides her with the choices and options that colour and flavour her content, creating a shared context. They provide her with the names of the dishes, the background and the recipes for the same from different corners of the world. She acknowledges the contribution of the interactions with her audience on many occasions. In one of her videos, Shereshewsky says, ‘I’m always learning so much from all of you. I’m so appreciative of that […] just goes to show that food is a great way to share our cultures and our stories with one another’ (Shereshewsky, 2021e). This acknowledgement in turn motivates her audience to communicate with her further, creating a healthy two-way communication on this online platform (Patra, 2015). Her discussions revolve around food and how it functions as ‘a community and as love’ (Shereshewsky, 2021f), which is the very basis for her online community centred on her food channel. This shows that it is not just the audience who is creating and interacting with new perspectives about food, but through the audience, even the creator makes and interacts with new meanings of various cultures and cuisines. This acceptance of a two-way learning interaction between the creator and the audience establishes the presence of Symbolic Interactionism and all three of its facets in the space of this online community held strong through its ‘alternative and strong social ties, shared rituals and beliefs’ (Hungara & Nobre, 2022, p. 233) facilitated by this YouTube channel.

Food is an integral part of any person’s life. The simplistic motive of a livelihood is about earning money for the basic needs of existence, of which feeding oneself is the most crucial. However, food functions at a plane higher than just biological sustenance and supporting the functioning of the physical human body. Food carries ‘materialised emotion’ and is ‘endlessly interpretable,’ writes Eagleton (1998, p. 204). Hence, it can produce affective entanglements—ones that contribute to the Symbolic Interactionism at play here—that evoke feelings of nostalgia, happiness, warmth and affection based on the interactions one has with food and the interactions one partakes in with others and with the larger society through food. And these varied emotions can merge to offer comfort to the consumer. Shereshewsky has tapped into this idea and has produced several videos centring on the notion of comfort food, thereby setting up her videos as capable of providing comfort in the light of this discussion.

Comfort in these videos usually takes the expression of figurative associations with abstract concepts. The chosen presenters in each video show their personal procedures for making these dishes while talking about why and how these ‘heart-warming and soothing’ dishes became sources of comfort (Shereshewsky, 2021d). Here, the presenters explicitly convey the meanings that they attribute to these food practices. Comfort food, in the words of some presenters, ‘tastes like a good day’ and can ‘bring you back to life’ (Shereshewsky, 2020a). As a presenter says, these are the dishes that she turns to whenever she is ‘feeling down,’ for it ‘tastes like the feeling of comfort and safety’ for her. It always ‘brings so much joy and excitement’ for her with the associations that she has linked with these dishes (Shereshewsky, 2020a). These comfort foods carry the positive connotations of fond memories, making these comfort food preferences so pleasurable (Spence, 2017; Wansink et al., 2003). These dishes instil joy and happiness in the presenters, and by partaking in these recipes, even though the audience may not have had the same memories, they evoke similar emotional responses nonetheless, a sentiment that is also echoed by another presenter (Shereshewsky, 2021f).

The perspective-taking model, which is based on Symbolic Interactionism, ‘maintains that symbols do not have a meaning that is invariant across situations’ and that ‘communication involves the exchange of messages using symbols whose meaning grows out of interaction itself’ (DeLamater & Myers, 2010, p. 173). The meanings created during the interaction Shereshewsky has with her audience reflects this notion. Even though the interactions individuals have with food define an emotion they associate with it, these associations are shared with the audience to influence their perspectives as well. Emotions, in general, are subjective, and the meaning individuals associate with emotions is unique to each individual.

This notion can be carried forward to other associations as well. For instance, the presenters in Shereshewsky’s videos also find themselves associating the comfort that they feel while consuming the food with physical acts of affection and physical ways of drawing and creating comfort. The comfort and safety evoked here are linked to pre-existing memories, the same feelings that are evoked from physical manifestations of seeking this warmth. The presenters, emphasised by wide smiles and emphatic nods, articulate that each of their featured dishes feels like ‘big warm hug[s] to [the] soul’ for them (Shereshewsky, 2020a). The dishes also evoke feelings like ‘curl[ing] up in a blanket’ on a rainy day (Shereshewsky, 2021d), rendering the comfort food dish to ‘a hug in a bowl’ (Shereshewsky, 2020b, 2021f). These notions, though personal, are shared across cultures, validating the subjectivity underlying these emotions and creating cross-cultural narratives in the process.

The comfort linked to nostalgia and memories of childhood also features heavily in this discourse. ‘Comfort foods have the power to transport you home, whether you derive that sense of home from a place, a person, or a time that you felt loved,’ says a presenter while introducing their version of Italian comfort food (Shereshewsky, 2021f). The presenter from Poland, for instance, links her dish to the memory of her great-grandmother preparing it for her and her extended family for their Sunday dinners (Shereshewsky, 2020a). By connecting this dish to the presenter’s memories of togetherness and familial joy, this dish evokes the same feelings in her whenever she consumes it. It produces similar feelings and memories in the audience’s minds as well. The social context associated with this dish has inextricably created a ‘conditioned response’ (Wansink et al., 2003, p. 740) of reliving these memories. Most presenters remark that they often feel like they have been transported to the days of their childhood wherein they would eagerly wait for their comfort dishes to be served by their mothers and grandmothers (Shereshewsky, 2020a, 2021d). Furthermore, comfort food inspires feelings of social connection (Troisi & Gabriel, 2011), thereby influencing cultural identities. The feelings of love and belonging serve to alleviate the stress that people often carry. The food that is enveloped in such associations and narratives serves as the perfect way to nourish themselves both emotionally and physically.

Additionally, comfort shines through the assertion of the presenters’ multicultural identities and is linked to one another through the ties of the universal and the collective unconscious. While the Italian presenters talk about their Italian comfort food, they also compare it to its American counterpart, chicken noodle soup. By connecting their comfort food to a popular dish in Western popular culture, they help draw more connections to similar dishes in other cultures. This action also invites more interactions between people from different cultures within the audience community. The presenters express that their mother uses these traditional recipes to connect with the family that she had left behind in Italy while immigrating to the United States. And this connection is extended to the presenters as these dishes are made for them and perhaps will be extended even further as they add these dishes to their future families’ recipe repertoire. They go on to talk about their families of multiple ethnicities, and they find that ‘despite the roads and borders that separate’ them, ‘comfort food transcends distance’ (Shereshewsky, 2021f). This narrative depicts how people try to bridge the gap to stay rooted in their culture but simultaneously appropriate into the new culture they are a part of now.

Shereshewsky uses her camera work and editing as tools to overlap the dialogues and video clips. The presenters’ clips cut to Shereshewsky trying her rendition of the dishes, wherein she affirms the comfort offered by the presenter’s version of comfort food. Locher et al. (2005) assert that nostalgic comfort food often ‘sustain[s] one’s sense of cultural, familial, and self-identity’ (p. 280). Furthermore, Nandy (2004) opines that food can serve as a ‘substitute’ for culture (p. 10). Shereshewsky (2020a) aids in the strengthening of this link between food and cultural and individual identity in her videos by encouraging her presenters to speak about their comfort in the language that they are comfortable with, such as Spanish as opted by the Mexican presenter. Shereshewsky creates a more inclusive space for the audience outside the English-speaking community through the use of subtitles, ensuring a multicultural community. Additionally, she encourages the feelings of regional and cultural pride that accompany the audience from each region by validating the recipe on her channel through her affirmation. She asserts that the stories behind each recipe bring each dish ‘alive’ and that by eating these dishes she is also ‘living’ those stories making food as an element that connects her to others and encourages new interactions and more stories from her audience (Shereshewsky, 2021c). This action ascertains a loyal fanbase that is hinged on the universal love for food and their homelands. While elaborating on these recipes, Shereshewsky puts forth the question of the various local versions of the featured dishes. In doing so, she invites the audience to ponder the universality of these dishes and to share and widen their perspectives (Shereshewsky, 2021f, 2021a).

The channel promotes cross-cultural connections by featuring content that comes with vibrant multicultural influences. For instance, the entry of a middle-eastern dish as the comfort food of someone who lives in Scotland (Shereshewsky, 2021d) and the Chinese-American fusion cuisine offering (Shereshewsky, 2021c) serve as perfect examples of these cross-connections. Food centres in this discussion by serving as a safe medium of accessing other cultures (Mannur, 2010), and recipes of these multicultural dishes serve as gateways to appreciating the differences and similarities across cultures. Shereshewsky (2021f) reiterates that the world has so much to offer in terms of food and urges her audience to step out of their narrow comfort zones about food. She hopes that the main takeaway for her viewers should be that ‘there is a lot of room to step outside these food bubbles’ as there may be flavours and textures that one likes and may find replicated in the dishes from other countries and cultures.

It is also noteworthy that Shereshewsky is very careful and considerate in commenting and talking about the food that is featured on her channel. She reflects an openness and willingness to try everything that is suggested to her and never lets a frown mar her facial expressions, even with food combinations that are unusual and ‘surprising’ (Shereshewsky, 2021d). One such instance is the Filipino dish of chocolate rice porridge with salted fish, which Shereshewsky initially called ‘interesting’ and was ‘curious about.’ She is a convert to the combination once she tries the dish, as she appreciates the ‘salty and sweet combination.’ She endears herself to her audience by admitting her hesitation in trying different food while also remarking on the successful endeavours as ways in which she learns ‘something new about a cuisine and about herself’ (Shereshewsky, 2020a). This is an instance that reinforces the idea of how individuals create new perspectives of different food combinations while interacting online. Shereshewsky was at first sceptical of the combination, but with her willingness to experiment with food unfamiliar to her, she was able to appreciate it. In the process, she creates a new meaning for herself regarding food combinations, and prompts her audience to experience it themselves.

The food experiences and interactions encourage a certain kind of mindfulness and appreciation in the audience for their existence in this world. These dishes persuade people to slow and ‘calm’ down, enjoy their surroundings, and how they respond to the food and the feelings that are evoked in them (Shereshewsky, 2021d). Interestingly, the comment section under each video also serves as a safe and comforting space where mutual love and respect permeate as people share their own stories and experiences and acknowledge and validate the same as put forth by others. These feelings of comfort and nostalgia evoked by the food and the stories associated with the food are another link that the audience can latch onto in their viewing of the video, thereby encouraging them to interact with their own versions of the stories. For instance, a viewer associating the Romanian presenter’s grandmother’s affection with her own grandmother is seen in this comment: ‘my Chinese grandma [says]: make sure to wear this heavy winter coat during the summer at night it is going to be very cold…brings back good memories [sic]’ (Allenliu, 2021). Though Shereshewsky creates a space specifically for food, other discussions about people and instances associated with comfort also appear.

Moreover, the comment section provides itself as proof of the staunch approval that her audience has for her. Shereshewsky’s audience passionately agrees with her approach to the world and its food, as evidenced by this popular comment under the video, which gained nearly 600 likes by November 2021: [T]his is way better than … other pretentious kitchen shows … it showcases authentic food from real people around the world and not just … Western-oriented food. Love it (Mizzel Badruddin, 2021).

Another popular comment establishes the feelings of Shereshewsky’s audience: ‘The fact that she went all the way cooking every (extremely diverse and complex ones) meal from scratch at home … troubles she went through to find the scarce ingredients. THAT is dedication [sic]’ (Hani, 2020). Shereshewsky’s acceptance and openness to trying new and unusual food are enthusiastically commended by her audience, as evidenced by this comment which gained over two thousand likes: ‘I love how this woman is so open to the different foods and how she has no judgement’ (C3ATE, 2021). Another popular comment reflects the same sentiment: ‘can we commend the host for being so welcoming … she didn’t disrespect any one of these cultures…much respect to her’ (360 Days to live, 2021).

In addition to her audience acknowledging her efforts, Shereshewsky also makes it a point to refer to her audience and their interactions frequently in her videos. This is facilitated by the video format, which often presents the segment as her conversation with the audience and in the explicit reference that she makes to them at the beginning and the end of each video. She places audience interaction as a crucial takeaway from her videos. She articulates how ‘lucky’ she finds herself to have made this virtual community for herself which encourages her to learn more about the world and herself (Shereshewsky, 2020a). The interaction that she fosters with and within her audience also showcases their openness and willingness to ‘learn from one another’ (Shereshewsky, 2020b).

Most importantly, Shereshewsky creates a space of comfort in the kitchen space by encouraging more attempts at cooking and inviting everyone to experience all that the world has to offer. Shereshewsky stresses the importance of remembering that she is not a trained chef, and that put quite simply, she is just ‘a girl with a kitchen’ (2021f). In saying so, she invites other novice cooks and people who are new to cooking to experiment with these recipes. By including footage of her mistakes and accidents in the kitchen, she presents a relatable image to her audience that further endears her to them while reinforcing the idea that anybody can cook. She also invites her audience to engage through the comments to improve her skills and prevent mistakes. Shereshewsky often links recipes to the dishes mentioned in the videos in the description boxes, thereby inviting her audience to partake in the dishes with her. This sharing adds an element of commensality, which refers to eating together in a social setting (Goldstein, 2018), although the commensality rendered here is virtual. In the process, she builds a community that shares ideas, techniques and recipes, adding to cultural appreciation at a global level.

This virtual commensality also finds a space in the style of these videos. Shereshewsky and the chosen presenters offer vivid descriptions of the food—‘the flavour is rich and mellow and the texture is creamy and velvety,’ ‘a drizzle of olive oil,’ ‘a squeeze of lemon,’ (2021d) ‘a heavenly piece of happiness in your mouth,’ ‘nice mouthfeel’ (2021b). These comments add an almost tactile experience with the visuals and sounds. These presenter’s clips cut to Shereshewsky trying her rendition of the dishes, wherein she affirms the comfort offered by the food. Her focus lies on the preparation of the dish and the verbal narration of the presenter. She communicates non-verbally through her very expressive body language, right from the way she sits upright in excitement, to her reaction to every first morsel of a new dish. Her initial reaction to the food she consumes—widening of her eyes, small grins widening to broad smiles, and shrugs of the shoulders to perhaps shake off any doubt she had regarding the food before trying it herself—all add to the value of the words she uses to describe the food. Additionally, the audio-visual stimuli are highlighted through the special attention to the videography. The videos are shot and edited to centre the attention on the dish. The ingredients used, the process of cooking and the final plating up form tantalising images that arouse all the senses and pique interest. Shereshewsky places just as much importance on the making of a meal as much as on its consumption. This also highlights the effort that goes into preparing these comfort foods, which further creates a sense of gratitude for the people who painstakingly provided these dishes for their loved ones. Furthermore, the uplifting yet non-intrusive music in the background of the food visuals unconsciously causes the audience to feel the same sense of upliftment and joy while revelling in the warmth of these dishes, adding to the ambience of comfort created in and by these videos. All these aspects add to the comforting influence created by the words exchanged during these interactions.

Conclusion

One of the prominent insights from Shereshewsky’s videos is that almost all the participants mention how the dishes that bring comfort to them are passed on to them by the elders in their families. This inheritance of recipes from generation to generation sustains various cultural and traditional culinary practices and, by extension, different cultures. There has always been a long-standing fear that globalisation and migration will destroy traditions and cultures. However, the interactions that take place in this online community at the focus of this study prove that globalisation and cross-cultural mergers have had an intriguingly contrasting effect. With different cultures adapting to each other, cultures are not being destroyed but are evolving in the face of change.

Shereshewsky and her audience interact with each other online to share and form new meanings of comfort food. This process aligns with DeLamater and Myers’ (2010) assertion that ‘people can communicate successfully with one another only to the extent that they ascribe similar meaning to objects’ (p. 14). Even though the ways in which different cultures use different ingredients vary, Shereshewsky and her audience develop new perceptions about these ingredients and ways to use them while interacting with these videos. As evidenced in these observations of the presented narratives, even though different people talk about different cuisines from different parts of the world, they attribute similar meanings and emotions to food that brings them comfort. More importantly, they share the comfort of similar personal experiences from across the world. While Shereshewsky (2020a) says, ‘comfort food is specific to the person,’ this investigation reveals that not only is comfort food an individual experience, but the ways in which this idea of comfort is expressed and felt also differ from person to person. Owing to the format of Shereshewsky’s videos wherein she features the presenters of each recipe while also expressing her own opinion on it, her videos provide varying expressions of comfort that ensure that all the members of her audience can find echoes and parallels of their own comfort food stories in them. In the process, individuals not only create new meanings regarding certain foods but also come to an understanding that there are many similarities in their personal narratives.

So even though it is true that individuals’ encounters with comfort food are extremely personal, it is also a universal phenomenon. Shereshewsky appeals to the universality of comfort food and of the notion of food being able to offer comfort, even if the dishes differ based on region and culture. Hence, she finds that the food featured in her videos shows that ‘there are so many things that we have in common that we just might not even know about’ (Shereshewsky, 2021d). The notion of the Collective Unconscious resurrects in this notion. Jung (1954/2012) states that ‘the contents of the collective unconscious have never been in consciousness, and therefore have never been individually acquired, but owe their existence exclusively to heredity’ (p. 42). The phenomenon of finding food comforting itself is a part of people’s collective unconscious. People add their personal experiences and interactions to make his notion stronger in their own way. Shereshewsky invites a bond of togetherness and community that may have started with food but extends to all the qualities that make us human. And this finds great relevance in the contemporary pandemic-ridden world where the assurance of humanity is needed more than ever, where her videos are, as she puts it, ‘a little slice of niceness in the pile that is the world right now’ (Shereshewsky, 2020b).