Category Archives: Foodways

The occasional Vegetarian

Nationality: American, Indian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: 4-20-18
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Nationality: American, Indian

Primary Language: English

Other language(s):  Spanish

Age: 20

Occupation: Student

Residence: California

Performance Date: 4-20-18

What it is: Tamal traditions

“Tamal is a Indian religion. Here are two Tamal traditions. In the tamal religion it is customary to shave the babies head before christening. Based on the tamal religion, cows are sacred and traditionally, some families select on day of the week to honor the cow and are vegetarian on that day. In my family we were vegetarian on Mondays.”

Why they know it:  As a child, Navina was super curious, and would ask her parents about their traditions.

When is it said: There isn’t a specific time in which this is said. It comes up more when asked about it.

Where did it come from: India

Thoughts: To me, this is one of the most unusual folklore I have collected. I was raised in a semi-vegetarian household; however, designating a specific day to be vegetarian is a new thought for me. None-the-less, I can respect that this is a weekly tradition for her family because I have a tradition similar in mine. These traditions help shape the person into who they are and what they do in life and in the world. It provides them with values they can hold onto.

Life Cycle/Celebration

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: New Jersey
Performance Date: 4/10/18
Primary Language: English

I asked one of my good friends from school if he had any celebrations in his family that he was proud of and wanted to share. What he told me was very interesting and related to my family as well.

 

Jo said that, “My great grandpa was a German exile, and traveled to the east coast near New York and New Jersey area. That is where he primarily grew up. When he got older, he wanted to open a restaurant so he opened a steak house near where he grew up. His signature dish was the T-bone steak, and whenever he would eat it, he would grab the T-bone by the top of the bone and eat it with his hands, it was his way of celebrating the meal and celebrating life. He passed away a while back, but my whole extended family and I always go to eat at the steakhouse which is still there once a year. What we will do is order one T-bone, and pass it down the table for everyone to take a bite from it while holding the bone in their hands, it is our tradition of celebrating my great grandpa as well as celebrating being together in that moment at a family owned restaurant.”

 

Background Info: Jo’s family is from the New Jersey area, but his great grandpa is from Germany so he has ties to parts of the country. His family still owns the steak house and he still partakes in this tradition/celebration every year.

 

Context: Jo told me about this fascinating family celebration during lunch between classes.

 

Analysis: This was one of my favorite collections from my 20 that I gathered. I think that the celebration is cool to pass on, but I was very fascinated by the bigger meaning of the behavioral action of eating the T-bone with your hand, the meaning of celebrating life and freedom as done by the care free action of eating with your hands.

Řízek

Nationality: Czech
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: N/A
Performance Date: 4/13/18
Primary Language: Czech
Language: English, Spanish, French

Interviewer: You said you had a family recipe?

Informant: So you take a piece of meat, usually it would be turkey or pork, but it could be whatever honestly. A lot of people use chicken. You first flatten it out by hitting it, so you basically make it into a flat piece of meat. Then, you have three key steps.

First, You have flour. You put the meat into the flour and cover it all with flour. Then, there’s egg, beaten, you cover the whole thing in the beaten egg. The final step, you cover the whole thing in breadcrumbs, that you would traditionally make yourself from old leftover bread. Then, you fry the whole thing, flip it in the middle of the frying process.

Interviewer: Then serve?

Informant: Yeah, then serve. Usually you would serve it with mashed potato and a pickle.

Interviewer: You said your family modified the recipe a bit?

Informant: Every family does it a little different. What changes usually is the type of meat people use, whether or not they add other stuff to the mix. Maybe herbs or something, each family uses different things. Furthermore, you could not use meat at all. A lot of people just use different vegetables and make this recipe with them, which strays further away from the original recipe but, it’s still a variation that’s common. Personally, me and my family use turkey. We think it gets the most tender during the frying. Also, we add a few small pieces of rosemary into the batter , not a lot, but enough for it to be noticed.

Context: My informant is a nineteen year old Czech national attending school in the United States. He’s lived in Prague for most of his life, and Czech is his first language. The interview was conducted face-to-face in a college dorm room.

Background: My informant was taught how to make Řízek by his grandmother while back home in Prague. He likes Řízek because Czech cuisine is a fusion of German, Austrian, and Slavic cuisines, and as a result doesn’t have many uniquely Czech dishes. My informant told me that, because of this, Řízek is considered a sort of “national dish” in the Czech Republic, and is thus close to his heart. My informant himself has made it many times, and considers Řízek one of his favorite dishes.

Analysis: Usually, recipes don’t strike one as the material for folklore, but Řízek is an excellent example of the malleability and word-to-mouth nature of cuisine. The dish apparently had origins stemming from Italian “chicken parmesan”, but used flour and breadcrumbs to make up for a lack of flour. From there, ingenuity led to it further being changed, to the degree that the meat, herbs, and even recipe of the batter itself are subject to interpretation. Řízek is a dish of variation, everyone makes it differently. I also found it interesting that the dish was considered uniquely Czech. Considering that the Czech Republic is still a young country, it appears to be a valuable source of national pride. One might note the use of folklore in this instance to reinforce a nationalistic attitude.

 

The Origin of the Řízek

Nationality: Czech
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: N/A
Performance Date: 4/13/18
Primary Language: Czech
Language: English, Spanish, French

Interviewer: So you just gave me a recipe for… I’m not going to try and pronounce it. You said you also have a story about its origin?

Informant: Yeah, during some battle of the Austrian-Hungarian army in Italy, the general that led his battalion there from the army saw the locals making some sort of food where they would take a piece of meat and cover it in parmesan and fry it. He thought, “well how could I recreate this for our emperor when we don’t have parmesan back home?” So, when he got back from the war, he had the chef at the royal palace recreate the recipe and that’s how this recipe came about

Interviewer: I assume the general was Czech?

Informant: Yeah, yeah.

Context: My informant is a nineteen year old Czech national attending school in the United States. He’s lived in Prague for most of his life, and Czech is his first language. The interview was conducted face-to-face in a college dorm room.

Background: My informant probably learned this story from his grandmother. He remembers it because Řízek is a traditional food that every Czech person knows how to make. He places great importance on this story because it disputes the Austrian and Hungarian claims to Řízek, a food widely considered by the Czech population as their national dish.

Analysis: I personally find this legend very believable. Řízek the food closely resembles chicken parmesan from Italy, and the story itself is quite believable from a historical sense. The Austro-Hungarian army was in Italy, and a general would conceivably had seen the traditional Italian dish prepared. From a more objective perspective, this story legend is also interesting because, despite being a Czech legend, it refers to a time period before the Czech people had an actual sovereign nation, but is still used to reinforce the claims of the Czech people on Řízek.

Matzah Ball Soup

Nationality: American
Age: 58
Occupation: Psychiatric RN
Residence: NYC, USA
Performance Date: 4/5/18
Primary Language: English

“First I bake the chicken and then cut the chicken off the bones, into cubes. I changed this part of the recipe from what my mom did. Grandma always puts the whole chicken in the soup but I never ate the chicken meat because it was always dry that way. Add whole Potato, yellow onion, turnip, parsnip, a handful of parsley, 1 leek, peppercorns, salt and pepper to taste. Put the chicken aside and put the bones in the pot with broth, bouillon cube, and water and veggies. Cook 2-3 hours. Strain out the peppercorns and all the veggies, add carrots and celery during the last 15 minutes of cooking and then add the chicken later.

As Jewish tradition, having Matzoth ball soup in the fridge is a staple. If it wasn’t in the fridge, it was frozen and ready to be defrosted. This soup is traditionally served during the Jewish holiday of Passover; a time that commemorates the liberation of Israelites from Egyptian slavery, which lasts eight days. During this time, individuals are not supposed to eat bread; they primarily consume various meals and snacks are made with matzah. While chicken soup can be made at any point in the year, adding matzah balls to the soup makes is a classic Passover tradition. There are many different variations and there is not a “right” way to make this recipe or how the soup should taste, however, it is very typical for people to say things like “my Mom’s soup is the best ever” and have joking argument about it.

It is common for recipes to be passed down through generations of families, especially when they are related to rituals and ceremonies. I personally have grown up cooking with my mother and from a young age I knew this recipe by heart. She told me that her mother taught her the recipe, and made modifications to it which she then taught me