Comfort Eating: What We Eat When Nobody's Looking

by Grace Dent

From one of the nation's best-loved food writers and inspired by the award-winning podcast, Comfort Eating is a wonderfully delicious, life-affirming journey through the foods that really mean the most to us.

'What an absolute TREAT . . . A moving, sweet and funny memoir about the power of comfort foods. The memories and emotions triggered by it warmed my heart and reminded me of those I love.'
MARIAN KEYES

'Evocative and beautiful.' EVENING STANDARD
'Funny and poignant.' GUARDIAN
'This book will make you hungry.' IRISH TIMES
'Deliciously entertaining.' SCOTSMAN
'The comfort read you need.' WOMEN'S WEEKLY

***

Have you ever wondered why eating cheese can sometimes feel like a cuddle?
Or how a big bowl of pasta can be just what we need after a tough day?
Oh, and what is it about butter that seems to make everything just that little bit better . . . ?

The foods we turn to behind closed doors are deeply personal, steeped in nostalgia and topped with a healthy dollop of guilty pleasure. In Comfort Eating, Grace Dent throws open her kitchen cupboards to reveal why we hold these secret snacks and naughty nibbles so dear to our hearts.

Exploring her go-to comfort foods through a series of joyous encounters, Grace reflects on the memories they uncover and pays tribute to her parents, the people who taught her what comfort eating truly means. Along the way, she catches up with some famous friends to chat about their own favourites - from Jo Brand's fried bread sandwich and Russell T. Davies' 'butterpepperrice' to Scarlett Moffat's crushed-Wotsits-topped beans on toast and many, many more . . .

So grab a plate and pull up a unfussy, honest and filled to the brim with heartwarming stories and comfort food tales, Comfort Eating is the perfect treat for food lovers everywhere.

***

'The restaurant critic's exploration of the delicious things we snack on is shot through with nostalgia for childhood, family and home . . . her humour [is] tweezer-sharp and the writing as strong as a Christmas stilton.'
NELL FRIZELL, GUARDIAN

' Comfort Eating will leave you craving second helpings and will make you laugh and think at almost every turn . . . This might be the sanest thing anyone has ever written about eating for pleasure.'
IRISH TIMES

Genres: Nonfiction, Audiobook, Food, Memoir, Humor, Food and Drink

Audible Audio

Published October 3, 2023

About the author

British columnist, broadcaster and author.

Between 2003-2010, Dent published eleven young adult novels, and was also a presenter on BBC2's The Culture Show, and a magazine and newspaper journalist, including a TV column for the Guardian.

From 2011 to 2017 she wrote a restaurant column for the Evening Standard, and became the Guardian's restaurant critic in 2018. She is a regular judge on the BBC's MasterChef UK and makes frequent appearances in Channel 4's television series Very British Problems.

Grace said in her role as an author for teens: ‘....kids who claim to have never read anything longer than a text message are ploughing through my books nagging me for the next one. This makes me insanely proud.’

She lives in East London with her husband, who works in the music industry. When she's not writing comedy Grace is to be found 'faffing about on the Internet' or 'faffing about in the garden or kitchen' or 'just 'faffing about generally. "I'm an excellent 'faffer."

Reviews

[Alina ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

☆☆☆☆

Comfort Eating by Grace Dent is a fascinating insight into the eating habits of people behind closed doors, the small, often overlooked rituals and cravings that reveal so much about who we are. I’ve always enjoyed Grace Dent as a TV personality and food critic; her wit, warmth, and no-nonsense charm come through beautifully in this book.

What I particularly loved is how Dent captures the emotional side of food, those late-night snacks, nostalgic meals, and comforting cups of tea that connect us to our past and to each other. It feels like listening to a friend tell stories over a plate of something delicious.

Thanks to her recommendations, I’ve actually visited some incredible restaurants in London (especially, if you're interested OMA), so I knew I was in good hands here. Comfort Eating is perfect if you’re interested in British culture, food, and the very human side of eating.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this. I mean what's not to love about a book with whole chapters on things like butter and bread? I laughed out loud, and fully related to a lot. There is a little duplication with some anecdotes from Hungry, but they always enhanced the food memory.

My favourite parts were the recipes and the dictionary corner. Glad I picked this up, just the sort of comfort read to make a dreary day that much better.

[Jules · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book, essentially a love letter to all the foods we’re told we should feel guilty about eating - (white) bread, (white) pasta, butter, cheese, potatoes. Glorious food that gives us comfort. And like all things in life, it should be about YOUR comfort, not what everyone else thinks is theirs.

Want a tin of spaghetti hoops? Go for it.

Cheddar cheese on a hunk of super toastie? Dive right in.

An Aunt Bessie’s roast potato? If that’s what floats your boat!

Grace Dent may be a high end food critic, but she’s not forgotten her humble beginnings, especially when it comes to food.

I listened to Comfort Eating on audio and Grace’s passion for food, from supermarket bought meals to Michelin-started quality, shines right through.

Loved it!

[Mia Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

The rumours are true: mia love carb

[Joanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to Grace Dent’s foodie memoir Hungry last year and loved it so much that I immediately placed a reservation for the audiobook of Comfort Eating. I listened to that over a few days last week and absolutely loved it too.

First of all, I have to say that I think this works brilliantly as an audiobook. I love the author’s accent and her down-to-earth way of talking. You’d think a top class restaurant critic and Masterchef judge would look down on simple foods such as pasta, potatoes and cheese but that’s absolutely not the case.

As well as being a real treat to listen to, I found this book to be a trip down memory lane. A lot of the reasons we enjoy particular foods are wrapped up in childhood memories of comfort and love. As I’m a similar age to the author, when she was talking about foods from her childhood, I could remember them well. She also mentions several tv adverts from the 70s/80s and as soon as she did, I found I could recite or sing them word perfect even though I hadn’t thought of them for years! I’d totally forgotten about Heinz Noodle Doodles, a tinned pasta, but could sing the song as soon as it was mentioned. And who could forget the giggling Smash Martians?

Be warned that if you listen to or read this book you will be left craving those simple foods: chips, buttery toast, crisps! My daughter has also listened to it and she asked me what my comfort food would be. I think it would be a can of Heinz Cream of Tomato soup (has to be Heinz), heated in the microwave in a big mug and enjoyed with plain bread toast and butter. Simple and delicious!

I hadn’t realised that Grace Dent has a Comfort Eating podcast where celebrities visit her home, bringing their comfort food and talking about the food and the memories it evokes. Now that I do, I’ll be listening to that. She mentions several of these guests in the book and it’s so interesting and often surprising to find out what they have chosen.

Comfort Eating is funny, nostalgic and often emotional. Just like the food it delights in, it feels like a real hug of a book. I highly recommend the audiobook version but I’m sure the print version would be just as enjoyable.

[Maddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grace Dent has always been my favourite food critic on Masterchef. There's certain charm and warmth to her and that was clearly felt throughout that book too. There seems to be that feeling of Dent being really down to earth and at ease with herself and that translated so well into her memoir.
Food and feeding people can be such a great way of showing our love to people. The memories of meals shared with our family and friends can bring so much comfort to our lives. Because food truly can be comfort. Bacause bread and butter and maybe cheese, come on, that's comfort and also indulgence, even if you only have cheap supermarket value stuff. Grace Dent is all for it. And I'm all for it too.
Thank you Ms Dent.

[Maisy · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3.5* for me this was the ultimate bingeable comfort read and I loved unpacking the relationship between food and memories/nostalgia.

I enjoyed her previous memoir, Hungry, marginally more but honestly I really love Grace Dent’s writing and the way she talks about food. I also thought the narration by her was brilliant, so glad I listened to the audiobook!

[Em · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that I have tabbed throughout so that I can try all the weird snacks within. Lovely book about our emotional relationship with food. Think I cried about 5 times

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars based on chapter names alone!! This is a spaghetti on buns with grated cheese on Sunday kind of book

[Grace Baird · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up

very wholesome and soothing! made me think about my own comfort foods and what they mean. I think many of the references to adverts and weight watchers etc went over my head a bit!

[Ali Bird · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whole chapters on cheese, butter and potato. What's not to love

[Charlotte Blake · Rating 3 out of 5]

An almost BTS of her podcast, not as good as her previous memoir but a lovely book to listen to as I worked away in the garden. Lots of funny bits that make me laugh out loud, and some very moving parts about her parents that had me crying on my commute. Love Grace Dent always

[Georgia · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

[Madeleine Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ran to order this book after listening to her podcast, especially after listening to the Diane Morgan episode looooll. The most refreshing, funny, well-written non-fic book I have read in a long time.

Grace speaks a lot about her childhood and how foods such as rusks, potatoes and buttered toast shaped family life, right through to the last days she spent with her parents. A perfect intertwining of memories and how they can be shaped by food, and that’s it.

“I do not think any of the foodstuffs or brands I’ll talk about in this book are purely good or bad for you. I just think that they… are. They exist. Vividly. And many of them have been in my life from the very start. As familiar as friends and as loyal as family”

I also loved the snippets of her life as a writer, especially at magazines in the nineties.

If you want an overwhelmingly joyous, real, gorgina book, then I urge you to read!!! I’m going to give it to my mum as I really think it will help her process her grief too.

My comfort food you ASK = ‘egg and beanie sandwich’ (non-toasted bread, specifically) that my dad makes us. Good fokin scrannage.

[tejal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grace Dent is the warmest, wittiest woman I could ever hope to meet and this book is a love letter to comfort food. Whether that's sliced, buttered white bread or crisps and dips, she makes no judgement. I love her for her candid honesty, for the way she talks about food and for her brilliant voice throughout.

Listening to this as an audiobook is like receiving a hug from the funniest auntie around and I mean that with the greatest respect. It's a peek into what's shaped her as a person and her relationship with food and I'm so glad that there's someone else out there who loves food as much as me.

An absolutely fantastic book!

[Maya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dent's writing is beautifully evocative. I could almost taste the warm buttered crumpets and feel the crunch of the toast (thickly-buttered of course). She cleverly and movingly links memories of food, places and people. I don't particularly like fried food so it is a testament to the writing that I didn't flick through those sections!

[Chris Best · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comfort Eating the book is Comfort Writing with Grace Dent at the helm - but absolutely nothing guilty pleasure about it, it should be enjoyed by everyone

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. I haven't listened to the podcast which this is based on but I think I'd enjoy it. Particularly enjoyed the sections on her parents.

[Francesca Pashby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grace Dent is brilliant - she just makes you hungry!

[Caitlin Curtis · Rating 4 out of 5]

genuinely comforting read

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

God I need some cheesy chips right now

[Coral Davies · Rating 5 out of 5]

Made me cry and waxed lyrical and about the healing properties of uncomplicated, memory unlocking food ❤️

Highly recommend the audio book as its narrated by Grace herself.

[Claire O'Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a lovely, lovely read. A joyful book that took me right back to my childhood - loved it !

[Kathryn Wardle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is sooo British (which is an adjective I very rarely use in a complimentary way)

[Vee Howard-Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved loved loved this book and grace dent I love you too. Did what it said in the tin. The ultimate comfort nostalgia and appreciation of family and childhood. Thank you!

[Steph · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a great and SO relatable read. I’ve never tabbed a book before and I was tabbing away at all the things I just found relatable or things I absolutely love! Lots of toast using the white toastie loaf with allll the butter right to the corners of the toast, fish finger sandwich 👌🏻 yes please! Some childhood reminders, picking buttercups to check if we like butter 🧈

I am quite a fussy eater sometimes but will usually have the same comforts that I love -

A crisp sandwich with lots of butter, pot noodle sandwich 🤤 I also just love a huge bowl of cereal sometimes and that’s my comfort.

The book is written brilliantly and the introduction was quite emotional about the death of Grace’s mum, but there was many memories that food can bring back to you. There was some laugh out loud moments and I even had a creepy moment…. I’d started reading inbetween watching Police Interceptors, opened the book to the first page reading about cheesy and buttery things ‘as you watch Police Interceptors’😱

Great book and enjoyable to read!

[Ariel Chapman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a great read! Grace Dent had me laughing out loud repeatedly in one chapter and then crying in the next. So well put together…I just wish it was longer.

[Anthony Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m very fond of Grace Dent’s food column in ‘Feast’, but this generally enjoyable book is a rather different kettle of poached fresh Atlantic salmon. Terrible joke, I know, and poached fresh Atlantic salmon wouldn’t appear in ‘Comfort Eating’ anyway since it’s a book about ‘what we eat when nobody’s watching’.

And what are those foods, those concoctions we resort to when we want to be embraced by food? Well, after laying down her Golden Rules of Comfort Eating, Dent dives into chapters on cheese, butter, pasta, bread, potatoes and ‘sweet treats’. These dissertations on comfortable grossness are interspersed with revelations from her podcasts in which celebrities, for want of a better word, reveal their naughty-but-nice secrets. We get a taster of the full wonderful awfulness that is to come in an introductory chapter: Russell T. Davies and his Woolworth’s pork pie with a boiled egg inside it, Nish Kumar with a polystyrene tray of kebab-shop chips ‘covered in floppy shawarma meat “from off the elephant’s leg”’, James May and the fish finger sandwich, Stephen Fry and his mashed skippers. But that would be telling…

Suffice it to say that one of these melanges of idiosyncratic pleasure was a fried bread sandwich (with or without HP sauce).

And we have also a kind of intermezzo chapter on Uncomfortable Eating. It would be fun for someone who has not read the book to make a list of the top ten items that would feature in their own list before seeing what Dent includes in hers, though I can’t resist recording that top of her list is andouillette sausage. This is largely because I’ve tried it, at the Ibis in Lille. I thought to myself, I’ve always heard about this, and since I can pronounce it passably, I’m going to ask for it. To give him his due, the waiter did not bat an eyelid and brought it out, lying unattractively alone on a white plate. It was truly as unappealing in the mouth as it was on the plate, but I do not like to waste food and managed to finish it not unpleasurably with dollops of Dijon mustard.

There is a twofold serious side to the book. On the one hand, it is a celebration of Dent’s mother and the comfort she provided her daughter, a comfort often associated with memories of the food that was always there from bread and butter and beans and crisps and chocolate and biscuits – all the usual things, but peculiarly prominent in Dent’s sense of loss. And on the other, it is an exploration of the way other people’s childhood and teenage memories of food are formed and how important to them they are. Even now, I cannot pass a barbecue or a grill house without instantly being reminded of being a teenager in Turkey, and how much I liked both the country and the food; and as for homemade Boston Baked Beans with pickled beetroot – that’s my mother and father on a Friday or Saturday night and feeling both full and secure. (My mother was Canadian and had a cookbook called ‘The Way to a Man’s Heart’, and Boston Baked Beans had certainly performed a role in her capturing my father’s heart in Halifax in 1940.)

I found Dent’s ambition to write about gorging guiltily was sometimes thwarted by there simply not being enough words to describe, usually, butter and fats, but the book as a whole is a cavalcade of a paean to Food We Like and which – if we don’t eat it all the time, and she makes that point early on – proves the validity of the old saying that ‘A Little Bit of What You Fancy Does You Good.’

[Hannah stressedreader · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't like cooking, and i am extremely fussy about food, so i was really unsure if i would enjoy this one, but i really did! I was taken aback by the emotional introduction about the death of Grace's mum. But it was lovely to hear all of the memories that food can bring back to you.
Grace is a brilliant writer, and her use of vocabulary and description really made this book stand out.
Each chapter features a recipe, which is great if you fancy trying some of the weird and wonderful creations by Grace's podcast guests.
Grace's writing is extremely witty and very funny, which made this a fab read! I thought this book was really enjoyable and surprisingly emotional. It really got me thinking of all the memories i have with my mum and the things I'll never forget. I definitely recommend all the foodies 🥰

[Catherine Ellcock · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like Grace Dent’s writing style and loved “Hungry” but found this a bit insubstantial.