Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

Greek Fruit and Vegetables

Nationality: Greek, German, Angentinian
Age: 17
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 11, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Greek

Informant A is a 17-year-old Sophomore at USC studying Biomedical Engineering with an emphasis on Neuroscience. She is ¼ Greek Cypriote, ¼ German and ¼ Argentinian but she strongly identifies with the Greek side of her. She spent 9 years in Greek school and goes to Greece every summer. She speaks Greek with her grandparents.

So one of the biggest things on the island is a stress on the importance of fruits and vegetables, because we grow all of our own. And some of my family members actually own farms. So one of the important things that my grandfather did with me as a tradition together, because he knew I wasn’t getting it in such an industrialized urban America, since I lived in New York City, was he brought me to my family’s farm and he had me pick the figs with him. So I know how to pick a perfect fig now! I know exactly the ripeness to pick, I can see it up in the tree, I’ll tell him and point at it, and he’ll take the ladder and go pick the fig down, and I got to eat it right there, right off the tree totally fresh. We’d feed the bad ones to the chickens or rabbits. We’d pick peaches and grapes and he basically wanted me to have experience with the outdoors with the food that you’re eating because he felt that American culture is so far removed from the actual farming and from the food. You just kind of accept what’s in front of you and put it into your mouth and your body without knowing what it is.  He stressed things like knowing which chickens gave you your eggs, and where you’re getting your flowers from. We would drive 2 hours to a nearby village to get our Halloumi cheese. I would always come back with like 20 packages. I guess one of the advantages the US has over Cypress is access to things like toothpaste and Listerine, these things are such luxuries in Cypress. I would actually bring a suitcase full of this stuff. When I come back though my suitcase would all be full of cheese!

There’s a big contrast between the industrial and the farm land. So what would happen with this food, its usually community based, and you’d make your dishes and invite people over and they’d bring the dishes that they made. But the way that the structure works as far as the meals go, which I really like it that you don’t actually start off with a bread or a soup, you start off with some cheese, you use that to tide you over. And they always have the bowls of fruit out. The fruit is completely different. They’re so small but so sweet. I miss it. They only pick it when its ripe and you eat it right away. My family specialty is pastichio, and it’s like a “Greek lasagna” and I call it that just because it has pasta and meat in different layers. Its purpose was to fill you up and give you enough energy for the long day, because most of the people in Cypress work in the fields. It’s a layer of noodles in the bottom, and then you would have a layer of ground beef with mint and parsley, and olive oil and chopped up onions, and then you add all the vegetables to get your nourishment. And then the top is béchamel cream. It’s a very light creamy mixture that adds some substance, and then you put a little cinnamon on top. And one small square like the size of your fist will completely fill you up, it’s a full meal. I actually called my grandmother to get the exact family recipe when I made it here. It doesn’t taste the same if you buy it in a store. Every family makes it a little differently. The family recipes correlate exactly to what the villages would grow, each dish will taste a little differently in each place. In the US we like storage. We need pre-packaged food or canned food, something that we can open easily and work on. In Cypress we have all these fruits and vegetables and its just around, you can pick it and you can make it, you have the time.

 

Analysis:

Here the informant A talks about the importance of fresh fruits and vegetables in Greece and also about the tradition she and her grandfather share when she went to pick the figs, and also the tradition of making her family recipes. She also describes how she called her Grandmother for the recipe and how that strengthened their bond.  She describes the importance of community and how everyone will come together over the home cooked food. She doesn’t think that this same type of community exists in the US because people cook much less here because they just want things fast, and have less special family recipes that are passed down.

Veteran’s Day Tradition

Nationality: Korean
Age: 20
Occupation: Student, US Military
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 13, 2015
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

Informant E was born in Korea and moved to El Centro California when she was 4. Before she came to USC she found that she was accepted into the school but also enlisted in the military. She put school on hold and deferred for a semester and went to training at the age of 17, and was one of the youngest soldiers to graduate. And after her experience with boot camp she came back to USC and started school and contracted to army ROTC. She has been deployed over the summers to Korea. She studies Psychology and Linguistics as a double major and a Forensics Criminality minor combined with dance as well. She wants to use her schooling and military experience to be in the FBI one day.

So in the military we have a lot of military balls we have a lot of Veterans Day dinners and banquets where everyone comes up in their nice dress uniform. But specifically we had this one Veterans Night/Dinner/Ball put on by USC and it happens every year but it’s a tradition that the very youngest cadet and the very senior oldest cadre member come together to cut the dessert cake together. It’s been an ongoing thing not just within USC Veterans Day dinner but also balls outside of USC. And I think it symbolize the fact that the youngest and the oldest and everyone in between is a part of this ceremony. I have a very late birthday and I joined the military at the age of 17 which is the absolute youngest and so the first couple years it was me that was cutting the cake with this like 5 star general and personally it was such an honor and it made me feel really important. Like I was a part of this ceremony with this amazing phenomenal general who was in several wars, and just to stand beside him and doing this together symbolizes the fact that we are one, an army of one, one fight, one team. I don’t think I’m ever going to forget that and I know that every year we have this and it’s a new younger cadet and a new older senior personnel every time and I know kind of what exactly they feel. It’s a huge honor and its very humbling too. Everyone’s watching you do this and what it signifies. It’s an amazing tradition. This is one night that everyone who has served beside you comes together and everyone comes together out of this stressful environment, everyone just comes together and has a good time.  I do find it nostalgic and it makes me proud too because some of these cadets I’ve mentored and taken under my wing growing up and now they’re up there doing this thing and I know the experience they’re having. Its really humbling and it’s a moment of joy and pride and its very nostalgic because I was once up there too.

Honoring those who came before is very important. Before every function we have this table we set for our Prisoner of War and Missing In Action brothers and sisters in arms. It’s very specific. We have this table set and the tablecloth signifies that they’re not here with us, the empty chair signifies that they’re not here with us, there’s a plate set out because were waiting for them to come. There’s a slice of lemon on this plate to symbolize their sour fate and there’s some salt to symbolize all the tears that we’ve cried waiting for them to come home. And after everything we say that we remember and we toast to them in the end. I think it’s another tradition before we start all these functions that we still remember them and we still honor them even when they’re not here with us.

 

Analysis:

The military places a strong emphasis on community and unity. This tradition with cutting the cake symbolizes that everyone from the oldest to the youngest is a valued member and is honored in this ceremony. This helps unite the military together even more.  Even those who are not currently present are honored as well because they are still included in the community.  The military also emphasizes honoring and remembering those who have came before.  The informant mentions how humbled she was to have the opportunity to cut the cake and how proud she felt to stand next to this celebrated general and to be a part of the military.

PASSOVER

Nationality: Half-Mexican-American, Half Jewish
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC, from Dallas, Texas
Performance Date: 4/23/15
Primary Language: English

Interviewee: So my family was never really Jewish. My grandfather was always like, “I’m Jew-ish.” Or maybe that’s what my aunt said about him. But he never really practiced. He only went to Temple on the high holy days, like Rosh Hashanah, and even then it wasn’t guaranteed. So we never really celebrated it in our house. But I always keenly aware of the fact that I was different from other kids. And probably that mostly stemmed from me being Hispanic.

Interviewer: It’s hard to celebrate Hispanic culture. Like there are no Hispanic mainstream holidays.

Interviewee: Yeah and like living in the whitest town in the country. I tried to make my family celebrate Hanukkah, and my mom was always open to it even though she was super Catholic. She just loves God, I don’t really get it. But it never really worked out because my Dad didn’t celebrate Hanukkah as a kid, he celebrated Christmas. So that didn’t really work out.

But then my best friend since basically birth, his Mom is Jewish and his grandmother wanted to start doing Passover with them. So they invited us over for Seder. And now it’s become this big thing where I always look forward to Passover, I looked forward to it all year.

So we would get together and the joke was that he is half-Jewish on his Mom’s side, I’m half-Jewish on my dad’s side, so together the family makes an entire Jewish family.

And the thing about this friend’s grandmother is that no one in her family really likes her, but in my family we view her as a god.

Interviewer: How many times a year do you see her?

Interviewee: I make it a point to go see her whenever she’s in town. She’s really funny; she acts just like my grandmother, but she has this thick New York Jewish accent. “JR come over here, let me get a good look at you. Do a turn for me.”

So no one really likes her in that family, but in my family she is the bomb, everyone wants to hang out with her. So we would come over for Passover, and immediately she and her daughter would start fighting. It just made for the most entertaining Seders. She would be reading all slow, and her daughter would be like, “Mom you gotta pick it up.” So she would read it faster, and then at the end, she would be like, “Oh, we didn’t really do Seder this year, did we? I guess you’re not into it; you read it so quickly.” So they would start yelling and bickering.

We had some traditions with Passover that grew. Like my friend’s dad would always have the Elijah Glass. And then there is always a fight because there is a part with four children and there was four of us, me, my brother, my friend, and his sister. And there was a part with like the simple child and the wicked child. So we always fought over who was the simple child and who got to be the wicked child. You wanted to be the wicked one.

There was always the hiding of the motzah. My friend’s grandmother would hide the motzah in the house and kids would team up together and tear through the house to see who could find it first.

His grandmother would cook a brisket. So good. Motzah ball soup. We could get real Jewish.

Interviewer: And you guys didn’t really have the opportunity to get to eat that type of food?

Interviewee: We would never have that growing up. It was always like, “Ooh it’s Passover, we get to eat Motzah Ball soup.” The Seders were always super quick and not really religious. It was just fun.

ANALYSIS:

This is clearly a story about struggling to find one’s identity, as he says above that he never felt like he fit in at his all white school because of his race. I think that by turning to Judaism he found something about his difference to celebrate. That his culture no longer ostracized him from everyone else, but rather included him into this two family Seder. It is clear that the religious aspects of the dinner were not really that important because that was never why anyone really wanted to do it in these families in the first place. It seems like it is so much more about understanding and celebrating ones identity and background. With Passover and my informant’s friends grandmother, my informant was able to experience and celebrate what it was like to be Jewish; what it was like to be different. The grandmother served as the guardian into that world for my informant’s family.

CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER

Nationality: Half-Mexican-American, Half-Jewish
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC, from Dallas, Texas
Performance Date: 4/23/15
Primary Language: English

EXAMPLE:

ANALYSIS:

I like this tradition because it is all about how his neighborhood became a surrogate family for one another. For a holiday like Christmas, which is normally celebrated with you family only, to make the whole neighborhood spend the day together, even go to different churches than where they normally go, that is a powerful connection they have. I appreciate that.

It is also a great repetition as even the divorce couples switches off as to see who can come to Christmas Eve that year. Every Eve brings in a new set of stories and laughs, all of which are grounded in very real traditions. Church, Dinner, Home, and reading “The Night Before Christmas”. He even noted that once his grandfather died everyone noticed how strange it was that he was not there to read that book, his dad had to. That sounds like a very grounded tradition to me.

 

Christmas Sugar Cookie recipe

Nationality: American
Age: 49
Occupation: executive assistant
Residence: Santa Monica, CA
Performance Date: 3/15/15
Primary Language: English

Cookies:

1 cup shortening Crisco

2 cups sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

4 ½ cups sifted measured flour (sift flour fluffy)

 

  • Cream shortening, sugar, egg, salt, vanilla,, soda stir in together
  • Add flour ⅓ at a time. Shape dough in oval rod, wrap up in put in plastic bag.
  • Chill 2 hrs in refrig. at least.
  • preheat to 350
  • Let sit ½ hr
  • Rolling pin, flour pin+counter lightly, cut ¼ of dough
  • Roll to ¼ to ⅜ thick
  • Cut w/ cookie cutter
  • Bake 12-15 min. —not brown

 

Icing:

Cream together:

2 cups shifted confectioners’ sugar

¼ cup soft butter or 3 tablespoons hot whipping cream

Add and beat until smooth:

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 to 4 tablespoons milk, dry sherry, rum, or coffee

If the icing is too thin, add more:

Confectioners’ sugar

If too thick, add:

A little cream

 

The informant had gotten the recipe for the cookies from her mother-in-law, who had gotten the recipe from her mother. The mother-in-law is from Ohio, and her mother was from Italy and came to America a few years after her marriage. There have been a few changes to the recipe over the years, as ingredients become more available—hence the option of milk, coffee, dry sherry, or rum to the icing.

 

The mother-in-law started the tradition of having these cookies at Christmas. The cookies are only made during the Christmas season every year, usually a few days before the holiday. There is one designated day of cookie making, where the cookies made that day are expected to last until the end of the holiday season and the visiting of all relatives. Depending on how many relatives are expected, and especially how many children are around, more or less batches are made on this one day. Because of the multiple batches, the icing of the cookies can be moved to the morning of the next day, though this often causes more stress.

 

In recent years, about 50 cookies are made. There are 3 different cookie shapes: a Christmas tree, which has green icing with little green sparkly sprinkles; a yellow star with multi-color non-parreil sprinkles; and a Santa Claus head, with black-frosted eyes, a red-frosted hat, and white-frosted beard with coconut shavings. Each relative tends to have his or her favorite cookie, with the Santa Claus being the least popular, though the most revered as it is the most aesthetically pleasing.

 

There are many stories told about the cookies from the time when the informant’s husband was a child with 2 brothers and a sister. One of the popular stories is how when the cookies would first be made available to the children, each sibling would steal 5 or 6 and hide them under their respective beds, with no covering. Jokes are made on finding icing stains on the underside of the mattress years later. Another is when the mother-in-law was a girl and would be sure to help make the cookies, so she could steal the cookies of the cooling rack before her mother could notice and her sister could get them.

 

This previous year, the informant was not going to go to her in-laws until later in January, but felt her husband and daughter would miss the cookies at Christmas, as they are one of the main aspects of her family’s Christmas celebration, so she made them with her daughter on Christmas day. She did not have the same cookie cutters, so she used a dolphin cutter with blue icing with a black-frosted dot for an eye.

 

When asked why these cookies were so important, she said that it is one of their family’s Christmas traditions. In order for it to feel like Christmas, there should be some kind of a tree (she’s had a Charlie Brown-esque Christmas tree the past few years), some present giving, a good meal…and the cookies when she goes and visits her husband’s family. Her mother-in-law puts in a lot of effort for those cookies—a whole day’s work—and they have been around for years. The informant does not even like the cookies very much, “too sweet for my salty taste buds,” but that does not lessen their meaning.

 

The cookies will continue to be served by all of the mother-in-law every Christmas, and the tradition, or at the very least the recipe, will remain a part of her children and her grandchildren’s lives, and fond memories of Christmases at her house.