In the 0.33 season of “The Big Bang Theory,” Penny (Kaley Cuoco) and Leonard (Johnny Galecki) have an intense argument approximately her incapability to mention, “I love you.” This devastates Leonard. He spends an awful lot of the next night time woefully attempting to sing himself to sleep with Alanis Morissette songs, a good deal to the chagrin of his fastidious, even though socially awkward, genius roommate, Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons).
Sheldon decides to make matters right — partly because he cares for Penny and Leonard; however, he is aggravated by the disruption — he purchases a pint of ice cream and visits Penny. “This is for you,” he says. “I’ve been familiarizing myself with lady emotional crises by reading the comic strip ‘Cathy.’ When disappointed, she says ‘Ack!’ and eats ice cream.”
Post-heartbreak ice cream holds a relaxed spot inside the library of TV tropes.
Think of the episode of “Friends” wherein Monica (Courteney Cox) starts offevolved courting Alan (Geoffrey Lower), whom her pals come to love clearly. She breaks up with him rapidly after — “No spark!” — and they take it certainly tough; she walks inside the gang sitting together, ingesting tubs of ice cream to drown their sorrows. Leading up to homecoming on “Pretty Little Liars,” Aria (Lucy Hale), upset following a breakup, says her plans for the nighttime of the dance consist of gossip magazines and Chunky Monkey.
There’s the traditional line from “The Edge of Reason,” the 2004 observe-as much as the original “Bridget Jones” film: “I am enjoying dating with two guys concurrently. The first is referred to as Ben, and the other is Jerry. The number of modern-day boyfriends: 0.”
Like most television tropes, this one holds a scoop of actual-global (and clinical) reality. After all, who among us hasn’t drowned their sorrows in frozen fat and sugar after an especially nasty breakup? But after a non-public ruin-up, I began considering every other manner we eat publish-heartbreak — the way we navigate recipes we were taught by using or learned with our good-sized others — and whether or not it would ever make its manner onto the small display screen. I remember when my ex-boyfriend taught me to make pork enchiladas,
for example. It becomes late December; his kitchen becomes cool, grey, and quiet, save the light scrape and ‘clink’ of the forks he used to stab and pull at a growing tangle of fatty meat. On the counter, there was a cluster of dark pink radishes. We’d picked them up the night time earlier than — together with cilantro, tomatoes, onion, garlic, and the beef cheeks. Initially, we’d searched for the beef tongue (“That’s not too wild for you, is it?” he asked as we picked via a cooler stocked with applications of cling-wrapped calf’s liver and tripe), but settled at the cheeks while we couldn’t discover one.
We grew to become the pork into enchiladas smothered in a darkish, cinnamon-heavy mole. It changed into a dish I made in my kitchen repeatedly. It made my experience close to him until it didn’t anymore. After a very painful wreck-up, I stopped cooking that dish altogether for a long time and realized I was over it when I became in a position to interrupt that recipe again. After casually polling some of my buddies, they’ve had similar experiences.
“My husband became Jewish, so I transformed while we were dating and learned from him to make matzo ball soup, among other things,” one friend told me. “When we subsequently broke up, I saved the religion but couldn’t bring myself to make that soup — which would have surely been the most comforting aspect to devour on time.”
Another said: “My female friend and I enrolled in a cooking magnificence together. For about 12 months, most of our date nights were spent learning stupidly complex recipes that we might move home and try to ideal. I consider the night we, in the end, made a souffle that didn’t fall, and we have been so proud.”
She stated that the souffle became a standby in their household, performing excursion dinner spreads and weekend brunches. “But after she left, it simply wasn’t — sorry for the pun — at the desk anymore,” she stated. “One time, I began making it myself, but I was reminded too much of her. I had to throw out the ramekins we used to lead them to.”
