Category Archives: Foodways

Lighting the Christmas Pudding

Nationality: American and British
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Santa Monica
Performance Date: 4/3/18
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: KC: Every christmas we have a Christmas pudding, which is, y’know, made from fruit… it’s like a gross fruit cake! And for some reason in my family it’s tradition– and I didn’t think it was weird… here i have a video! And basically you pour brandy in a ladle and light it on fire and put it over the cake, and it makes these beautiful flames, and then we sing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and then we eat it!

 

Context: KC’s family regularly performs this Christmas tradition on Christmas Eve after dinner.

 

Background: KC is very tied to her British roots, as her parents moved from England while her mother was pregnant with her, and so she has grown up with this and countless other British traditions being passed onto her through her direct and extended family.

 

Analysis: Hearing this part of KC’s Christmas traditions was particularly interesting, as she told it as if it were a completely normal thing– as you can see by her saying “I didn’t think it was weird”. In telling this story, and seeing reactions to her story, it seemed to be her first inkling that this tradition was not something that every family practices. This Christmas pudding is a very regular practice in England, learned upon more research, and it is particularly interesting due to its heavy requirements in the types of fruit involved, the necessary custard, and the quintessential lighting of the brandy on top.

 

For another version of this Christmas tradition, see The Telegraph, a British news-source.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/christmas-recipes/stir-up-sunday-guide/

 

Easter Eggs– only eggs!

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/7/18
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: KK: Every Easter, we eat this thing called “Eggs a la Goldenrod”… and it’s a made up name haha. And it’s basically… biscuits with, okay sorry, first, it’s a process, so first you boil the eggs and color them and hide them because its Easter, and once you find the eggs you crack them, take the shells off, and separate the yolks from the whites in two separate bowls and you make an egg gravy out of the whites, and then you mash up the… it’s a hard-boiled egg so you mash up the hard yolk so it’s kinda sprinkly kinda egg yolk. Then you have to put it together a certain way so you open a biscuit in half, on the bottom, you put in the egg gravy and then you put the yolks on top, and then you can either have sausage on it or on the side, and then hot sauce on it, and this is how we always use eggs in Easter. And it’s because my mom’s family was really really big, they had like five kids, so they had to do something with all the eggs! I don’t know where my grandma learned it, but my mom learned it from her that you basically make a brunch that is ONLY EGGS!

 

Context: This dish is made every single Easter with KK’s family.

 

Background: KK and her family love to cook, and have a whole slew of recipes they tend to cook with each  other, but this was the very first thing to come to her mind for something that was a traditional meal in their household.


Analysis: Upon further research, KK and I discovered that Eggs a la Goldenrod is a fairly common dish, and other people have made it too! KK thought it was just because her mom’s family was huge, and they had to use all the eggs that were made for Easter, but lots of people make this dish! Because KK’s version of this dish involves her family’s size, and using their colored Easter eggs for it, it is still a piece of folklore.

Corned Beef & Cabbage, oh my!

Nationality: American
Age: 51
Occupation: Restaurant Manager
Residence: Temecula
Performance Date: 4/8/18
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: My mom is part Irish and learned from her family to eat corned beef and cabbage on every St. Patrick’s Day. I eat it now every year because I like it, but I guess there’s some tradition to it. My wife isn’t Irish, but she adopted the tradition and kept it in our family, and so every year she cooks us corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day.

 

Context: This tradition was done every year on St. Patrick’s Day while SR was growing up, and still continues now with SR’s family.

 

Background: SR’s mother is Irish, and grew up in a household that practiced many Irish traditions, and so she passed a lot of these onto her children. SR doesn’t feel particular ties to this tradition, but he likes the was the meal tastes, so he continues to practice it.

 

Analysis: This is particularly interesting because SR doesn’t practice this due to the Irish tradition: he eats corned beef and cabbage because he loves corned beef and cabbage! It is interesting to see how folklore and traditions can manifest, even when someone doesn’t think about carrying it on, or doesn’t have a reason for carrying it on. SR has passed this tradition to his wife, who never ate the meal before and who now cooks and eats it every year; even without meaning to, or without caring about the tradition, SR managed to keep it going.

 

Lunar New Year Traditions and Precautions

Nationality: Chinese American
Age: 18
Occupation: student
Residence: Irvine
Performance Date: 04/10/2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese, Shanghai dialect, French
  1. The main piece: Lunar New Year Traditions and Precautions

“So a lot of the traditions we have are based on earning money and wealth and things like that. So one thing that we do is we get red envelopes right. The reason they’re in red envelopes is because red is a lucky color right. And you put the money in red envelopes and you sleep on them…

“And yeah, so we sleep on the money. And another thing that we do is, uh, we cook the fish and we leave half of it raw, so that it lasts outside the fridge until the next day. Because you’re supposed to keep the fish out from New Year’s Eve to New Year’s Day, because there’s another phrase, it’s called ‘nian nian you yu’, and that means every year you will have money.

“So you clean everything in your house and when you sweep, it you sweep out of the house, and you have to take out all the trash in your house. And so on Chinese New Year’s day, you can’t use knives or scissors or even like nail clippers, because that’s like cutting things, and cutting things symbolize cutting your life. Some people eat long noodles that have never been cut, because cutting them is like cutting a lifeline.”

  1. Background information about the performance from the informant: why do they know or like this piece? Where/who did they learn it from? What does it mean to them? Context of the performance?

The informant learned about the different traditions and precautions for Chinese New Year from performing them every year with her grandparents and mother. She somewhat resents how people see it as quaint, telling me instead that some of the preparations and precautions are tedious and mundane. The informant expanded on this by saying, “It’s annoying to have to do all the cleaning and lucky color stuff, but it kind of made me closer with my sister over complaining about it.”

  1. Finally, your thoughts about the piece

The informant’s traditions and precautions for Chinese New Year involve a lot of symbolism. Sleeping on money and keeping a fish both before and after the new year both seem symbolic of continuing one’s good fortune throughout the year. Cleaning the whole house and sweeping everything specifically outside could be symbolic of starting the year afresh and with a clean slate. The aversion to using any sharp objects, from knives to scissors to even nail clippers, is symbolic of preventing violence and not cutting one’s own life short—this would be an example of conversion magic, or reversing bad luck into good luck. The phrase ‘nian nian you yu’ matches the description of a dite, or a folk saying, because it is commonly said specifically on this holiday to confer good luck.

  1. Informant Details

The informant is an 18-year old Chinese-American female. While she grew up in the southern California area, she spent more time with her grandparents than her parents growing up, and felt that learning their Chinese traditions and language was the main way she bonded with them, while her younger sister never had that experience because her parents were out of school by then.

Mao Zedong’s Birthday

Nationality: Japanese and Chinese American
Age: 18
Occupation: student
Residence: Oahu, Hawaii
Performance Date: 04/16/2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Japanese
  1. The main piece: Mao Zedong’s Birthday

“Okay, so Mao Zedong’s birthday is December 26th, and on that day, we eat long noodles. It’s because if you cut the noodle, you’re cutting his life. Which doesn’t really make sense because he’s dead.”

  1. Background information about the performance from the informant: why do they know or like this piece? Where/who did they learn it from? What does it mean to them? Context of the performance?

“Mao Zedong is the communist leader of China, and he’s very important because he led the communist revolution and changed China forever, for both better and worse.

“Oh yeah, everyone loves Mao. Mao’s on all the money. It’s either Mao or flowers. It’s the day after Christmas and the day before my mom’s birthday.”

  1. Finally, your thoughts about the piece

This tradition of eating long noodles on Mao Zedong’s birthday symbolizes a long life for him, and, accordingly, for the communist nation and ideals that he created. I think that this is a key example of the usage of folklore to build nationalistic sentiment and to increase feelings of personal connection and importance to central sociopolitical powers. Even though the informant is from a later generation from the one in which Mao Zedong was active and alive, the fact that this tradition continues years after, even after his death, shows the lasting impact of using folklore as a nation-state building device.

  1. Informant Details

The informant is an 18-year old female of Japanese and Chinese descent. She grew up in Oahu, Hawaii in a family that had moved there five generations earlier, and explained how none of her parents or grandparents knew any Japanese or Chinese. Celebrating Japanese and Chinese cultural traditions helped her feel more connected to her heritage growing up, because she felt that her parents and grandparents were very disconnected from the culture other than with these traditions.