Category Archives: Material

Aso Ebi

The Aso Ebi is a cultural cloth that is worn during certain marriage events. In Nigerian customs, there are two weddings. The first is a religious wedding full of religious traditions. After that wedding is the cultural wedding, where the bride has her own unique dress, the Aso Ebi. The bridesmaids all wear a unique other dress with a different style to the bride. In each tribe, the Aso Ebi is different. The Ebo tribe uses coral with their Aso Ebi.

O is a culturally Nigerian African American woman whose mother knows a lot about Nigerian culture. She had learned this ritual from her mother as well as individual research

Context: This item came up during a discussion about Nigerian culture. This was memorable to her because she loved the styles of these dresses and was very interested in finding more about them herself.

What strikes me as very interesting his how the Nigerian wedding is structured, in that there is much room for individuality and customization. It also fits with many different religions. The two separate weddings allows the couple to celebrate their wedding without angering either the historical customs nor the religious peoples. It can be a form of adaptation against colonization, as the colonizers would have a vetted interest against cultural practices. The diversity of dresses also allows for different tribes to have their own twist to the tradition while still making it distinctly Nigerian.

Eat Your Crusts

Main Piece:

Collector: “So tell me about this food-related hair on your chest belief?”

Informant: “So my grandfather would always tell me stories about certain foods and why I should eat them. One, in particular, was the crusts on my bread. I never particularly cared for them, but he insisted that I eat all of them so that I could grow up big and strong. My grandpa would always tell ‘Eat your crusts, it will put hair on your chest!’. When I got a little older, I asked him about this and he told me that he had learned this from his grandfather when he was little, or my great-great-grandfather. He believed that eating bread crusts was a way to grow strong and manly, so he insisted that I eat all of them every time I was at my grandparents’ house.”

Background:

The informant learned this tradition from his grandfather and is something he grew up believing until he was in his twenties. His grandparents were born in France and immigrated to Montreal Canada when they were kids. They later moved to the United States in Vermont near the Canadian border. The informant explained that this was a widely held belief among all of his extended family on his mother’s side of his family and the main memory of tradition among his grandparents.

Interpretation:

This one is unique. In the present day, it does not make much sense for someone to think that eating crusts of bread would make someone grow hair on their chest. However, I feel like this may have roots in an older time of society. As a passive bearer of this lore, it makes me think about a time when masculinity was at the forefront of our society, and therefore being more masculine was something that everyone sought. So, from a behavioral perspective, it makes sense that lore from long ago would be used to influence a child to do certain things so that they could achieve the ‘positive’ outcome of being more masculine. As it relates to the bread crusts in this folklore, I feel like maybe it has roots in a time when food was scarcer and it was a way for families to not waste food by ensuring that their children ate all of their meals.

Bunny Chow

Main Text

KK: “So there’s this dish in South Africa called bunny chow like colloquially, we just call it a bunny. It’s big enough that you would, it’s a big deal. There are restaurants that like specialize in bunnies, and essentially the the recipe is just you take a loaf of bread and you cut out the inside, and then you fill it with a curry of your choice. So like mutton curry, chicken curry, potato curry, beans, whatever. And the origin of it was, you know, Indian people from, like their homeland India, were taken by the British to South Africa to cut the sugar cane. They would be eating their lunch and would be eating curry, but they didn’t have anywhere to like put it or store it, and they didn’t have rice like easily accessible to them. So what they would do is just take the loaf of bread, like the British style bread, and fill it up with the curry. And then like nowadays, it’s just a really popular meal among the Indian South African community.”

Background

KK is a 21 year old USC student studying psychology on a pre-med track. Of Indian descent, he was originally born in South Africa but has lived in England, the UAE and now in New York, Ny. Bunny Chow is obviously a fusion dish borne out of necessity, made by these displaced Indian sugar cane workers. It has since become so popular, according to KK, that he eats it at his home in America and restaurants specialize in serving it back in South Africa.

Context

KK eats this meal regularly with his family at home in New York and says that the context this meal is served in is certainly a family style sit down dinner. Because of the size of a full loaf of bread, Bunny Chow is usually shared with multiple people which makes it a staple meal for Indian families with ties to South Africa.

Interviewer Analysis

Food traditions are very easy to share and that is why so many people have family recipes or dinner traditions that mean so much to them. I find it so interesting that this dish is a cultural fusion however, Indian style curry served inside British baked bread and served in Africa. This dish is obviously not something that came from a fancy written cookbook, but from the needs and innovation of everyday people. Bread bowls and Chalupas spring to mind as similar recipe variations on bread bowl with meat and vegetables inside, but it is obvious they do not share a common origin.

A Family Snack

Informant Information — KL

  • Nationality: American
  • Age: 19
  • Occupation: Student
  • Residence: Los Angeles, California
  • Date of Performance/Collection: April 10, 2022
  • Primary Language: English

The informant is my roommate, who I have witnessed making and eating this snack several times. The recipe originates from her grandmother’s search for an inexpensive snack that she could give to her children (including my roommate’s father) after school. I collected this information in-person, in my apartment near USC.

Interviewer: 

Can you explain this family recipe and how it was developed?

Informant: 

Yep! My grandma– my dad’s mom– made this for my dad all the time when he was growing up. That was probably in the 1970s, but the recipe has never changed. You take Saltine crackers and top them with a little smidge of margarine and a quarter of a slice of Kraft American cheese. The margarine can be any brand, but they have to be real Saltines and Kraft slices or it isn’t the same. 

My grandma lived in the Chicago suburbs, and the cracker-butter-cheese combo is pretty on-brand for the Midwest, I think. 

Interviewer: 

Does this recipe have a name?

Informant: 

It didn’t at first. I started calling it The [Informant’s last name] Delight when I was 11 or 12, and that name has stuck ever since. 

Analysis:

I have had the great honor and delight of trying this snack– despite not liking margarine or Kraft slices, it’s pretty tasty! I would describe it as a bunch of cracker-sized, cold grilled cheese sandwiches. This could also be a pretty popular dorm-room meal– no cooking required! 

High School Tennis Traditions

Informant Information — SD

  • Nationality: American
  • Age: 16
  • Occupation: Student
  • Residence: San Pedro, California
  • Date of Performance/Collection: April 3, 2022
  • Primary Language: English

The informant is currently a junior in high school. In an in-person interview, I asked her about any school traditions that she had participated in before.

Interviewer: 

Does your high school have any traditions that you’ve participated in before?

Informant: 

Yeah, I’ve been on the tennis team every year of high school so I’ve done stuff for their traditions. One is that we all wear one yellow sock and one black sock for our important games. A couple girls refuse to even wash the socks that she wears, but I think that’s gross so I don’t do that part. 

Interviewer: 

Is there any significance to the colors and which color goes on which foot?

Informant: 

It doesn’t matter which color goes on which foot. We do yellow and black because our school colors are gold and black. My school doesn’t include socks with our uniforms so we just do yellow because it’s easier to find than gold. 

Interviewer: 

Do you know how long the tennis team has been doing this?

Informant: 

No, but it must have been started a really long time ago because our uniforms aren’t even black and gold anymore. They changed the colors to white and yellow a couple years before I joined the team. 

Analysis:

Wearing coordinated mismatching socks is a fun way to demonstrate membership in this high school folk group– the tennis team. This ritual is supposed to bring good luck to the team, an example of superstitions being popular when there is a lot of uncertainty surrounding an event. I can think of lots of examples of sports teams using lucky colors and accessories before important games. It’s also interesting that the traditional sock colors have outlived the matching uniforms. In this case, it seems like the colors are just as important as the practice of wearing two mismatched socks.