Informant: The informant is Aliki, an eighteen-year-old young woman who grew up in Yonkers, New York. She is a freshman at Concordia University in Irvine, California. She is of Greek descent.
Context: We sat on the floor of my dorm room at the University of Southern California when Aliki visited me during her spring break from college.
Original Script:
Informant: This takes place when you are eating at the dinner table. Say my aunt will call us. In Greek, my mother will say to my aunt, “Your mother-in-law loves you.” When she says this, my aunt will understand that she is at the table eating. That way, she doesn’t have to explain to my aunt that she is eating; she just gets it. This phone conversation has to take place between two Greeks because you speak the phrase in Greek. My aunt, or whoever is on the phone, and my mom can laugh it off, and my aunt will tell her to enjoy her meal and hang up. My mother taught me this when I was about thirteen. That’s around the time I saw her do this for the first time. I just remember that one day, my mom kept saying it.
Interviewer: Why is this piece of folklore important to you?
Informant: I think it’s just kind of important to know because it’s part of my culture. Also, it’s useful to know because if I called someone and they said that my mother-in-law loves me, I should understand what it means.
Personal Thoughts: I like this piece of folklore a lot because I think it is very unique. It is interesting to me that Greeks have a general understanding of what to do when they hear the phrase, “Your mother-in-law loves you” over the phone. I also find it compelling because it seems that this phrase takes just as long to say as something like, “I’m eating right now. I’ll call you back.” Since the two are just as simple to say, it is interesting that Greeks choose to say something which most people would deem more confusing, rather than just explaining what they are doing.
Category Archives: Foodways
Matzo Ball Soup Recipe
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Informant is grandmother, currently living in Florida having lived most of her life in New Jersey. The following is a family recipe for Matzo Ball Soup which is a traditionally jewish dish served at Passover.
Ingredients (taken down from a handwritten note in the recipe book):
• 4 large eggs
•¼ cup “schmaltz” rendered chicken fat or coconut oil
•¼ cup chicken stock
•1 cup matzo meal
•¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
•1 to 2 tablespoons freshly grated ginger
•2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
•1 teaspoon Allspice
Directions (spoken to me in the kitchen as she prepares to make the soup):
“In a big bowl, put the eggs, schmaltz, chicken stock, matzo, nutmeg, ginger and parsley. Put in 1 teaspoon salt and Allspice. Mix a little with a spoon, and cover. And refrigerate until chilled. I do it overnight.”
“Put the matzo balls in a pan like this (she holds up a medium sized, deep pan) with salted water and boil. With wet hands— they have to be wet— take some of the mix and mold it into the size of a golfball. Put them in boiling water and leave it for about 40 minutes. Then you put them in the soup, that’s it!”
Poutine
Subject: Culinary
Informant: Phillipe was born in Quebec, Canada and has two sisters and a brother. His family is originally from Quebec, therefore he grew up with french as his native tongue. He currently studies Finance in California.
Original Script: Poutine is probably the most traditional fast-food like meal in Quebec. It consists of fries and cheese topped with gravy. It is also very affordable, which makes for an excellent late night snack after a long night.
Background information by informant: Although you can find Poutine in many other places in Canada today, the best still remains in Quebec, given that the meal originated there in the first place.
Context of performance: Quick tasty snack when you are in a hurry. Also a go to meal after a night of drinking.
Thoughts: Food is powerful because it can always bring people together. Poutine is a great example of this because it is not limited to any particular social class or group of people. It is a meal which all citizens of Quebec can enjoy and it brings them all together.
Plantane Plates
Subject: Culinary
Informant: Daniel is originally from Guayaquil, a city in the coast of Ecuador. He is an only child and has just received a diploma in Business. He has lived in California for the past four years, but will be returning to Ecuador in the coming month.
Original Script: Unfortunately, the coast of Ecuador suffers from extreme social inequality. However, these circumstances lead the locals to become extremely resourceful with the little they had. One of the few affordable items in Guayaquil is Plantains. Because of this, there are around 100 different plantain based dishes. This gave the locals the opportunity to diversify their culinary while still maintaining affordable prices.
Background information by informant: Each dish tastes uniquely different, and provides such a distinct palette that you cant even believe that they all stem from the same simple ingredient.
Thoughts: The brilliance of a culture comes from the ability to maximize the available resources in order to make a living. In this way, locals from the coast of Ecuador not only succeeded, but also created a wide range of distinct culinary options with the same basic and abundant resource they could find.
Cazuela
Subject: Culinary
Informant: Sebastian was born in Santiago, Chile and has both a younger and older brother. He is currently finishing his studies in Cinema in California and plans to return to Santiago once he graduates. He spent all his childhood in Chile until coming abroad to the U.S. to study.
Original Script: Cazuela is a typical dish in Chile that everyone eats. It’s a very tasty soup with a variety of natural and inexpensive ingredients. Because it tastes good and is very affordable, it is always a good option for a meal. That’s why it became so common in Chile.
Background information by informant: In certain areas of Chile, soup is an especially common dish for the colder climates call for a warmer meal.
Thoughts: Like many other places, Chile has a common dish that surpasses social or economic barriers and is enjoyed by all.