Category Archives: Foodways

Barmbrack

Nationality: Irish
Age: 58
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Kerry, Ireland
Performance Date: February 18th, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Irish

Background Information:

The informant is my aunt from rural Kerry, who related to me this recipe for Irish Barmbrack, a kind of sweet loaf prepared around Halloween-time, and the objects put into the “brack” and what they symbolize. Recently, I asked other people if they had heard of barmbrack and none of the Americans knew, but one of my English friends did, and all of my Irish friends. This leads me to believe that it is a Western European tradition only, if not Ireland-specific, with some spill over into neighboring countries. For her, this is a family tradition which she learned from her parents and  has passed onto her children. It is synonymous with the Halloween season for her. She is signified in this conversation by the initials J.O.

Main Piece:

J.O.: Brack is a sweet, heavy loaf with fruit in it, so it’s usually a combination of flour, spices like allspice and cinnamon, butter, eggs, milk, dried fruit, and then some candied peel. It’s a very heavy batter, and so it takes a while to cook, and it’s not a rising bread, it won’t double like a yeasted loaf.

A: Is there a specific festival or time of year you’d eat this at?

J.O.: I’ve not heard of anyone making it any time other than around Halloween, perhaps a little bit into November but not any later than that. With the spices and dried fruits it’s a warm loaf that you’d have with tea and butter and so it’s a bit heavy for summer, especially as you’d have fresh fruit from the start of May onwards. It’s a leftovers loaf in that sense, with the dried fruits, you know?

A: In the shops you always buy brack with a ring in it, do you know what that means?

J.O.: Yes, actually. We didn’t just put a ring in, we’d take tiny pieces of a rag, a stick, a pea, and a coin as well and wrap them all up in greaseproof paper, and bake them into the cake. So when you took a bite, often there was something in it, and each thing meant something different. The ring was a symbol of marriage, obviously, so if you got the piece with the ring you’d be married soon. The piece of cloth or rag meant that you’d be poor and wear rags, the stick meant that you were in for a beating, which usually suggested that you were going to do something wrong. The pea was a marriage thing again, I think, and the coin suggested that you’d be rich. I don’t think there was any truth behind it, as we’d always put them in the brack when we were kids, and then Mam wouldn’t put them in the bigger brack that she and Dad would have. So as, say, eight-year-olds, we weren’t expecting to get married anytime soon, and the annual nature of the thing would suggest that every year your fortune could change and you might get something contradictory, so it’s all just a bit of fun.

My Thoughts:

I agree that this is just a bit of fun leading up to the Halloween season, and not a serious tradition of prediction. It does, however, play on the idea of prediction and turns it into a game mostly for children. It also suggests something about the cultural values, that there is a high appreciation for marriage and wealth in whichever era this tradition came from, and when these are combined the idea of marrying up, or marrying into money, becomes obvious. This is suggestive of strong social stratification, regardless of the actual prediction value of the brack. The fact that this tradition is centered around Halloween time furthers the idea of this tradition as just a game, as Halloween is traditionally a time of reversal of roles in dressing up as someone else, a liminal space, and so kids can play adults for a while without consequence. By using seasonal ingredients the dish is therefore confined to this time of year, and projects the human experience of the year onto the progression of the seasons.

Fasting

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 88
Occupation: Retired
Residence: San Gabriel
Performance Date: 4/15/2017
Primary Language: Chinese

Informant GP is my grandfather who has been a Muslim is whole life. My father’s side of the family has been Muslim for many generations. My grandpa is a devout Muslim who follows the Quran and all the practices described within it. Unfortunately my grandpa’s generation is the last generation in my dad’s side of the family to practice Islam. My father and my aunt and uncles do not practice it, so even though I know many of the things they believe and practice, I don’t know the reason behind it.

Okay so I guess you guys not eating pork kind of make sense, but why fast? What’s the health benefit in fasting?

GP: “hahaha, fasting is not for our health, it is for our spirit! Fasting is a way for us to learn self control because we are unable to eat and drink. It helps discipline us because if we can control our food, we can then use that to control our greed and lust. Also, fasting helps us know what it is like to live without food. It shows us what it is like to be the less fortunate, which teaches us how to be grateful. it also gives us an awareness and empathy to those who are unable to eat 3 regular meals every day.”

Thoughts: I used to think that fasting was ridiculous because you have to starve yourself for a whole month. I guess the reason I didn’t understand it was because I didn’t understand the motivation behind why people did it. Now that my grandpa explained it to me, it seems like it makes total sense and I have a whole new respect for the Muslims that do it. It is another way the Quran helps Muslims remember that they are human and to be humble and grateful for what they have.

East Germans and Bananas

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Case Clerk
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 2, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: German, Spanish

“One of the things that everybody talks about… and right after the wall fell… everybody said that the East Germans were just so happy to finally be able to eat a banana and that was something that a lot of those older people there reiterated to us was that the one thing they really love about Germany no longer being under the East German socialist regime, is that now they have access to fresh bananas.”

The informant studied abroad in Germany around three years ago. For one of her German language classes that she took while in an area that was part of the former East Germany, the class went to an apartment complex where a lot of old people lived (not like nursing homes in America) for tea and coffee and to simply sit and talk with them. Most of the residents did not speak English because of it not being a priority over the German and the Russian they learned in light of the communist ties to the countries, so the informant spoke to the residents completely in German.

With the wall only falling in late 1989, most of these residents lived in East Germany during the socialist regime and were there when the wall finally came down. The informant was able to get a first hand telling of their experiences, their likes and dislikes about the wall, what had changed versus what was the same and more. For the informant, she saw this as a wonderful chance to get the firsthand account because most of that generation will be gone in fifty years, meaning that the stories about East Germany will not be able to be relayed in the same way.

The folklore comes from the idea that East Germans did not have access to a lot of fresh fruits because they only imported goods from communist countries or used what they were able to produce at home. However, Germany does not have the sort of climate that is amenable to a lot of basic fruits, like oranges and bananas, so having them became a rarity due to the lack of imports and their inability to produce them themselves. It also was relayed to the informant in response to the question “is there something that you miss or is there something that you wish was like it used to be?”

The informant relayed this story to me while driving us back to Los Angeles. This informant is a relative.

I think that the informant being able to get a firsthand account from many people who lived under the socialist regime was a great way of getting their folklore, even if it was not intentional. Being that many did not speak English also means that those who are able to glean the folklore from them is limited to those who speak the languages they understand. Her being able to speak German allowed someone who doesn’t speak it at all, like me, to learn some of their folklore and a little about what life was like under the socialist regime in Germany.

DUBROVNIK GREEN MENESTRA

Nationality: Croatian
Age: 68
Occupation: retired
Residence: Dubrovnik, Croatia
Performance Date: 4/17/2017
Primary Language: Croatian
Language: english

NK is my grandmother who was born and raised in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Being a local she knows a lot about the city and its folklore. She knows a lot about the local and traditional cuisine. The Green Menestra is another gastronomic specialty from the list of traditional, indigenous dishes of the Dubrovnik region.

 

“There are three kinds of green menestra (cabbage and smoked meat stew).

Green Menestra ingredients are:

– Dalmatian prosciutto

– smoked lamb

– bacon (home-smoked)

– sausages (home-made)

– potatoes

– kale

– cabbage (white,head)

– cabbage (green-raštanj)

– olive oil

– salt

-Various kinds of smoked pork can be used to prepare green menestra, and ingredients can be added or changed but this is the most common recipe.”

 

How do you make zelena menestra?

“First you want to wash the prosciutto (koljenica) and the smoked lamb in warm water and scrap if needed (smoked surface). Put in hand-hot water and cook. After a set time, add and cook the sausages and bacon. After a while you want to remove the softer pieces of cooked meat so they remain intact. While that’s going on wash the green cabbage (raštanj), and the washed kale and head of white cabbage are cut in thick pieces. Each vegetable is blanched for a short time, removed and drained. The potatoes are cleaned, washed, cut in four and cooked. When the stock boils, add olive oil, and then add all the blanched vegetables. Remove the cooked meat from the bones, and cut into serving pieces. Place the cut meat over the vegetables and cook all together for a short while on low heat. Remove from heat and keep covered for one half hour. Pile up the vegetables in a serving dish, encircle with all the meat. It should be served like this; the vegetables together with a portion of each variety of meat. Stock is poured over the dish prior to serving.”

 

 

In the original recipe, the vegetables do not have to be blanched, but then the vegetables might not have the nice green color of blanched vegetables. Also, some of the bitterness found in the vegetables disappears with blanching. The green menestra is usually prepared for a large group of people. If you never had it might taste different and unusual but it is very delicious. This specific delicacy has been in my family for generations and is a part of our culture. Nowhere in the world will you find something like this.

 

 

Dance Traditions

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student (University of Southern California)
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 2, 2017
Primary Language: English

For dance, like, um, when I was with the company, the night before the show, like, we’d always have sleepovers, and we’d always drink three… three strawberry Fantas each, which is really bad for you, ’cause you’re not supposed to drink soda, obviously, the night before, but we did it anyway, it was just like a good luck thing.

 

Thoughts:

This good-luck tradition reverses something that it supposed to be discouraged and taboo and turns it into a ritual for luck. It shows the dancers’ and teenagers’ in general tendency to bend or break rules. Additionally, because my informant is a highly trained and very talented competitive dancer, it could speak to her and her teammates’ confidence that they will be able to perform their best regardless of drinking soda the night before a performance. The context of this tradition within a sleepover works to build a community and bond with the entire team, since they are spending the whole night before a performance (and presumably the entire day of the performance) with each other and participating in the same rule-breaking rituals.