Category Archives: Foodways

Korean Chopstick Etiquette

Nationality: Korean
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 4/23/2022
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

The informant (J) is the son of two Korean immigrants. He moved to a city on the west coast when he was two years old and grew up there, but he was born in Korea and spent many summers there with his family.

J: When you eat rice or something you’re not supposed to stab your fork or chopsticks into the rice because it’s the symbol of like…you’re killing someone.

Me: Like it resembles the motion of stabbing someone?

J: Or no like, it’s…an incense funeral thing. Cause at a funeral you have an incense candle thing that you stick into this bowl and it sticks out and you light it

Me: Why do you do that at funerals?

J: I think it’s just to like…honor the dead I guess.

Me: Where’d you learn about the chopstick thing and the incense?

J: Um… I think my parents probably just told me not to like…stick my chopsticks into my food like when I was younger. I went to Korean school when I was a kid too and I’m pretty sure they told us about funerals

Context: This was told to me while we were in the living room of the informant’s apartment.

The Cleansing of the egg- Religious/ Spiritual ritual

Description (From Transcript): “Okay so for this one it’s the curing of the egg! I don’t know how the other person you got it from told you this, but my mom, she gets an egg, and she rubs it with either alcohol or agua bendita (holy water). We get our agua bendita from church, or sometimes in a tiny bottle. We have like a little bottle here at home, and what she does is she puts agua bendita or alcohol, or both sometimes, and she does a cross on our body. But that cross is a small cross on our forehead, which is 1, 2, 3, 4, (*does a cross motion*) and then a small cross on our heart, in the small crossing our legs and then a cross behind our head. She rubs that egg all around our body,  starting with the back of our head, which is the most important part. My mom says that’s the most important part because that’s where it’s in the middle. Medically, if you hit your head right there, you’re probably going to die. That’s the most important part that you have to protect, and that’s where she rubs us and especially when I had problems with stress, she does this to me, and as well. She does it through the head, first in the back of the head and then on top of the head, and then she moves towards the shoulders and hands, the front of the heart, and then she moves to the back, and then at the end towards the bottom, and then she brings all that energy into the top, and she rubs the head again. Then she goes to the restroom. She opens the egg, and she throws it in the toilet, not in the back. I know a lot of people throw it in the backyard or they throw it in the trash.But she does it in the toilet. She’s like “don’t come with me because you’re going to get that bad energy, and I have to do it by myself”. 

She goes to the toilet, she closes the door, and she flushed it. Then, she throws the shell in the trash can outside. 

Context: The informant, VA, is a first generation student at USC. She has one sibling and her family is from Puebla, Mexico. She got this tradition from her mother, who learned it from her own mother. As for how to do it, her mother saw it on an online video on facebook. However, she first learned of it from her mother. The informant explained that this practice shows how, even if you don’t believe in it, seeing how much her parents care for her, or the extent to which they care that they would do it, makes her feel important. She emphasized how seeing her mom do this small ritual for her when she feels bad or because of schoolwork, she feels a lot better. 

My interpretation: Unlike the other informant who explained this ritual, VA utilizes many religious aspects, including holy water and the crosses made on her body. To me, this reveals how the act is not only a demonstration of religion, but also a way for her to connect to her family and her culture. Additionally, her explanation of the head being the most important body part demonstrates how physical well being and spiritual well being are directly connected, and more specifically, how negative energies can be physically removed from a person’s body even if they are not visible or tangible. Flushing the bad energy down the toilet demonstrates how it’s seen as a particularly putrid agent that must be disposed of the way waste or toxic chemicals might be disposed of. I found it interesting how her mother relearned the ritual through social media videos. 

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.