Let us set the scene: it's a winter's evening, it's Friday, you're tired, it was a hard week at work. The curtains are drawn, it's warm and toasty inside, rain thrumming on the windows outdoors, wind a-gusting. You're curled up on the sofa, the TV's on, and you're hungry. Mmmmm... this is a comfort food situation, is it not? Oh comfort food, how we love thee and your warming, gelantinous, hydrogenated fatinous¹ delights!

But you have to get it right. What is the perfect comfort food? What will it take to really hit the spot?

• What is your all-time number one favourite comfort food?

• Do you have a ritual, a bit of scene-setting to get the preparation just right, to maximise the comfort zone?

• Is comfort food, by definition, unhealthy food? Or can it be healthy? Can you curl up on a sofa and munch on a raw carrot?

• Is your comfort food the type you get delivered from a take-away restaurant? Do you like the build-up, the anticipation of waiting for the pizza delivery man to ring the bell?

• Is your comfort food a bit more emotional, connected to a memory: puddings your mother made; food from a foreign land?

• Do like to cook your comfort food? Is it a Sunday lunch sort-of affair?

• Is comfort food something you like to eat on your own or can it be a shared experience?

• Do you have absolutely no need for any form of pathetic so-called 'comfort' food, seeing instead food as simply necessary fuel for optimum physiological performance?

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¹ Made-up word alert! Made-up word alert!