Author Archives: Carmen Soret

Chupinazo

Nationality: Spanish
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Madrid, Spain
Performance Date: April 26, 2014
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

“Everything starts around 9:30am. Where all the people especially the young ages, from 16 to late 20’s or even early 30’s all meet to have breakfast with their friends, in groups. So they have a good, filling meal. So after that they usually go to their “cuartos” (rooms) which are little locations that established groups of friends, called “quadrillas” (circle of friends, clique) rent together to use as a gathering place during the “fiestas” (festival, party). So they pretty much go there after having that good amount of food and start drinking. That’s if you’re older. The younger teenagers mix club soda and food coloring with some other things and spray each other to get messy. They throw food and other things at each other to get messy. They even throw eggs. People start heading out to the city hall around 11:30 because the awaited “chupinzao” starts at 12pm. So the whole village around the city hall is waiting for the mayor to set the main rocket off , called the “chupinazo.” The setting off of the rocket marks the official start of the towns “fiestas.” After the rocket has been launched people dance in the street and proceed up the main street to the plaza like a parade. As the people walk up the street, townspeople throw buckets of water from their balconies onto the people dancing below. This is how the “fiestas” start in my hometown of Calahorra, La Rioja. I live in Madrid now but always go back to Calahorra for fiestas which is where my family is from. “Fiestas” in Calahorra start on August 25 and end the 30th. The fiestas celebrate the towns saint of San Emeterius and Celedonius. ”

 

Every town in Spain has its own patron saint(s) and the festivals of the town are based on those saints. One of the most well known examples of this is the festival of Sanfermines from the city of San Fermin. Their patron saint is Saint Fermin. Most of the “fiestas” include similar traditions like Cabezudos y Gigantes, ‘chupinazo’, and a running of the bulls. Sanfermines has made these traditions known internationally but they are performed in almost every towns’ patron saints festival celebrations, locally called ‘fiestas.’ The ‘chupinazo’ is the kick-off to start ‘fiestas.’ The informant provided his experience of the ‘chupinazo’ in Calahorra, Spain.

This website provides further information and a few pictures of the “Chupinzao”: http://www.navarra.com/english/sanfermin/chupinazo.htm

Jokes about the Catalan

Nationality: Spanish
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Madrid, Spain
Performance Date: April 26, 2014
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

“Este es un chiste sobre los catalanes que dice la gente de Madrid:

Este es un Catalan que va conduciendo su coche y tiene un acidente. Entonces le gente se para para ayudarle y llaman a un ambulancia. Entonces viene la ambulancia y el esta mal errido como aturdido. Entonces sale el camillero y le dice a sus companeros de la ambulancia, “rapido trae me una mascara” y el tio medio sangrao, aturdido dice “la mas cara no, por favor. la mas varata.”

Hay el estereotipo que los catalanes son unos agarados con el dinero. ”

Translation:
This is a joke about the Catalan that people from Madrid say:

“There is a Catalonian man that is driving along in his car and has an accident. So then the people stop to help him and call an ambulance. Then the ambulance comes and he is badly hurt and dazed. Then the paramedic steps out and says to his co-workers, “Quick bring me a mask.” And the guy, half-bleeding and dazed says, “Not the most expensive one, the cheapest one.”

Analysis:
The joke is found in the play on words between ‘mascara’ (mask) and ‘mas cara’ (the most expensive). They both sound the same in Spanish but have, obviously very different meanings. The injured man thinks the paramedic is saying to bring out the most expensive, when really the paramedic is saying to bring out a respiratory mask. In response the injured man requests the cheapest one despite being severely injured. The joke plays off the stereotype that the Catalonian people are very cheap. This joke is similar to jokes in the United States about Jewish people being frugal with money. Also, there is lots of cultural tension between the Catalan people and the rest of Spain due to a political movement on the part of the Catalonians trying to declare independence from the rest of Spain. This joke is a means of putting down the Catalonians therefore making it easier to separate themselves from them.

Suzie Homemaker

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Occupation: high school teacher
Residence: San Jose, CA
Performance Date: April 26, 2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Tell me about some of the other customs or experiences in your Culinary Arts Program:

“Another thing that caught me off guard was that the chefs used “Suzie Homemaker” as an insult. One time the chef saw me holding my knife as I was slicing pears and he shouted, “Rebecca, you look like a Suzy Homemaker holding your knife like that! You don’t look like a chef! Why aren’t you holding your knife the way I showed you?” and then shook his head at me. Another time we used pastry bags with interchangeable, decorative tips while learning different techniques to frost cakes. He scoffed and looked at me and said, “You probably have one of these don’t you? All Suzy Homemakers do.” I had to confess that I didn’t. The assumption is that amateurs often try to learn pasty skills at home and that we would be unsuccessful at it. Often times he ridiculed non-professionals who make themselves out to be experts by making Youtube tutorials or even publishing books that use wrong techniques. Before now, I thought the title Suzy Homemaker referred to somebody who was skilled and now I’ve learned a new use of the term.”

 

“Suzie Homemaker’ was a line of toys released in the 1960’s and is the derivation for the now commonly used term. The line of toys included dolls and other faux appliances. As such, it has been linked to domestic roles traditionally played by women. The participant, my mother, and I had similar a understandings of the meaning to be positive and descriptive of a female who was a good cook, kept a clean organized home and supported the needs of her family in the domestic sphere. Upon doing some research, I learned that the term has been adopted by feminists as a means of scorning women who still conform to these gender roles.

My mother was exposed to a new meaning for the term; in the culinary world it is used as an insult to ridicule amateurs. Depending on the context of the term, it can have different meanings.

 

culinary school

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Occupation: high school teacher
Residence: San Jose, CA
Performance Date: April 26, 2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Tell me about your experiences in Culinary Arts School:

“At the end of January I graduated from a program in Classic Pastry Arts at the International Culinary Center in Campbell, CA. There were some things that really surprised me. One of them was that the male chefs at the center made a regular habit of yelling at their students, turning beat red in the face, throwing things, cussing their students out, banging rolling pins on the tables solely to intimidate their students. This has also been shown on TV shows like Hell’s Kitchen, but I thought this was for the cameras. Apparently verbal abuse is part of the training.”

Do you think they do this as an initiation process?:

“Absolutely! One of the chefs openly shared that that’s how he was trained and that he believed he was making us better by doing this to us.”

The culinary world is a field which outsiders have little knowledge of. The few representations we have are television shows on channels like The Food Network. By nature that they are television shows , it is unclear how much of the performance is a dramatization for the cameras and how much is genuine. Here we have evidence that most of the drama is actually representative of the culture surrounding culinary arts.

This yelling and intimidation is, in the eyes of the chefs, a right of passage that transforms them from students into professionals in the industry. It seems that this methodology has been passed down from previous chefs with the intention of preparing them for high stress situations that are most likely common in a kitchen/restaurant environment. It must also be a sign of superiority and strength in the kitchen for the lead chef to scold those below him; only the head chef can yell.

 

 

Use of tortillas

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Occupation: high school teacher
Residence: San Jose, CA
Performance Date: April 26, 2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“I think the history of toritllas in my family is a unique one. Even though I consider myself “main stream” American in most aspects, I am Mexican-American on my mothers side and German and English on my dad’s side. Even though we didn’t speak Spanish in my home, nor did we eat Mexican food in my home on a regular basis, I believe our use of tortillas would be thought of as unusual by most Americans.

For one thing my grandma Lucy showed me how to roll tortillas during my pre-school years. My grandma Lucy came to the United States from Mexico when she was 3. She and her parents crossed the border with a cow. *laughs* My grandmother would stand me on a kitchen chair so I could reach the counter top and proceeded to show me how to pinch off a ball of dough and roll it into a flat tortilla. She was very quick and skilled with her technique so that her tortillas always came out perfectly round and even in thickness, turning and rotating the dough as she went. Mine however, we’re very wonky. But she didn’t seem to mind.

Years later, she use to brag to me that her tortillas were now made of seven grains. Although uneducated, my grandmother learned the latest health trends in cooking and took many community courses. She was also a skilled seamstress.

Within my nuclear family household, there were always corn tortillas on hand. While most Americans think of corn tortillas as a condiment alongside a platter of Mexican food, we used tortillas as the base for a snack. I’m not even talking about quesadillas. We threw our corn tortillas onto a gas burner until they became lightly blackened. Then we would stuff them with a slice of cold cheddar cheese, a hot dog, scrambled eggs or even peanut butter which would melt inside the hot tortilla.”

What types of flour did she use?:

“I think white flour, whole wheat flour, garbanzo flour, barley flour, wheat germ and I can’t remember the others.

Have you ever made tortillas from scratch?:

“Haha no. Only my grandma did that, not even my mom.”

The informant, my mother explains that in her childhood her family did not maintain many, if any Mexican traditions or customs. The one that did stick though, was tortillas being a commonplace item in her household. However, her family used tortillas beyond an American conception of what tortillas can be used for. They didn’t just use them on the side or to wrap burritos, they used them as a base for creating different snacks.

It is also interesting to note that the tradition of making the tortillas ended with her grandmother, my great-grandmother. But the unique use of them got passed on through the generations. My mother made me some of these same snacks as a kid growing up. And now this is how I heat up tortillas, directly on the burner. A warm, blackened tortilla with a thick slice of cold cheddar cheese is surprisingly satisfying. My mom would also make another recipe she learned from her grandmother using the tortillas that included: torn up corn tortillas, sliced hot dogs and scrambled eggs.