Category Archives: Foodways

Mordida

Nationality: Mexico
Age: 48
Residence: Minnesota
Performance Date: April 12, 2017
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

A tradition is… what we call… “la mordida,” or “the bite” in Mexico. And basically, it’s when somebody has a birthday, and they get their birthday cake, and after singing “Happy Birthday” to the person, everybody shouts, “Mordida! Mordida!” which means “the bite.” Or, “Take a bite! Take a bite!” And so the person has to take a bite out of the cake without using his hands, just directly with his mouth, and when he takes a bite, usually people will push… their whole… will push their head into the cake so their whole face ends up with cake.

 

Context:

It’s just a funny, festive… it’s good-natured humor… you know, let people know that they are being celebrated and that they’re special somehow and they get, uh, cake on their face. Uh… and it’s just funny because everybody has a different reaction, and everybody ends up with a different face after they take the bite and get the cake in the face. And… I enjoy it, it’s fun for me, and I enjoy it because I think it makes a lot of people laugh… it makes the kids laugh… it makes everybody kind of enjoy, have a good time… uh… be good-natured, be relaxed, and… just kind of go with, uh, go along with the joke and… kind of, uh… just have fun while they’re celebrating the birthday.

 

Background:

I learned it when I was a kid. Actually, I got surprised by… I learned it because they did it to me, and I wasn’t expecting it, that’s how I learned it. And they did it to me at a restaurant, and I just didn’t expect it… the first time that I did it, so… uh… I was a little surprised, but I, uh, laughed, and it was funny, and… all my family laughed as well, and then, uh, of course, I couldn’t wait until it was the next person’s birthday so then I could it to them. So… that’s how I learned it, and then I… we kept on that tradition… um… with our family and with all our cousins and all our friends, and, uh… I haven’t stopped doing it since I was a kid.

 

Thoughts:

This tradition points to an emphasis on humor and lightheartedly poking fun at the birthday person– sort of a way of bringing them back down on their special day, but not in a malicious way. It’s a way for everyone to be in accordance about what must happen and come together to, in a way, gang up on the birthday person, while including that person in the joke.

Tourte Binchoise

Nationality: Belgium
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Brussels, Belgium
Performance Date: April 1 2017
Primary Language: French
Language: English, Spanish, Dutch

Background of informant:

My informant YF is an international student from Brussels, Belgium. He spent the first two years of high school in Los Angeles, and the last year back in Brussels. He lived in Wallonia in Belgium, which is the French-speaking region that accounts more than a half of the country.

 

Main piece:

YF: “‘tourte binchoise’ is the food that only being made during the Carnival week, of the entire year. ‘Tourte’ normally means a sweet pie, and ‘Binchoise’ means ‘from Binche’. It’s basically a pie, with … just piecrust, made with sponge cake, as the vessel containing the cream. The filling is orange custard, with a layer of marzipan. That’s something made of confectioner sugar, you know, the really fine sugar, and almond meal. You can only find it during the Carnival. Because it is so limited in time and location, the recipe is so secretive, and it’s so hard to find one.”

Two weeks later, I asked about this pie again, and YF was trying to find a recipe of it online.

YF: “You will notice that the name of this pie is ‘Plus Oultre’. Plus Oultre comes from Latin ‘Plus Ultra’, meaning literally ‘More Far’, or ‘further in good’ in English. It is the motto in Spain, or the city where this pie is from, Binche, that is the name that backery gave its pie. [showed me a picture] This is a similar thing to ‘tourte binchoise’. This is the scandalous orange Tarte. It lloks a nit different than the one that I had in the carnival, but it has the same elements! So I believe it would taste the same!”

 

Context of the performance:

The first part was within a general conversation about the Carnival of Binche, within a interview I had with my informant YF. The second part was done two weeks later when I tried to acquire a recipe of the pie.

 

My thoughts about the piece:

After YF first talked me about this pie in our first conversation, I didn’t really pay attention to this pie. However, when I was transcribing the interview, I started to be really curious about the recipe of the pie. I then reached out to YF but he told me this pie is so rare and secretive, and it turned out that he couldn’t even find a recipe of it on the Internet, in 2017…

 

The orange Tarte recipe that YF showed me is online, here is the URL:

http://www.lacuisinedebernard.com/2010/10/la-tarte-scandaleuse-lorange.html

The recipe is in French.

Speculoos

Nationality: Belgium
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Brussels, Belgium
Performance Date: Arp 26 2107
Primary Language: French
Language: English, Spanish, Dutch

Background of informant:

My informant YF is an international student from Brussels, Belgium. He spent the first two years of high school in Los Angeles, and the last year back in Brussels. He lived in Wallonia in Belgium, which is the French-speaking region that accounts more than a half of the country.

 

Main piece:

YF: “It is the cookie that we have during Christmas, or more accurate speaking, Saint Nicholas Day. It’s kind of like a ginger bread cookie, but it’s definitely different.”

“The ingredient that I will use to make speculoos will be: flour, butter, eggs, baking soda, and the most important cloves, which is the ingredient that gives the flavor, and nutmeg. And with a special kind of sugar, cassonade which is made of sugar beets.

“You mix these ingredients and make the dough. Then, you’ll have a mode that have different images, like a figure of Saint Nicholas, or a Christmas tree. You dust the mode with flour, and put the dough into the mode, and use a knife to cut, to clear the edges. Then flip the mode upside down, so cookies in shape are finished.

“Normally, we don’t clean the wooden mode after using them. That’s because the more they’re being used, they better the wood will be. “

SH: What about the Saint Nicholas mode? Why do you use it?

YF: “We have a holiday of Saint Nicholas in Belgium, and the time is really close to Christmas. It is also called Winter Holiday, on December 6th each year. So on that day, Saint Nicholas will give gifts and candies to kids. He is our version of Santa Claus, so making Saint Nicholas into the cookie is to rememorize him, and the cookies are given to kids as gifts.

“It is traditional only for the Saint Nicholas Day, but this cookie is really good so now, people have it all over the year. It’s not a special thing only for a day and it is not always made in the special wooden mode. Those speculoos in beautiful shapes, from wooden mode, are usually hand made.”

 

Context of the performance:

This is a part of the interview I had with my informant YF.

 

My thoughts about the piece:

When YF showed me a picture of the cookie, on Google, I suddenly realized that I know this type of cookie, I had it before, and I love it. The brand that makes Belgium speculoos is called “Lotus”, and it is really prevalent and popular in Chinese market. Knowing the fact that speculoos used to be a special offer only for Saint Nicholas Day, it is interesting to see how it becomes more prevalent to Belgium people since you can have it all over the year, and then it becomes more prevalent and accessible to people in a distant country because of globalization.

Seco

Nationality: Ecuadorian
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/23/17
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

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: In Ecuador there is a dish called “Seco de Pollo” and “seco” means dry; but the dish isn’t dry at all. Its basically chicken drenched in sauce. The dish is called that because a long time ago, Americans who were working in Ecuador would ask for the “second dish”, which is  the main dish of a meal. But the Ecuadorians understood “seco” instead, and eventually that is how the dish got its name.

Background information by informant: Seco de Pollo is a traditional main dish in the coast of Ecuador.

Thoughts: Even certain events can completely shape the manner in which a term is used to describe something.

Why we can’t eat pork

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.

So why can’t you eat pork?

GP: “Well, technically not being allowed to eat pork is not only a Muslim thing, but should be followed by Christianity and Judaism since it is the Bible. The bible states that pigs are unclean and therefore humans should not eat it or else we will get contaminated and get diseases. Back in the day pigs lived off of dirt and their own feces so people thought they were gross and disgusting. Of course, I don’t know if nowadays things are different or if there is any health correlation between pigs and disease, but yea, that’s why I don’t eat pork.”

Thoughts: To me this just sounds like people in the past just thought pigs were dirty so they didn’t eat them. Of course that is well found, it’s like saying why don’t people eat earthworms. I did a bit of research and found that eating pork does in fact lead to health issues since pork holds more fat than other meats which can cause heart attacks. That being said, I feel like eating any kind of meat could lead to health problems, so in conclusion I feel like the Muslim tradition of not eating pork is a little nonsensical.