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Welcome to Munchie Madness: 16 combatants, four weeks, and only one can be crowned Canada's most beloved comfort food. It's time to vote with your hearts (and stomachs). Pizza? Mac and cheese? It's up to you to decide who comes out on top.

The tournament is now over. After 60,000-plus votes over four weeks, Globe readers have finally crowned a comfort-food champion. Congratulations, Pizza!

Thanks to everyone for their votes, trash-talking and appetites all month long. Relive the memories below, and go to tgam.ca/foodandwine for more heartwarming comfort-food stories from Globe Life.

The Final (March 26 to 31)

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Pizza

Backer
Rasha Mourtada

The earliest pizza I can remember, in 1982, was from the nearby Chuck E. Cheese, and man, was it good. All I can recall is crispy crust and bubbling, gooey mozzarella. What's not for a six-year-old to like?

As a teenager, my pizza of choice was Domino’s. Every sleepover started the same way: four BFFs, an extra-large pizza, lots of pepperoni and extra cheese.

When I moved out at age 21, I can’t even tell you how many pizzas my roommate and I ate. Our provider was the local wood-oven pizzeria and I’m sure they thought we had a serious problem (not that they were complaining).

After my son was born, my first meal was pizza – cheesy comfort on a plate. And I had earned it.

I've been known to enjoy a good mac and cheese too. But mac and cheese over pizza? Oh, please.

Could you ever eat a bowl of mac and cheese with your bare hands, tossing utensils to the wind? Would you ever desecrate pizza with the lowest of all condiments, ketchup, in an attempt to make it taste better? Could you ever find mac and cheese on a busy street corner, for less than $4, and eat it on the sidewalk without looking a little weird? And when was the last time you made mac and cheese that didn't come out of a box? Did you enjoy washing the half-dozen pots, pans and dishes sitting in your sink? Have you ever wondered why so many restaurants have to add fancy ingredients – lobster, truffle oil, cave-aged gruyere – before putting it on their menu? Can you expect to easily find a good mac and cheese in any city around the world? Could mac and cheese ever reasonably be a staple at kids' birthdays, sleepovers, movie nights, family dinners?

Pizza, even when dripping with grease from the cheapest mozzarella and pepperoni you can buy, is sinfully delicious. Even Pope Francis can't live a life without pizza.

At the end of the worst day ever, or when you burn the gourmet dinner you've spent all day making or when you need to feed a crowd in a rush – what do you turn to? Three pounds of cheese you need to shred, a bechamel you need to stir forever and noodles that can overcook in a nanosecond? Ha. Ha. Ha. Pizza delivery to the rescue, again.

So let's do the right thing here, people. Let's give pizza the crown it deserves: king of comfort food. Mac and cheese, you're going to have to settle for prince.

Rasha Mourtada is a digital editor with Globe Life & Arts

Mac and cheese

Backer
Sue Riedl

I get it. I love pizza. Everyone loves pizza. And if this were a “favourite food ” competition I might be worried. But this is a favourite comfort food competition.

This rivalry is not about choosing your “desert island” food – a food you could happily imagine eating for eternity. This is about the food you desperately desire on the first day of that eternity; the moment you realize, “whoa, I’m never, ever getting off this island,” quickly overshadowed by, “and I think there’s weird paranormal s*%& happening.” It’s the food you want when Mr. White tells you to get over to Gale’s ASAP – and bring your gun. The food you long for when you awake from a coma to discover, “whoa – that’s a lot of zombies,” or when the medieval wedding you’re at goes horribly wrong.

It’s the food you desire when none of these situations comes as close to being as hard as the good-bye you just said.

If pizza is your favourite pair of jeans, then mac and cheese is the comfy pants. They may be Lululemon, they may be tattered, oversize cut-offs, they mey be that old pair of pale-pink Cotton Ginnys from ninth grade. You don’t need them all the time, but you need to know they’re there.

Because comfort, when you’re aching, is about feeling cozy, protected, overindulged just this once. You don’t order pizza to your neighbour’s house when the news is bad – or even when it's joyous. No, you personally add your casserole dish to the others, the crisp melting cheese and a stray noodle stuck to the side. It does not have to be eaten right away. It can simply be the reprieve, the knowledge that tomorrow, when you might feel like eating, it will taste just as good – maybe better.

Mac and cheese is being in grade school and coming home from lunch to find your mom, who always makes everything from scratch, putting two plates of KD on the table. One for each of you. And she’s okay that this is more exciting to you than yesterday’s homemade goulash. Which cemented the slim, rattling, navy-and-orange box into my DNA as the world’s most special treat.

In my mind there’s no contest. Pizza may rock for the everyday, but mac and cheese reigns when you’re having one of those days.

Sue Riedl writes The Wedge cheese column in Globe Life

Final 4 (March 23 to 25)

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Poutine

Noah Bernamoff
Mile End Deli, New York

Good poutine only requires three ingredients: crispy fries; warm, rich gravy made with real stock and roux; and deliciously squeeky cheese that are not too cold. Combine them by placing half the fries first, then a layer of cheese, then the rest of the fries, more cheese and then the gravy. You can't go wrong!

Poutine is great because it can be consumed any time of day, under any physical condition. It doesn't require even an ounce of sophistication or pretension to enjoy. It's a truly democratic food.

mileenddeli.com

Double-fried French fries

Ingredients

6 large potatoes (preferably russet)

2 quarts of canola oil

Salt as needed

Method

1. Cut potatoes into 1/4-inch julienne sticks and immediately place under running water. Rinse for about 5 to 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, heat oil to 320 F. Drain potatoes well and pat dry. Blanch potatoes in the oil for 3 to 4 minutes until soft. Place on paper towels to absorb oil. Cool completely.

3. Bring the oil up to 350 F and fry the potatoes till crisp. Season with salt to taste.

Pizza

The once humble pizza originated in Naples as simple, common food, enjoyed mainly by Neapolitans. But that all change after Queen Margherita visited Naples in 1889 and declared pizza a royal favorite. Since then, pizza has become a global favorite, enjoyed by millions around the world with toppings as diverse as its admirers.

Piatto honours the original Neapolitan tradition by using wood-fired ovens to cook our pizzas in under 90 seconds at 900 F. We embrace creativity by offering local specialties to suit regional palates: lobster pizza in Charlottetown and salt-cod pizza in St.John’s.

We encourage our customers to send us their own creations, from which we choose a “Pizza of the Week” and offer this new creation in our four locations. One of Piatto’s most popular pizzas, The Stephanie, started as a customer creation and became so popular, we added it to our regular menu. Customers still rave about it!

piattopizzeria.com

The Stephanie

Ingredients

4 pizza dough balls, 9 oz each

1 cup crumbled goat cheese

1 cup sliced and chopped prosciutto

1 16 oz can of pears, drained and sliced

2 cups of balsamic reduction

Extra virgin olive oil

2 tbsp of brown sugar

8 oz of balsamic cream or reduction

2-3 oz of grated parmesan

Prep

1. 2 tbsp of oil in fry pan, add prosciutto and cook until crispy, then drain and put in bowl for later.

2. 1 tbsp of oil in fry pan, add sliced pears sautéed with 2 tbsp of brown sugar.

Baking

1. Preheat pizza wheel or cookie sheet in oven at 500 F.

2. Stretch pizza dough to approximately 11 inches.

3. Swirl of oil, starting in the middle and working out, until 1 inch from the edge, so 3 or 4 swirls.

4. Sprinkle 1/4 of the goat cheese evenly over the pizza.

5. Arrange 1/4 of the pears evenly over the pizza so each slice will have equal amounts.

6. Do same with crispy prosciutto.

7. Sprinkle a pinch of parm over pizza.

8. Place pizza on pizza wheel in the oven.

9. Cook until ingredients are bubbling.

10. Remove from oven and then drizzle, again with swirls, with balsamic reduction, to taste.

Mac and cheese

Alan and Peggy Hoffman
Acme Café, Vancouver

What is it about mac and cheese that keeps us coming back for more? That keeps us making it at home when it goes “out of style,” and going to restaurants for it when it (inevitably) comes back “in style?” Why do we continue, year after year, and generation after generation, to bring it, foil-wrapped, to family and friends in times of need and grief?

Certainly it can be done badly, but when it’s done well ... it’s sublime. It fills the house with hot, savoury atmosphere while baking and bubbling, the top going from pale butter tones to golden, then to crispy bronze. The first break of the crust oozing steam, dripping creamy curves of noodle. Mac and cheese, as my grandma said, “sticks to your ribs,” keeps you full for hours and makes you feel safe in the world. That’s a lot to ask from a bowl of noodles, but when it’s driving rain 30 days in a row, it can really deliver.

acmecafe.ca

Acme Café tips for a great mac and cheese

Make your béchamel from scratch. When it’s thick and done, take it off the heat and add lots of your favourite cheese to the warm sauce. Stir until just melted (this is when you can stir in cooked bacon, if desired) and set aside.

Cook the pasta al dente and add lots of sauce – the noodles will absorb sauce while it bakes, so really make sure the noodles are swimming.

Top with more cheese and bread crumbs and bake until golden brown.

Serve with a crunchy salad.

Chips

Normand Laprise
Toqué!, Montreal

Potatoes should always be kept in a dark, cool place. If it's hot, they will germinate and wrinkle. If it's too cold (in the refrigerator, for example), the starch will turn into sugar, making them green and hard to digest. Nutritionally, the potato is an excellent source of potassium, vitamin C, vitamin B complex, magnesium, iron and fibre. For maximum nutritional value, keep the skin on new potatoes.

This recipe for homemade potato chips calls for a variety of potato types. It's a great snack to serve while watching the hockey playoffs.

restaurant-toque.com

Homemade potato chips

Ingredients

3 pounds assorted potatoes (we used Yukon gold, fingerling and blue potatoes)

2 litres canola oil

Salt to taste

Method

Heat the oil in a wide pot to 290 F. Cut the potatoes into paper thin slices using a mandolin. Rinse slices in cold water and pat them dry. In small batches, fry the potatoes in the oil until crisp. Drain on paper towels and season with salt.

Eat-lite 8 (March 16 to 20)

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Chips

Backer
Denise Balkissoon

The ascendance of both mashed potatoes and potato chips in this competition is testament to an absolute truth: The potato is a delicious food, and low-carb weirdos are sad masochists. Not that it matters, but potatoes are totally healthy, matching apples for vitamin C, full of cell-building B6 and stuffed with antioxidants. So there.

Aside from its nutritional merit, the humble spud is enjoyable to eat in many forms. Mashed potatoes are the worst of them. Mashed potatoes are the pillow of foods: cozy but bland, and too often lumpy. They’re essential, sure, but also unexciting. That makes them comfy, but in a depressing way, not a restorative one. I mean, mashed potatoes are fine – if you’re boring, or a small child who gums for sustenance.

Sliced and fried, the potato really shines. It’s still a modest backdrop for a host of flavours and accompaniments, but texturally exciting, even challenging. When you’ve been dragged down by the weight of life, mashed potatoes encourage you to quit trying. Potato chips, on the other hand, require you to buck up and use your teeth.

Mashed potatoes make the need for comfort a self-fulfilling prophecy, while potato chips are a special treat that remind you why you’re alive. The choice here is clear: It’s time to man up and vote chips.

Denise Balkissoon is an editor with Globe Life

Mashed potatoes

Backer
Dakshana Bascaramurty

You know, I know it, Charles Darwin knew it: chips are for barbarians and mashed potatoes are for a more refined species.

Because they are eaten with the hands, potato chips leave fingers covered with oily residue and a coating of flavour dust, usually in shades not found in nature. Try swiping through Tinder with greasy Old Dutch sour cream and onion paws, or shaking a potential boss’s hand after a job interview without inadvertently transferring Lays ketchup dust to her fingers.

When we sit down for the most important food holiday of the year, what form of potato is most often served beside the turkey? Mashed potatoes. They’re also the perfect side to a range of everyday dishes: roasted vegetables, fried chicken, lamb chops, steak. Potato chips are a great side to clogged arteries and loneliness.

The true test of a comfort food is whether it can be prepared with ease at home. If you got snowed in during one of the many east coast blizzards this year and forgot to buy #stormchips, you could have easily and quickly made mashed potatoes at home. They’re the thing you’ll make and savour because there is nothing else to eat, but which you also crave when there are myriad other options.

The real reason mashed potatoes reign supreme? No matter what preparation of the humble tuber you put in your gaping maw – French fries, hashbrowns or, if you must, potato chips – they all turn into mashed potatoes after you’re done chewing.

Dakshana Bascaramurty is a reporter with Globe Toronto

Poutine

Backer
Sarah Lilleyman

Ramen is delicious, no doubt. It’s salty, savoury, warm, filling. You get that satisfying slurp with every spoonful, you get that blast of taste with every bite. It’s got meat, egg, noodles, broth – the whole package. If I were you, I would struggle with voting against it.

But here’s why you should: Because ramen, for all its deliciousness, doesn’t hold a candle to poutine. The beauty of poutine is in its simplicity and synergy: fries, gravy, curds. No three things have ever complimented each other so well. They agree with each other, give space to one another – no one part of the dish takes precedence over the other. It’s like a warm hug that you can eat.

It’s also the perfect late-night (or, ahem, hangover) food. It offers the carbs and salt that do your body good after a night of misbehaviour. Those gravy-soaked fries absorb all the bad choices, righting all the wrongs that came before them. It is perhaps for this reason that poutine is everywhere, in every city in Canada.

You can line up for poutine at 4 a.m. You can cover it with eggs and bacon and call it brunch. You can find it at the closest food truck, at your local diner, on nearly every restaurant menu. Poutine, you see, is possibility.

Can you share a bowl of ramen with a friend, or a date? Not easily. Ramen is a personal food, meant to be eaten alone with your thoughts. Poutine, in contrast, is shareable by nature. Everyone at the table can grab a fork and dig in.

It's also an excellent conversation starter. Discover your friends’ and lovers’ favourite toppings, craziest combinations, most high-end ingredients (the foie gras poutine at Montreal’s Au Pied de Cochon clinches it for me), and what you'll find is a window on the soul. Like Proust’s madeleines, poutine can’t help but send you on a journey of the mind back to your first experience, when it dawned on you that fries, gravy and cheese could produce the stuff of dreams.

Or you could have a bowl of soup. That’s fine too.

Sarah Lilleyman is the Globe Toronto editor

Ramen

Backer
Ann Hui

Poutine has become the Guy Fieri of comfort foods.

In the disturbing food trend that has emerged in recent years – that is, food that screams at us – poutine is one of the worst offenders.

Poutine has become XTREME EATZZZ for XTREME EATERZZZ. It is food for sport, not pleasure. Food designed to shock, rather than awe. Food like BACON ATTACK or EPIC TURDUCKEN: so masked by layers of cheese and pork belly and deep-fried stuff that the flavours are no longer the point.

Rarely is poutine just fries with gravy and cheese anymore. No, it’s fries with gravy and cheese – topped with bacon, and sausage and chili cheese, and pulled pork and chili. It’s fries with jalapenos, salsa, guacamole and chicken fajitias.

One Toronto restaurant even tops poutine with pierogi. Pierogi.

If you Google “poutine,” you will find a video series called Man vs Beast, where bearded men compete against giant pigs to see who can eat the most poutine out of large troughs. By the end, the men’s beards are covered in curds and gravy is stuck to their eyelids. Often, they vomit. That tells you everything you need to know about the evolution of poutine.

Oh, and when Guy Fieri – the perpetually shouting “Mayor of Flavortown” – visited Toronto, what did he eat? That’s right. Poutine.

Ann Hui is a reporter at Toronto City Hall

Mac and cheese

Backer
Sue Riedl

You’ve had the crappiest crap day; your only hope is couch, blanket cocoon, rock ballads – and food. Something so awesome it’ll annihilate what turns out to only be Monday. Ahhh, breakfast for dinner! Get eggs, crack eggs, retrieve tiny pieces of eggshell from bowl. (S*&%! Those pieces are small.) Screw it, you’ll eat them. Heat pan – add eggs – get bacon. Open the impossible-to-open bacon package, first with teeth, then steak knife, then by throwing against wall. Finally, bacon in pan. Check eggs. Eggs overdone. Bacon still flaccid. Turn up bacon; bacon splattering – someone said butter is good for burns. Toast! Stupid toaster setting says medium, but really it means "scorch." Only two pans, one bowl, one bacon-greased stove and one egg-streaked countertop to clean up. (And, wow, how did you use all that cutlery?) Fall asleep crying on an empty stomach, like when you were small and the babysitter forgot to feed you. Maybe tomorrow you'll just press Start on the microwave and warm up the gourmet mac and cheese you'll grab on the way home. Maybe whisper, “thanks, buddy,” as you take that first cheesy hug of a bite. Maybe mac and cheese is your true friend and not – like breakfast for dinner – your frenemy.

#macsmackdown #dontmesswithmac

Sue Riedl writes The Wedge cheese column in Globe Life

Breakfast for dinner

Backer
Christina Vardanis

Let’s talk about mac and cheese.

Let’s talk about how, unless you use five different cheeses that cost $20 a pound, it tastes like cardboard.

Let’s talk about how it’s the comfort-food equivalent of painting your house beige.

Let’s talk about the ridiculous amount of time it takes to make something that is one colour and made of two things.

Let’s talk about how annoying the word “roux” is. You know who likes pretentious-sounding words with silent letters? Jerks.

Let’s talk about how “gourmet mac and cheese” at a restaurant actually means “regular mac and cheese with flecks of lobster (product does not really contain lobster).”

Let’s talk about the cheese-and-butter food baby that sits in your stomach for days, if you eat more than a small bowl.

Let’s talk about whether or not something can even be called comfort food, if you can only eat it in small portions.

Let’s talk about who loves mac and cheese: kids. Because kids are unsophisticated baboons operating on a base-level instinct to drown any and all food in ketchup.

Now let’s talk about you: Do you like eating cardboard? Do you have copious amounts of free time? Are you bland? Are you a child? Are you pretentious? Unexciting? Unsophisticated? Are you beige? I didn’t think so. Welcome to Team Breakfast. #maciswack #baconnation

Christina Vardanis is an editor with Globe Focus

Chili

Backer
Bonny Reichert

I hate to be unsportsmanlike, but truthfully, pizza sucks. How can you compare a food that routinely comes in a cardboard box with beautiful, slow-simmered, complex and soulful chili?

Pizza smells like a crappy kiddie birthday party. Chili smells like a campfire in the woods. Pizza is the entrée of last resort; chili is a sensual Sunday project. Most pizza is made of tasteless dough, stringy cheese and whatever was left at the back of the cooler, while chili is a delightful melange of wholesome ingredients, loaded with flavour, fibre and finesse.

It’s true that on rare occasions pizza with good crust and fresh toppings is tasty, but please tell me what is comforting about waiting in line for it at a trendy restaurant, or having to scrub down every surface of your kitchen after making it yourself.

Chili is a dish that’s imbued with pride and passion. Pizza is so meh that they have to bring you 2 for 1 and a six-pack of Mountain Dew to close the deal. Pizza is what you order when you’re too busy to care; chili is what you make when you’re feeding folks you adore.

Pizza = indifference. Chili = love.

Plus, you’ll probably burn the roof of your mouth.

Bonny Reichert is a contributor to Globe Life and Style.

Pizza

Backer
Rasha Mourtada

Tell me this: Could you eat chili every day for the rest of your life? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Now, what about pizza? Hang on. Think about it.

A standard chili is tomatoes, ground beef, beans, peppers, some cumin, some chili powder. Want to shake it up? Try white beans instead of kidney, add some canned green chilis or stir in a spoonful of cocoa. Not much else to see here, folks.

But pizza? Crust, sauce and mozzarella are just the beginning. Want pizza for breakfast? How about a simple dough spread with slightly sweetened ricotta and fresh strawberries, drizzled with maple syrup? (Can you think of a way to make chili – with its pungent garlic and onions – work for breakfast? Tell me when you do.)

Want pizza for dessert? Go for a pie covered in Nutella and sliced bananas. Once you start eating, I dare you to stop. (Please don’t ever add Nutella to your chili.)

But, really, what could be more comforting than that old classic: the pepperoni pizza. Dial your favourite delivery, cue up Netflix and wait for the cheesy deliciousness to show up at your door. If you’re home alone, be sure to eat in pajamas. (When was the last time you ate chili delivery in your pajamas? Go ahead, defrost that one-trick pony that’s been sitting in the back of your freezer for six months instead.)

Now, tell me, could you eat pizza every day for the rest of your life? Yeah, I thought so.

Rasha Mourtada is a digital editor with Globe Life & Arts

Savoury 16 (March 3 to 13)

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Shepherd's pie

Backer
Jared Bland

Is there a better food that’s usually worse than that sad cafeteria staple Shepherd’s Pie? I can’t think of one. It’s so often gummy, packed with unbrowned meat and topped with flavourless potatoes. Sometimes one must endure the insulting inclusion of corn. But when it’s good, what’s better? It’s the perfect combination of so many wonderful things – an almost stew-like base, ideally reduced with red wine and a hint of tomato paste and finely chopped rosemary and a slowly sautéed mirepoix. Usually it’s made with lamb; I like beef in mine, though purists will tell you that this makes it a cottage pie. Whatever. The potatoes, of course, are key, and they must be as light as air yet as heavy as a pound of butter. Use a ricer if you can, and if you can’t, take care not to over-mash. Throw in some pureed confit garlic if you’ve got some (and get some if you don’t). And don’t be afraid of the broiler. The dish needs textural contrast: It should be a crispy potato shell, topping a perfect cumulus of carbs, sheathing an incredibly rich, umami-packed core. Once you’ve learned to make it well, you’ll never suffer an inferior version again.

Jared Bland is the Globe Arts editor

Chili

Backer
Bonny Reichert

Chili wants to please you; all you have to do is let it. This is the comfort food that bends to your needs and yields to your whims. Looking for something special in exchange for 8 minutes of work? A simple mix of aromatics, ground beef, beans, tomatoes and spices will turn into magic while you take a bath. Want deeper meaty taste and texture? Swap cubed beef for ground, simmer ’til it’s falling apart and prepare to be wowed. Maybe you don’t like beans? Texas has a chili just for you. Or you love ’em? Triple your pleasure by adding navies and pintos – leave the meat out entirely if that’s your thing.

Super spicy chili is thrilling, but a mild melange is soothing and friendly, especially with tortilla chips and a fringe of shredded cheese. A gussied up version with steak, whole dried poblanos and a hint of dark chocolate will do you proud, especially if your company stays for chilis and eggs the next morning. Spoon the rest over nachos, fold into a taco or dollop over a baked potato with sour cream. Chili is a fluffy duvet in January, a crackling campfire in June. Eat it up.

Bonny Reichert is a contributor to Globe Life and Style.

Breakfast for dinner

Backer
Christina Vardanis

That feeling, when you wake up 30 seconds before your alarm goes off. It takes you a second to realize what’s happening – that your body has peacefully drifted into a state of consciousness, rather than being forced into it against its will. The house seems impossibly quiet, as if in its own state of meditation. You’re not quite awake enough to register the stress of the day ahead. You are in the moment. Life is still. And from that blissful state, an equally blissful thought arises: “Maybe today, I’ll make a nice breakfast.”

The alarm goes off. Your partner jolts awake, and maybe farts. Your kid starts yelling: “I hear you where are you I need you my hair is stuck in the thing!” Next thing you know, you’re brushing your teeth while peeing because all of a sudden, there’s no time to separate those two tasks. Make a nice breakfast? Ha! Here’s a bowl of cereal you won’t have time to eat anyway come on let’s go WE’RE LATE.

A good breakfast in my house a sign of luxury - not the kind that requires expensive or rare ingredients, but the luxury of time. That’s why it’s such a comfort to make it for dinner – I can cook eggs to suit individual tastes, and then go the extra mile with prosciutto and shaved truffles, or just pull out a bottle of Frank’s. Either way, it’s much faster than making a more traditional supper, and the best part is I’m taking back what’s rightfully mine: the right to a home-made, relaxing and delicious meal, done my way, on my terms. There’s nothing more comforting than that.

Christina Vardanis is an editor with Globe Focus

Meatloaf

Backer
Maggie Wrobel

“I would do anything for loaf, I’d run right into hell and back.”

The only comfort food with a rockstar namesake (wonderfully cheesy rocker Meat Loaf Aday, who composed the words above, with one slight adjustment) meat loaf is not only the subject of the aforementioned epic power ballad, I Would Do Anything For Love, but also everything you could ever dream of in a culinary companion: It’s rich, it’s warm, it’s varied. You can serve it with sauce or without. Warm, sided with its best friend (a hearty scoop of mashed potatoes), or cold, sandwiched between two slices of rye bread with creamy mayo and a crisp leaf of lettuce. But the most beautiful thing about meatloaf is that, like love, it’s truly universal. It’s easy to make, and effortless to adapt, as proven by umpteen international versions – from Austria, where it is wrapped in ham, to Vietnam, where it is boiled instead of baked – which make it clear that humble, loyal, classic meatloaf is beloved the world over. What could be more comforting than that?

Maggie Wrobel is the assistant editor of Globe Arts

Mashed potatoes

Backer
Dakshana Bascaramurty

When I was four, I was so repulsed by the concept of mashed potatoes I asked my dad to tell my daycare I wouldn't eat them. My wish was granted and a note about my bogus complex carbs intolerance was pinned on the allergy board.

If only I could turn back time and undo that wrong. Mashed potatoes have since become the ultimate salve for my spirit on bad days.

Even the act of consuming this salty, velvety dish is soothing: a spoonful requires minimal work from the teeth before it melts away on the tongue. Mashed potatoes are baby food you can eat without sparing any dignity.

It's a truly democratic food, too. If you're the sort of person who uses an elite credit card with a $400 annual fee, use your gold-plated potato ricer to ensure perfect texture and dress your mashed potatoes up with crumbled Berkshire bacon, roasted local garlic and 15-year-old Wisconsin cheddar. The rest of us can have an equally delicious plate made with nothing more than a fork, a few Russets, butter, milk and salt.

When I was 20, I invited a guy I had just started dating over to my apartment but forgot to pick up food to serve him. In desperation, I microwaved a container of leftover mashed potatoes from the fridge. Five years later, that guy married me.

Dakshana Bascaramurty is a reporter with Globe Toronto

Dagwood sandwich

Backer
Kathryn Hayward

As a comfort food, the Dagwood sandwich is the superlative choice for two reasons. There’s no cooking required. And, by its very nature, it’s infinitely customizable. It begins and ends with a slice of bread, sure, but the magic that happens in between – and it is indeed magic – is as limitless as your imagination, or at least the contents of your fridge.

The fundamentals are dead simple: protein, veg, a condiment (or two). But the definition of deliciousness is as unique as you are, and is governed only by whim and necessity. How about Iberico ham, roasted red pepper, arugula and a sharp but sweetish mustard? Pickled herring with onion, sprigs of watercress and dill sauce? Grilled tofu, basil, crisp iceberg lettuce and hoisin sauce? Smoked turkey, bacon, applewood smoked cheddar, tomato, a handful of rippled potato chips and guacamole with a gherkin riding sidecar? Yes, yes, yes, and yes!

There are no rules. Pile it high or opt for restraint. Put an egg on it, add a squirt of lemon, a sprinkle of sea salt, a few beads of caviar. Toast it, melt it, press it – as long as you can lift it, anything is possible. Be the architect of your own happiness. Make yourself a sandwich.

Kathryn Hayward is the Globe Life editor

Pho

Backer
Cliff Lee

The ultimate comfort food is called upon to perform its sacred duties during times of duress (heartache, hunger, hangovers…). Which is why I am thankful that, for the common man with common kitchen skills, I cannot make a good bowl of pho at home.

After a long day, or after a longer night, I stop in to my favourite Vietnamese joint in Toronto, Pho Pasteur (a true mark of comfort: availability 24 hours a day). I order my usual, the Number 1, large. Within a few minutes, there is a bowl, the size of my head, placed before me. There are many things in it: al dente rice noodles, bean sprouts, chili peppers, lime, mint, thinly sliced rare beef, more meat. That's my order; on the menu there are dozens more numbered variations to choose from, of which I will probably never try.

At the heart of pho is the broth: a hearty, gingery secret recipe, beef bone-based, that has been simmering for an unknowable number of hours before you even knew you needed a bowl. I imagine the Vietnamese grandmother I never had, tending to the flavours from dawn to dusk

I could slurp it down in a matter of minutes, or I could stay and savour my meal for forever – remember, they never close. It doesn’t matter, because pho will always be ready for me, however and whenever I want it. All the same, I will walk out the door when I’m done, and I will feel a little bit fuller, a lot happier.

Cliff Lee is an editor with Globe Toronto

Ramen

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Ann Hui

Instant ramen didn’t just revolutionize people’s eating habits. It changed people’s lives.

Few other foods have been born of such lofty ambitions. Observing widespread food shortages in post-war Japan, inventor Momofuku Ando wanted to find a cheap, quick way of solving world hunger. Ando’s invention, instant ramen, has since been a saviour in times of economic turmoil – ask any college student – and natural disaster, as emergency aid.

In 2000, the Japanese named it the most important invention of the 20th century. They even built a museum devoted to Mr. Ando’s “magic noodles.”

Me? I eat instant noodles because they’re delicious.

Never mind the 10-cent Mr. Noodle bricks with faded labels – “Oriental chicken” barely scratches the surface. All over the world, people have created their own delicious takes on ramen. In Brazil, noodles are coated in cream sauce. And U.K. “pot noodles” come in flavours like “doner kebab.” Even celebrity chefs like “Ramen King” Ivan Orkin have gotten in on the action, with his own line of instant ramen.

My favourite are Shin Ramyun noodles from Korea – thick, chewy noodles in a fiery-red broth. On the package, the description only says “gourmet spicy,” but that’s pretty much all you need to know about the intensely salty, spicy broth packed with hot red peppers. In a time crunch – or just a craving – there’s nothing as comforting as a bubbling hot bowl ready in less than five minutes.

After all, as the very wise Mr. Ando once said, “mankind is noodlekind.”

Ann Hui is a reporter at Toronto City Hall

Pierogi

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Mark Schatzker

Do you think it would be comfortable to fall asleep on a pepperoni pizza? How would it feel reclining on a bundle of pointy French fries? So if you want to talk comfort – as in physical comfort – imagine a pierogi as big as a king size bed. A little cloud of sweet steam escapes as you slice off the top. Then you insert yourself, feet-first – like Luke Skywalker climbing inside a dead tauntaun – into its warm, potato-and-cheese interior, and let your head fall onto a pillow of cool sour cream. And what do you dream of when sleeping in a giant pierogi? Of eating that giant pierogi. Biting through dough that’s smoother than the highest thread count cotton and into the salty, creamy, starchy center whose texture approximates the fuzzy blankets they use in hospitals to swaddle sleepy babies.

The dream of the giant pierogi bed is, sadly, just that – a dream. One day, we may all be able to subject our bodies in the pierogi’s loving, savory embrace. Until then, the pleasure is reserved solely for the mouth. But if you want to make a pillow out of sour cream, there’s nothing stopping you.

Mark Schatzker is a Globe contributor

Poutine

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Sarah Lilleyman

The first poutine experience that I can remember was during a lunch break at a resort where I was first learning how to ski. I was terrified of the idea – trying to maintain balance and elegance while hurtling down a perilous hill (this was Ontario) on two slats attached to your feet didn’t make sense to me. But the poutine, that made sense. That unbelievably tasty mountain of french fries, cheese curds and gravy was warm, filling, inspiring. It gave me the courage I needed to make my valiant return to the bunny hill.

I never became a great skier, but I did become a great connoisseur of our classic comfort food. The crispy-on-the-outside, creamy-soft-on-the-inside fries. The delicious tang of the gravy (light and thin, people… it’s meant to provide heat as much as taste). And the pièce de résistance – the cheese curd. Melted just enough to provide a string trail from the plate to your mouth as you twist the perfect bite on your fork; not-melted just enough to retain its signature squeak as you eat.

There are many variations of poutine out there – add Montreal smoked meat, pulled pork or even foie gras. My favourite modified poutine involves bacon with a drizzle of maple syrup. But these are just playful accoutrements for our great invention. Poutine is perfection. And it’s as Canadian as they come – what’s more comforting than that?

Sarah Lilleyman is the Globe Toronto editor

Chips

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Denise Balkissoon

What some might see as a weakness, I see as a strength. Yes, potato chips are mass-marketed and factory-made, pre-packaged in garish wrappers and available just about everywhere. This means they’ll never let you down.

They’re also a particular pleasure to eat, from the first satisfying crunch to the flavour-saturated crumbs at the bottom of the bag. “Some people throw those out – those are crazy people,” opines my youngest brother, whose chip fanaticism is second only to my own.

On the first birthday he spent at an American university, I sent him a bag each of ketchup and dill pickle chips. Mailing the $6 gift cost $30, since it required a giant box as protection from being crushed. We couldn’t share a bowl of dip but the chips conveyed my love like a big, salty hug.

Potato chips are a vehicle for identity and memory: Ask any Pennsylvanian about Utz (which taste kinda stale, but in a good way) or Icelandic fan of paprika-flavoured crisps. Yet there’s no need to visit a particular relative or restaurant to enjoy them (though if you can’t find the one you love, you’ll have to love the one you’re with).

At the end of a long workday or after a tearful breakup, potato chips will be there for you. They’re simple and undemanding, and there’s nothing more comforting than that.

Denise Balkissoon is an editor with Globe Life

Chocolate

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Wency Leung

There’s a reason why we give gifts of chocolate rather than, say, pans of meatloaf or mashed potatoes to mark special occasions. Chocolate is indulgent. Chocolate is sublime.

Sure, health fanatics may salivate over chocolate’s antioxidant properties. But let’s be honest. It’s the food equivalent of a diamond ring. It serves no real purpose than to provide pure pleasure. If you’re not enjoying your chocolate, you’re doing it all wrong.

Naysayers will claim chocolate isn’t a true comfort food, since it’s generally purchased ready for consumption, instead of created over your grandmother’s stove. This, of course, is hogwash. Chocolate is about as comforting as it gets. Just ask anyone who’s ever sought solace in its luscious, velvety embrace.

It’s a luxury everyone can afford. The tiniest morsel can lift your spirits and sweeten your mood on the dreariest of days. (That said, don’t bother scrimping; buy the best you can afford. A nibble of high-quality chocolate will yield far more joy than an entire Costco-sized, chocolate-flavoured “candy bar.”)

Chocolate is fragrant, complex and intoxicating. No wonder it’s been prized throughout history, at times used as currency and regarded as sacred, magical stuff. According to Smithsonian magazine, a 16th-century Aztec document revealed one cacao bean was worth a tamale, and 100 beans could buy you a turkey hen. Not a bad trade, really. Bet the other foods in this competition couldn’t buy even half a turkey hen.

Wency Leung is a reporter with Globe Life

Pizza

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Rasha Mourtada

I’ve never met a plate of cheese and bread I didn’t like. But my ultimate cheese and bread combo? Pizza. Even in its most basic form – thin crust, tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese – it always hits the spot, leaving me with a blissfully full belly. Endlessly adaptable, pizza is a chameleon, changing on demand. One of my favourite meals is a pie delivered to my door at the end of a long day, gooey and glistening and dotted with salty pepperoni. But I also would never say no to homemade pizza, which I make using crust prepared from scratch, crumbled Italian sausage and freshly grated parmesan. And then there’s pizza’s upscale version. Cooked to blistery perfection at my trendy neighbourhood pizzeria, its tender crust calls to me every time I walk by.

I have devoured slices crust first, folded in half, piping hot or stone cold (best over the kitchen sink while still in pajamas) – in places as far from home as Honolulu, Santiago, Marbella and Beirut. My first meal after the beautiful, exhausting ordeal of giving birth was pizza, topped with fresh tomatoes and olives from the Domino’s down the street and eaten in the hospital room with friends, surrounding my new son. But the truth is, my standards when it comes to pizza aren’t exactly high, because even when it’s bad, it’s good. Gloriously greasy or seriously gourmet, I’ll take a slice with a smile every time.

Rasha Mourtada is a digital editor with Globe Life & Arts

Nachos

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Amberly McAteer

When the first nacho is pulled from the tray, the glorious tortilla chip draped with melted cheddar, ripe tomatoes and sweet onions, the ultimate comfort-food trinity is reached: Crunchy. Cheesy. Salty.

Salsa has eclipsed ketchup in global condiment sales, and with good reason: Ketchup is for the white-breads of the world, those who are happy to chew on the mediocre. Salsa is reserved for those who seek a snack with a higher purpose and more satisfying bite.

Indeed, great nachos demand truly great condiments: When nachos are done right – delicately layered, oven-baked with real cheese, and adorned with freshly diced vegetables (Cheez whiz and lettuce must stay far, far away) – they unite in a rainbow of flavours and give the lucky eater the ultimate comfort.

Ask yourself this, as you scroll through the other, lesser foods: Is there a more perfect marriage of flavours than a hot, cheesy, perfectly adorned nacho, dunked into a guacamole bath of garlic, avocados and jalepeno?

The answer is no, because no other food is far more than the sum of its parts. Whether enjoyed at a sports bar, at home or a high-brow restaurant going indulgently low brow, a tray of nachos brings friends, family and strangers together the way no other food can.

So crunch on, dear readers. All of the food groups, all of the flavour and all of the cheesy punch lines. You know what to do: Vote for the snack that is nacho average comfort food, but the king.

Amberly McAteer is the editor of Canada Q&A

Mac and cheese (50.1%)

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Sue Riedl

MAC AND CHEESE. After the humiliating snow job on the way home from Grade 1. MAC AND CHEESE. After you’ve spent a backbreaking hour shovelling out your parking spot and Prius-guy dekes in, totally disregarding winter dibs. MAC AND CHEESE. After your Machiavellian co–worker forgets to "cc“ you on the new deadline and you hate them so much. MAC AND CHEESE. After your person is not your person anymore and you cry in front of them and snot drips out your nose. MAC AND CHEESE. Rich toasty smell of browning breadcrumbs and melty aged cheddar. MAC AND CHEESE. Big bowl, steaming hot, eat around the edges first. MAC AND CHEESE. Fork plucks at tender pasta elbows, finger captures creamy sauce. Thin thread of gooey cheese stuck on your chin. MAC AND CHEESE. Guiltily topped with too much ketchup. No one has to know.

Sue Riedl writes The Wedge cheese column in Globe Life

Grilled cheese (49.9%)

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Ian Brown

A grilled cheese sandwich is fat on fat on salt on carbs, the essence of comfort, whatever the wound. I am not talking about your fancy grilled cheese here – some jumped-up panino of Taleggio and escarole and onion jam, which is exotic and impure. I’m talking about the original model, the central ingredient of which, the way my dad made one, is: butter. Butter in the pan; butter on the outside of the bread, to crisp it brown in the frying pan. He made them for lunch on Saturdays after a morning outside, a break for my mother. Extra-old white cheddar, mostly, though he wasn’t against orange. He always gave us a triangle to tide us over.

I like to cover the pan with a plate (it makes a moister sandwich), and then use the plate to eat off. My efficiency feels clever and decisive. But I always wolf my molten grilled cheeses down. I don’t want to think too long about it, about how much we all say goodbye to, every moment of every day. Just enough to feel young again, as if he were still looking out for me. What would be more comforting than that?

Ian Brown is a Globe feature writer