Category Archives: Foodways

Argentinian Christmas Meal

Nationality: Argentinian
Age: 22
Residence: Miami, Florida
Performance Date: April 23, 2017
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Informant:

Santiago is originally from Argentina, but now resides in Miami, Florida. However, he still avidly practices his traditions that he learned in Argentina.

Cuisine:

Santiago: “Every year back in Argentina, we would have Christmas dinner with freshly…um, killed and skinned goat. Some families would have a member go and, like, find a goat out in the wild, but my family just bought a pre-skinned goat (laughs).        We would also drink a lot of mate, which is, like, a drink with made from herbs and cream and stuff. And this altogether is supposed to honor the mythical Argentinian cowboy who herded the giant herd of cows, or gauchos.”

Context:

They would practice this culinary tradition every Christmas.

My Thoughts:

I love hearing about different culture’s Christmas traditions because Christmas is my favorite holiday, and it is interesting to me to learn about how other people celebrate the holiday. Personally, I do not like the taste of goat, but I have tried mate before and I think it is extremely tasty. One day, I hope I can try to incorporate that part of the Argentinian Christmas into my own Christmas traditions.

Abacate

Nationality: Brazilian
Age: 20
Residence: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Performance Date: April 26, 2017
Primary Language: Portuguese
Language: English

Informant:

Ricardo is from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and currently lives there “for 75 percent of the year.”

Cuisine:

Ricardo: “The story behind abacate is that there was this woman a long time ago who had a bunch of extra avocado after, like, a dinner that she served, so she decided to not let it go to waste and make something out of it. She decided to make a dessert, like, dish, and it became abate. It’s like my favorite food ever (laughs). You basically combine it with cream of milk and sweeten it with sugar and make it cold…super easy. My mom makes the best abacate.”

Context:

Brazilians have it after dinner as a dessert.

My Thoughts:

Personally, I am not sure if I would like this dessert. I love avocado and guacamole, but I do not think it sounds very appetizing to turn them into a dessert with cream. It reminds me of pistachio ice cream, which I strongly dislike. I am always surprised at the different ways different cultures prepare food, because a lot of the time it seems like they taste things completely differently than people in the United States do.

Sirop d’Érable: Maple Syrup Popsicles

Nationality: Canadian
Age: 19
Residence: Calgary, Canada
Performance Date: April 17, 2017
Primary Language: English

Informant:

Tim Marino is a nineteen year old student at USC from Calgary, Alberta. He currently plays on the USC hockey team.

Original Script:

Tim: “Usually they bring out these, like, long rectangular tables that they pack snow on, and then they’d, like, pour maple syrup in lines and stick popsicle sticks on the end. Then after a while, they would harden and become, like, syrup popsicles.”

Context:

Winter sweets.

My Thoughts:

It is very interesting to me how desserts, and food in general, of different places are slaves to the world in which they are created. For example, this kind of icy syrup treat would never be invented here in Southern California because there is no snow here. This is truly why different cultures have foods that differ in so many ways

Sopa Paraguaya

Nationality: Paraguayan-American
Age: 19
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Houston, TX
Performance Date: April 26, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Paraguayan Guaraní, Spanish

My informant is the daughter of an indigenous Paraguayan Guaraní woman. She shared the story of how a certain Paraguayan dish came to be.

“So the story of Sopa Paraguaya is basically that there- we had like this one dictator, I don’t remember which dictator it was. *laughs* Yeah, there’s a lot. Um, they ended in the, like, early 90s? So I don’t- democracy is recent. Anyways, so the point is that we had this dictator and he was not a wonderful person, and he hired a cook. And basically, like, he was notorious for basically murdering his cooks if they gave him food that he didn’t like to eat. Um, and so he asked the cook to make him, like, soup. Like ‘what’s the best soup that you have in Paraguay?’ Which is bori bori but we’re not going to get into that. Um, and so the cook, you know, he basically tries to make him this corn soup but what ends up happening is he like, leaves it on the stove for too long and it turns into like a cake- bread- it’s cornbread basically. And, he brings it to the dictator – I wanted to say the king, that’s how ridiculous the story is – and, the dictator was just like ‘Oh my god! What is this? This isn’t soup!’ and the cook, you know, terrified for his life – and it’s important to note, at this point, that the dictators are never, like, Guaraní or like indigenous, like, they’re white- they’re “Caucasian”- they’re European, so they don’t know shit about our culture or anything like that. So he was like ‘Alright, well, what… like what the hell this isn’t soup’ and then the cook was like ‘Okay I gotta save my life here… Uh, this is Paraguayan soup! This is how we do it here, in the P.Y. *laughs* and… basically the dictator’s like ‘Fine, whatever’ and ate it and was like “Oh my god this is so good! Um, you’re not gonna get murdered.” and that’s the story of Sopa Paraguaya or Chipa Guazu.”

I’m really happy about the fact that I was able to hear this story from someone of indigenous Paraguayan descent, as I believe she has more of a humorous and grounded way of looking at the legend involving a white dictator being tricked and his frightened cook.

Flat 7UP Settles a Sick Stomach

Nationality: Irish
Age: 54
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Dublin, Ireland
Performance Date: January 21st, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Irish

Background: Informant is 54-year-old woman living in Dublin, Ireland. She was born and raised in rural Ireland without access to modern medicine for minor ails, and so knows many folk-remedies for everyday pains. She is married and has one grown daughter. In this conversation, she is signified by the letters C.D.

 

Main Piece:

C.D.: My mam used to always do this when I had a sick stomach. Back home, at the time there was no access to fancy antacids or the like that there is nowadays, so this was pretty much Gospel – all the neighbors used to do it too, and when I asked the other people at school a good few of them had heard of it.

Basically, what you do to settle a sick stomach is you pour out a glass of 7up and just let it sit on a window-sill to go flat. And then you drink it, and your stomach should be all good in about 20 minutes. I think it replaces some of the sugars and fluids you lose when you’re sick too, sure there’s no harm in it anyways.

 

A.: Does it have to be a window-sill?

 

C.D.: Probably not, but that’s how my mam would do it and it seemed to work most of the time so why mess with a good thing, right?

 

A.: True. Where did your mam learn it?

 

C.D.: Would it be a cop-out to say that she learned it from her mam? But I actually think I do remember Granny coming around and minding us when mam went away and she did the same thing for my brother, but I think it was just flat Coke she used. It’s probably just a placebo effect anyways, the fact that we’ve been brought up to believe that it works probably gives you a false sense of feeling better after you drink it.

 

Performance Context: I interviewed the informant over FaceTime due to her being in Ireland and I in California. When I mentioned that I was feeling unwell and she prescribed this remedy. The original context as far back as I could discover was her mother. However, after a quick Google it is clear that this is a common ‘remedy,’ and is particularly associated with Irish folk medicine despite the origination of soft drinks in America.

 

My Thoughts: I’ve actually used this remedy and to an extent it seems to work. Perhaps it’s just because I was brought up in a culture where this was the first port of call when you had a minor stomach upset that it works for me purely based on placebo effect. This is similar to how it has been observed that people whose doctors wear white coats get better faster from the sense of confidence in their treatment the coat symbolizes. Considering the popularity of this remedy in Ireland, I’d be interested as to how someone discovered that flat soft drinks worked as a ‘cure’ in the first place, considering they’re not all that appetizing.