Category Archives: Foodways

Rosca de Reyes

M is 44. She was born in Los Angeles, her parents are from Guadalajara, Mexico. She told me about how her family practices the tradition of Rosca de Reyes in person.

“So, um… on January 6th, it’s the tres reyes magos they came to Jesus to bring him gifts and um… in order to celebrate that, someone bakes a cake and everyone takes a slice of it, and inside the cake there’s a baby Jesus, like a toy of the baby Jesus and whoever gets the slice with baby Jesus has to throw a party. The cake is called rosca de reyes… it looks like a round pretzel and on top it has like nasty pieces of jelly. In my family we always buy it, we don’t bake it ourselves…but so, the party is I think… in April. You throw a party in celebration of the coming of Jesus.”

The Rosca de Reyes is a variation on King Cake which dates to medieval times. The tradition is linked to Western Christianity and many countries have versions of it. In the United States, it is particularly popular as part of Louisiana’s Mardi Gras. The version M told me about is typical of Spanish speaking countries, especially Mexico. The hiding of the baby in the cake is said to represent the biblical story of Herod’s massacre of the innocents and the party thrown afterwards is supposed to be on Candlemas which is in February. For more information about the King Cake in Louisiana see,https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/02/17/147039138/is-that-a-plastic-baby-jesus-in-my-cake. For more about Rosca de Reyes see https://entrenosotros.consum.es/en/history-roscon-de-reyes. For more about the Candlemas party see https://wearemitu.com/wearemitu/culture/ok-so-you-got-the-baby-jesus-figurine-in-the-rosca-de-reyes-now-what-heres-what-dia-de-la-candelaria-is-all-about/   

If it ain’t pig, it ain’t BBQ

Nationality: American
Age: 82
Occupation: Retired Professor of Pharmaceuticals
Residence: Chapel Hill, NC
Performance Date: 5/2/21
Primary Language: English

Background: The informant was born and raised in Western North Carolina. He has lived in North Carolina his whole life. The following phrase expresses a sentiment of North Carolinians surrounding a classic Southern dish: barbecue.

“If it ain’t pig, it ain’t BBQ”

I was told that for most people in North Carolina, barbecue is specifically pulled pork. It’s a very regional thing whereas other parts of the country also have barbecue, theirs is anything that’s cooked on a barbeque–could be tri tip, could be chicken, could be pulled pork, could be sausage. North Carolina also has a vinegar based barbeque sauce, where other places use mustard or ketchup based sauces.

Context of the performance: This was explained to me over FaceTime.

Thoughts: This short, fixed phrase states what is considered a truth among North Carolinians. It reveals a regional difference in a big part of the Southern culture–which is food. The phrasing suggests a binary view of barbecue that distinguishes region, and in North Carolina, you wouldn’t call something barbecue if it isn’t a form of pork, usually pulled pork. Barbecue seems to be a small way of forming an identity in North Carolina.

Moonshine custom

Nationality: American
Age: 82
Occupation: Retired Professor of Pharmaceuticals
Residence: Chapel Hill, NC
Performance Date: 5/2/21
Primary Language: English

Background: The informant was born and raised in Western North Carolina. He has lived in North Carolina his whole life. He wanted to share some Western North Carolina traditions or knowledge. He specified that this really only takes place in the rural areas of the state and that this isn’t common knowledge outside these areas or in the more urban areas and cities. This knowledge was passed down from his father.

If you’re ever walking in the mountains, the woods, and you ever come on a live still that’s cooking moonshine as you speak (this is just basically taking corn and mix and you cook it and it converts. Then you take it and run it through copper pipes and you get it cool and cool the alcohol and that becomes corn liquor–also known as moonshine), you have to be really careful. Sometimes it’ll be booby trapped and if not what you’re supposed to do is, you see the still, get a stick and put it in the fire to say you’re going to help it and keep it going. This signals to anyone that might be watching in the woods with a shotgun that it’s okay and you’re not here to cause trouble.

Context of the performance: This was explained to me over FaceTime.

Thoughts: I am also from North Carolina but I’m from a city so I had never experienced or even heard of this kind of thing. This is so interesting because it reveals that the cooking of moonshine itself is a sacred tradition and the punishment for messing with moonshine is potentially getting shot. I didn’t know it was such a protected tradition or secret. I have alway felt some selective pride in being from North Carolina, but I felt like I was coming from an etic perspective. It shows that within the state, lifestyle and knowledge of traditions varies very much by region and that certain parts of the state will share very different common knowledge and unspoken rules than others.

SOUPY VS. STICKY FOODS BEFORE AN EXAM

Nationality: Korean-American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 21, 2021
Primary Language: English

MAIN PIECE: 

Informant: So in Korean culture… Before like a test or an exam you’re recommended not to drink or eat something that’s like soupy or runny. So, like, don’t have soup on the day of. And you should rather have something sticky like sticky rice or taffy or something like that, that has that like “oomph” to it… ‘Cause the correlation there is like, you drink something runny or you eat something that moves, then that information will leave with it. But if you have something sticky, that’ll help your brain stick that information into your head. 

INFORMANT’S RELATIONSHIP TO THE PIECE: 

Interviewer: Do you practice this?

Informant: No, I don’t. It’s just something my mom told me about… I haven’t really thought about it before like now. 

Interviewer: But have you ever tried or tested it?

Informant: No, I haven’t.

REFLECTION:

According to James George Frazer, homeopathic magic is magic in which like produces like. We see that manifested here, as soupy foods are believed to wash away information, whereas sticky foods encourage information to stick. The idea that what you consume can directly impact your performance in daily life is not unique to Korean culture; it is widely accepted that food is tied to health. Science shows that eating certain foods leads to different physical outcomes (ex. eating carbohydrates versus eating protein before working out). What is unique about this Korean belief is that it is not based on the nutritional value of a food, but on how soupy or how sticky it is––on texture or consistency. This is why it is more likely to be considered a form of magic, than a science-based belief.

ITALIAN CHRISTMAS DINNER

Nationality: Italian-American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 20, 2021
Primary Language: English

MAIN PIECE: 

Informant: For Christmas, ever since I was a kid, my mom would make, uh… Rigatoni… It was two dishes. One was Rigatoni alla Norma which is like, uh, an eggplant dish. It’s Sicilian and her dad like passed down the recipe. Um… And then she would also cook sausage and peppers? Which is kind of like a stew, almost… I don’t know if it originated anywhere or if it was like Sicilian or Italian at all. It was just something that like, at Christmas we knew we were gonna have that.

INFORMANT’S RELATIONSHIP TO THE PIECE:

Informant: I think it’s nostalgic. Um… I think especially those dishes, I remember my mom talking about the Rigatoni alla Norma, her mom and dad would make that for holidays when she was a kid. She never, like, ate it on her own. It was only when she had kids and a family that she wanted a tradition. My mom’s really big on traditions, like having certain things that we as a family do for the holiday. And food is a big part of that… I think it’s definitely nostalgic. I don’t think it’s just because of the holiday ‘cause my family’s not religious… It’s just like we know that on this day we will all have this meal together. It’s really about togetherness. 

Interviewer: Do you think when you have kids you’ll do the same thing?

Informant: I don’t know if I’ll stick to those dishes. Because, like, even though I’m Italian… I don’t like pasta… Um… But even if I didn’t like the pasta, those meals still have a special place in my heart. Just because my mom would slave in the kitchen all day just so we could all sit down and have time together, and it was always really like… Sweet. And I want that for my family. The appreciation. The coming together gratefully with food on the table. 

REFLECTION:

In Folk Groups and Folklore Genres: an Introduction, Elliott Oring writes, “Eating is one of the earliest interactive behaviors of a newborn, persisting as a situation for intimate human interaction throughout life… [W]e are likely to bring a great fund of emotion to the behavior of eating” (34). There is an emotional quality surrounding food, and eating is a highly social activity. The informant does not enjoy the taste of Rigatoni alla Norma, yet she has an emotional attachment to the dish because it is part of her family tradition. However, she does not plan to make this dish a staple of Christmas dinner with her future family. Instead, her focus will be continuing the tradition of coming together to share a meal. The informant does not seem to feel that the tradition is diminished if the dish changes. To her family, the Christmas dinner tradition is primarily about “coming together gratefully with food on the table.” If her children do not like the dish the informant prepares, perhaps they will change the dish too. And so the tradition would continue to vary, and yet, the heart of it––the togetherness––would remain intact. This demonstrates how traditions can change overtime (adhering to Alan Dundes’ definition of folklore as demonstrating multiplicity and variation), and also that foodways are concerned, not only with specific ingredients, dishes, and food preparation, but with why and how people eat.

ANNOTATION:

Source cited above:

Oring, Elliott. Folk Groups and Folklore Genres: an Introduction. Utah State University Press, 1986.