Monthly Archives: May 2011

Jewish Recipes

Nationality: English
Age: 52
Occupation: Journalist
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/22/11
Primary Language: English

The informant is a caucasian female in her 50s. She was born and raised in England. She, and her three siblings, were raised as orthodox jews. After university, the informant moved to Northern California for graduate school. She later moved to Los Angeles, where she now resides. The informant trained in school as a biologist, but switched to journalism and now works for a large newspaper. She is divorced with one child.

Following are two recipes for traditional jewish dishes.

Potato Latkes:

The informant learned this recipe for latkes from a Jewish women’s group at a synagogue in Los Angeles. She learned it soon after she was married when in her late 20s. She makes them only during Hanukkah. As a child, her mother would make latkes, but of a different sort. Her mother made matzoh meal latkes and served them with fried fish. These latkes were served at both Hanukkah and Passover. The informant was taught to make matzoh meal latkes by her mother, but when she tried to on her own she accidentally compressed air inside the meal and they exploded upon cooing. The informant decided to learn how to make potato latkes after having them at various friends houses during Hanukkah. She found the potato latkes to be delicious and purposefully asked the women’s group at the synagogue for the recipe.

Recipe:  Peel regular potatoes. Grate. Put in colander and sprinkle with salt. Let sit for ½ hour. Squeeze out excess moisture. Put in a bowl. Add 1-2 eggs. Add a finely chopped onion. Add a little flour. Mix together. Heat oil in frying pan, ½ inch deep. When oil is hot, add spoonfuls of latke mix. Pres flat into patties. Fry until crispy on one side, flip, and fry until crispy on other side. Remove from pan. Drain on towel to remove excess oil. Keep warm in oven until ready to eat, but not heaped on top of each other so they don’t get soft. Serve with sour cream and apple sauce.

Charoset:

Charoset is a traditional part of the passover meal, representing the mortar the enslaved Israelites used to build the pyramids in Egypt. The informant learned the recipe from her mother. Her three siblings and she would all participate in the preparation of the charoset, which would usually take place on the first day of passover. They would make enough for both nights of passover. Leftovers would be eaten on matzoh in the days after passover. The informant learned to make charoset at a very young age, in grade school. During preparation, her siblings would have competitions to see who could peel the whole apple in one string. The apple peels would sometimes be consumed as a snack during the making of the charoset. Whenever the informant makes charoset she remembers passover as a child and her mother cleaning the whole house and preparing all of the food for the meal. It brings back fond and fun memories of the communal and family aspect of the passover service.

Recipe:  Take tart green apples and peel. Course grate. Put in bowl. Take walnuts and grind them using a metal table top wheel grinder, or another appropriate method. Mix walnuts with apples. Add red wine to get a reddish color and mushy consistency. Add some sugar to taste, or honey. Adjust proportions of ingredients until it tastes right. Put it in fridge until ready.

Analysis:  In both of these recipes it is not so much the ingredients that matter, but the connotations of the dishes themselves and the memories they invoke. In many examples of foodways there is not only no specific memory, but it is the tradition behind the food, the passing of recipe down through the years, that has the most significance. As to ingredients, the informant did not have exact recipes for either dish, making both to taste and from memory. Every time she makes each dish it changes. What remains are the memories associated with the dishes. Both are associated with family and tradition, as each dish was only made at a time of gathering, initiated by Jewish custom. To her, the two dishes represent a special time of year when her family gathered together to celebrate. Part of what makes these associations so strong is the fact that both dishes are only served at specific times of year. The feelings that the making and eating of charoset and latkes invoke are stronger because the activities are done only on the two high holidays, and so the specialness is not diluted through continuous repetition throughout the year.

Proverb

Nationality: American
Age: 41
Occupation: Registered Nurse
Residence: Mount Kisco, NY
Performance Date: April 15, 2011
Primary Language: English

“Shit or get off the pot.”

The informant says she learned the above proverb from her mother, probably as far back as childhood. The proverb is typically used to express frustration over somebody not getting something done. The informant believes that the saying is useful in that “it’s to the point: either produce or move on, enough is enough.”

Like the informant, I found this proverb to be a useful way of communicating one’s frustration with another person. The vulgarity seems to ensure that the saying is likely to be directed at somebody who is relatively close to the person uttering it, as well as that the line will quickly catch the attention of its recipient. The slang, or perhaps, antiquated term “pot,” clearly referring to a “toilet bowl,” is similarly rugged and catchy. Unlike the informant, I think that the above proverb may connote not only frustration that someone is failing to “produce,” but perhaps that they are doing so in an untimely manner, and/or that they are impeding someone else (most probably the person using the proverb) from performing the same activity. This interpretation and use seems more specific to the metaphorical language of the proverb, which appears to invoke the image of someone unable to go to the bathroom on account of another taking his/her time in carrying-out the intended action of the other.

Baganda Tale

Nationality: Baganda; Ugandan
Age: 26
Occupation: Youth Association Director
Residence: Kampala, Uganda
Performance Date: April 1, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Luganda

“Two friends, Leopard and Hare, decided to grow some millet one day. Hare, knowing Leopard would try and take more than his fair ration, made a deal with Leopard.

‘Just plant the millet, and I will weed when it is time to weed, I will harvest when it is time to harvest, I will cook when it is time to cook, and I will prepare a meal when it becomes time to enjoy our work,” Hare offered. “All I ask in return is that I get a fair portion of the meal.’

Leopard agreed, and set about planting the millet. As months went by, Hare fulfilled all that he promised to do, and soon it was time to enjoy their meal. Hare called for Leopard, and the two sat down to eat. Once Leopard tasted the millet, he immediately wanted more. He used his great strength to overpower Hare, and ate all that had been prepared for both of them, leaving Hare with nothing to eat. This story is used to show the bad effects of trust…or, uh, not tru…of trusting someone too much.”

In my opinion, this tale exerts the idea of reality and how the strong can ultimately obtain their desires over the meek. However, the roles of Hare and Leopard are reversed from what they are in other Hare and Leopard tales. Similar to Coyote in the lore of Native Americans, Hare is versatile within the Baganda culture. Kizza writes of Hare, “…very few collections of folktales would be complete without [H]are…that survivor, ever ingenious, at times annoying, but an often loveable small creature.” [1]

[1] Kizza Immaculate N., The Oral Tradition of the Baganda of Uganda, pp. 161

Folk Belief- Runners/Race T-shirts

Nationality: American
Age: 41
Occupation: Registered Nurse
Residence: Mount Kisco, NY
Performance Date: April 15, 2011
Primary Language: English

Belief: Runners should never wear the memorial t-shirt that they receive while registering for a race during the race that the t-shirt commemorates.

The informant stated that she acquired this belief through a friend and fellow runner about 10 years ago when she started running. The belief is to be followed in practice for any race. For the informant, wearing a race t-shirt while running the same race is something you “just don’t do if you’re a serious runner,” and doing otherwise would make you feel out of line. She also emphasized, though to a lesser extent, that wearing the race t-shirt during the actual race might make one feel uncomfortable as though it were a bad omen and that something undesirable, such as an injury, might occur during the race.

Two aspects of this runner’s belief conveyed to me by the informant seemed particularly interesting and worth noting. First, the informant understood the belief, or more specifically its manifestation in practice (i.e. not wearing the registration t-shirt during the race) as a way of determining the insiders—the seasoned or “serious” runners—from the outsiders, who are presumably novice or more casual runners. Never wearing one’s race t-shirt while participating in that same race is thus a tangible way of asserting one’s identity, or their belonging to the former class. The second thing that seemed apparent to me, but not so much to the informant who looked upon the belief as something they simply adopted and practiced without thinking too much about it, is that this specific runner’s belief may be connected to an anxiety that doing the opposite—that is, wearing the race t-shirt while participating in the same race that t-shirt commemorates—could serve as a form of jinx. On this understanding, wearing the t-shirt during the race would be a sort of premature celebrating, since the t-shirt is meant to commemorate a successful finish to its respective race, and so the t-shirt should not be worn by any runner who has not actually finished the race, lest something bad should occur while they are attempting to do so. The belief could thus be seen as serving a very practical purpose in that it prevents the runner from incurring bad luck.

?

Narrative-New Mexico

Nationality: American
Age: 56
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Villa Park, CA
Performance Date: April 6, 2011
Primary Language: English

“She lived in a small town, Magdalena, New Mexico, where there wasn’t much going on. There was a Navajo reservation not far from there, and she and her friends used to go there. They had a strange but lucrative experience. The Native American Navajo men would pay women to dance with them. This was probably in the 1940’s, when my mom was in her early 20’s. She and her friends would be paid 10 cents a dance, and I believe that it was traditional native dancing around the fire. They always had fun, and left with lots of dimes!”

            Jennifer Mizban is a homemaker who was born in New Mexico and moved to California where she lives today. She told me this story about her mother while remembering her past. She remembered this narrative her mother provided that outlined a tradition in which natives and non-natives to New Mexico interacted with each other. The natives had modified their tradition to facilitate this interaction.

            This is an example of hybridization of cultures. The non-natives learned the natives’ dance, while the natives used dimes to dance with the non-natives, who surely infused the new dance style with their own flavor. In this case, a new tradition was made.