At year’s end, people of many cultures look forward to sharing feasts with family and friends. And that means a lot of people are worrying about traveling, meal-planning, additional food expenses, and the inevitable family feuds.

Instead of worrying, try taking a moment to stop and smell the cornbread. That’s right, the cornbread. Or if you prefer, the apple pie, latkes, corned beef and cabbage, baklava, hoppin’ john, or tabbouleh.

It’s been shown that scents can alter moods, for better or worse. And since most of us associate the smell of food with positive memories, those scents can calm us and lift our spirits during stressful or difficult times. On the downside, the tantalizing smell of food also can tempt us into eating more than we’d intended. But if we can keep our appetites in check and just close our eyes, the holiday aromas may help take our minds off the problems in our lives. After all …

“Food is the most primitive form of comfort.”

—Sheila Graham, gossip columnist and author

“Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.”

—Mark Twain, author and humorist

“Food is our common ground, a universal experience.”

—James Beard, the “dean of American cookery”

“There is no love sincerer than the love of food.”

—George Bernard Shaw, playwright

“Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.”

—Voltaire, writer and essayist

“If hunger makes you irritable, better eat and be pleasant.”

—Sefer Hasidim, the Hebrew “Book of the Pious”

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”

—Virginia Woolf, author

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

—J. R. R. Tolkien, novelist