Category Archives: Foodways

Nochebuena

Text:

“It’s a few nights before Christmas Eve — because we actually celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day. I think that’s just a Mexican thing. But we’ll gather, like, my cousins and my aunt — and yeah, actually it’s mostly just the women. And we’ll make tamales. And it’s literally — tamale-making isn’t just baking tamales; you’re up for hours. It’s so much hard work. We do it every year, and it’s pretty miserable, honestly. But I like it because I would continue it with my kids, because I think it’s important. I don’t really see my extended family that much throughout the year.”

Context:


Nochebuena — Spanish for “Good Night” — is celebrated on December 24th and is deeply embedded in Mexican Catholic tradition, marking the end of Las Posadas, a nine-day celebration commemorating Mary and Joseph’s search for shelter before the birth of Jesus. For the informant’s family, Nochebuena is the primary Christmas celebration, and tamale-making is its central ritual activity. The labor-intensive process of making tamales — spreading masa, filling, folding, and steaming — typically takes an entire day and is performed collectively, almost exclusively by the women of the family.

Analysis:

The informant’s mixture of affection and mild complaint — “it’s pretty miserable, but I’d continue it with my kids” — is a remarkably honest articulation of how folk traditions sustain themselves even when they are demanding. The hardship is not incidental but parallels how heritage can become a gendered experience. The hours of shared labor are the means by which the women bond and provide sustenance for the rest of the family. This is characteristic of foodways rituals in which the process matters as much as the product: the tamales are not merely the end result but the occasion for the gathering itself. The gendered dimension encodes a specific vision of family structure and cultural transmission, one that the informant has absorbed and plans to carry forward.

Hotpot at Thanksgiving

Text:

“One tradition that my family does, in conjunction with other Malaysian families, is that during Thanksgiving, we always have a hotpot dinner at one of our family friends’ houses. It’s been a tradition for the past five to ten years. We would always go to their house, and everyone would bring dishes together — fish meatballs, mushrooms, noodles — and it would just be the most amazing meal, because they would always put spicy sauce in it.”

Context:


The informant is 21 years old and is from a Malaysian immigrant family. He told me of this tradition when I asked him how his community celebrates American holidays. His family does the classic American Thanksgiving things — the big get-together, the kids’ table, the older cousins showing up — but the main event at the meal is Malaysian hotpot. Through a web of Malaysian families bound by social ties and maintained by shared celebrations, this practice has been sustained for almost a decade.

Analysis:

This custom is an example of cultural syncretism, the creative blending of two disparate cultural forms to produce a new creation. But the informant’s family has adopted the American Thanksgiving framework and filled it with the culinary and social content of Malaysian culture. Hotpot is in itself a very social way of eating, requiring the collective effort of diners to cook around a communal pot. The tradition illustrates how immigrant folk communities negotiate their sense of belonging: not choosing between cultures but adding one to the other, creating a hybrid celebration that acknowledges both the country of origin and the country of residence. The lore here is not in any one dish, but in the annual act of gathering. The continuity of people, place, and a shared dish.

Wisconsin State Fair

Text:

“I think about our state fairs. Um, and, you know, like one of the biggest things is like, you know, like cheese curds and things like that, and that comes from, you know, the fact that we, you know, pride ourselves on our dairy agriculture and things like that. And then, you know, beer is so, so popular in Milwaukee. There are so many different brands that have come out of Milwaukee that do beer, but it’s like such a popular thing to drink at these festivals.”

Context: 

The informant is originally from Wisconsin and, when asked which folk groups he identifies with, reflected on Wisconsin’s relationship with food. It’s officially considered “America’s Dairyland” and leads the United States in cheese and dairy production. Supporting these foods is almost synonymous with supporting the state’s agricultural workers and products. 

Analysis: 

State fairs function as festivals of regional folk identity, offering a ritualized space where communities can celebrate and distinguish themselves from other regions. For Wisconsin, food is the primary medium of self-expression: cheese curds are a strong signifier of agricultural heritage, and Milwaukee beer has a deep history within German brewing culture. As the informant details, these items are regarded with communal pride. It would be considered ‘foodways’ in which food production, preparation, and consumption transmit and represent cultural values. The state fair on stage is the most public example of this, amplified by the strong agricultural and regional belonging that collectively constitute the state’s identity.

Cures for Colds

Age: 21

TEXT:

Do you have any cures for colds in your family?

Informant: “So when I get a cold, pretty much what we do first is my mom buys eucalyptus leaves and we take a real hot shower with them. Supposedly it’s to help open our lungs. Then my mom will buy some guavas, and it’ll make guava tea. She’ll put cinnamon on it and then once it’s done, we will put in a little help with some honey to help our sore throats and then pretty much just a bunch of rest. And then in our rooms, we will cut half an onion and it’s supposed to help kill the virus.”

CONTEXT:

The context behind these cures for colds, are traditions that the informant has learned from her family who grew up in Guatemala and things that she was raised with.

ANALYSIS:

Though some aspects of these crews for colds can’t technically be proven with science, such as cutting an onion in half to help kill the virus, the belief in the tradition of enacting leaves forms of folk medicine can often serve as a way just to make one feel better within their own mind and thus promote themselves to take better care of themselves to get better faster. Additionally, cures such as guava tea and eucalyptus showers have been specified by this family and culture making it specific to them and those in their community 

Christmas struffoli (honey balls)

Age: 50s Hometown: Bronx, NY

Performance Context: I experienced this recipe and performance firsthand every December/ around Christmas time as the informant is my father. He comes from a large Puerto Rican and Italian-American family from the Bronx. His Italian family’s side are from Sicily and Naples.

Recipe/Description:

According to my father (the informant) – dough is hand mixed with orange zest and it cools a large gathering, usually the kids/cousins, roll the dough into strips called the ‘snakes’ of a certain thickness of a finger. The snakes are then chopped into squares which are then rolled by hand. They are then deep fried and left to cool in a pot of honey with a splash of sambuca as the secret ingredient. This is usually done in huge batches meant to be tinned and given to neighbors, friends, extended family, and people like doctors, teachers, dentists, etc.

The rolling technique along with the size of the balls are highly specified as the smaller the piece the crispy they end of getting fried. The informant states that nowadays their family (myself included) “does not create the proper sized dough pieces” and that back in the day the informants grandmother would make them “re-do entire batches of them if they weren’t up to standard” .

My father mentions there were a staple among his childhood and grew up sitting at a table rolling dough all day in the weeks leading up to Christmas. He remembers the act so vividly because his hands would start cramping and he would be so bored when the younger cousins would give up and leave the ‘rolling’ table.

Analysis:

This is a classic example of family/holiday foodways. The making of the Struffoli becomes a whole day and entire family affair. Once the day is decided to be dedicated to making honey balls, nobody can escape the kitchen. I think the fact that it’s such a labor intensive process, repetitive and boring, keeps the memory of this tradition so vivid. “It’s a very unique tradition”, even among other Italian-American traditions, according to my Father.

The specific snake rolling technique is a perfect piece of kinetic folklore, it’s a physical skill passed down through imitation, using the “thickness of a finger” as a marker. My father’s grandmother, and then his own, role in ensuring the quality shows how this specific tradition is policed and ensured to be passed down consistently generation to generation. The act of gifting the honey balls also serves as social currency, showing appreciation and love as well as signaling those in the community of their Italian heritage.