Category Archives: Material

Gifting Desserts – Indian Tradition

Nationality: Indian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Irvine, CA
Performance Date: May 1, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi

Context: 

My informant, AS, is a 19-year-old Indian male who grew up in Mumbai, though he has lived in Southern California for the past three years. His family is Muslim, and he has also had lots of interaction with Hindu culture also. This piece was collected during a facetime call, when I asked him to share some traditions that he has noticed as different between his home culture in India and the US. I refer to myself as SW in the text.

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Main Piece:

AS: “So, it is tradition, not just for Indian Muslims but for any Indian, to gift desserts to the people they know, when something good happens to them. Like if I get a new job, it’s gonna be tradition for me to send like a box of sweets to my neighbor, my aunt, my uncle, my friend. It’s just a tradition.”

SW: “So when something good happens to you… then you send stuff to other people.”

AS: Yes… Not just stuff, I have to send like, some sort of dessert.

SW: To how many other people?

AS: That just depends on like… if like, you’re really close with your neighbor you could send it to your neighbor, if you’re not close you’re not obligated to send anything. But like, it could be, just ya know your close family, or it could be the whole fucking world, depends on how close you are with them.

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Informant Explanation:

SW: But why do people do it?

AS: I don’t know why they do it, it’s just a thing like the… the saying is like ‘making your mouth sweet,’ that’s what it’s called. Like if you, something good happens to you, it could be anything it could be getting a new job or ya know, getting engaged or something like that. Even getting a promotion or buying a new car.

SW: That’s the reverse of the American thing. Cause the American thing is you send gifts to the person who had something good happen.

AS: Yeah. No, the person to whom it happens has to send. Not gifts, dessert.

SW: I guess like… that’s a way of showing status, right? Cause if something good happens to you, then it’s like well I now have excess to give… would be a way of showing status right?

AS: Not necessarily, no. It’s a… it’s more to do with sharing the joy. Not showing off. 

SW: What kinda desserts? What are we talking here?

AS: Mostly Indian desserts. That’s the tradition.

SW: Like what?

AS: Like… the most common one is (he showed me a picture of kaju katri or kaju katli). That is my favorite fucking dessert. It’s uh… it’s just a sweet. It’s made from like… ground cashews, and you make, like… I don’t know how it’s made it just tastes really nice. 

SW: It looks very good.

AS: Yeah so you get boxes of those, boxes of like, brown balls of fucking sugary flour… 

SW: So is like, Indian culture more focused on like…  ties between, like family and friends than American culture is? It feels like everything is more… 

AS: Ties between family, yes. Like, your… there’s a lot of emphasis on family in Indian culture. Especially Indian Hindu culture, there’s a lot of focus on family and traditions.

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Analysis: 

As AS mentioned, the tradition of gifting desserts serves to reinforce family ties and important social relationships. Indian culture places a very high importance on these social bonds, especially between family members, and it is therefore important to have traditions and rituals to remind people of these bonds and their obligations to one another. There is probably also an element of reciprocity that is established – since you are sharing your joy, you can expect other people to also share with you.

Prayer to Saint Anthony

Nationality: American
Residence: NJ
Primary Language: English

Text/Interview:

MW: “If you lose something, all you need to do is say the Prayer to Saint Anthony seven times along with seven Hail Marys and your missing object will appear.”

PAR: “What is the Prayer to Saint Anthony?”

MW: “Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony, please look around. Something is lost and cannot be found.”

Context:

MW first heard this from her grandmother. Although the Church has never officially declared this prayer to be the solution to finding lost items, every time that MW has lost something, she has performed this ritual and the item has magically appeared. She claims that you do not need to do this multiple times, as that would be redundant. Once you get through your 7 prayers to Saint Anthony and your seven Hail Marys, you have received all the divine intervention you will get. Now you must be patient and wait.

My Interpretation:

The first thing that sticks out to me about this is that prayer to Saint Anthony reads like a rhyme. It is almost an incantation of sorts and saying it seven times (along with the seven Hail Marys) will create a spell that will make your object magically re-appear. I think this is an awesome piece of religious Folklore as it shows the blurred line between prayer and Sympathetic Magic.

Spy House

Nationality: American
Residence: NJ
Primary Language: English

Text/Interview:

MW: “When I was in the Girl Scouts, we went on a field trip to this place called the Spy House. The lady who worked there said that it used to be a tavern during the Revolutionary War and the British would come and stay in the house. The Americans would be under the floorboards and behind the walls and they would spy on the Red Coats. Then, they would sneak out through a secret tunnel under the bay and give information to the other Patriots. The lady who worked there also said that the ghosts of Revolutionary War veterans lived in the house.”

Context:

MW lives in New Jersey and has been to the Spy House several times since that initial trip. Although she has never seen any of the ghosts, she claims to have seen the tunnel which goes under the bay and the hiding places behind the walls. MW says that, unfortunately, the Spy House has been closed for the past few years for general upkeep; however, she claims that the ghosts did not get the message and still haunt the house to this day.

Personal Interpretation:

I think that the Spy House has a very cool story. As a fellow resident of NJ, I have heard claims that the house never harbored British, nor is it haunted. However, I have also heard that the ghosts terrorize anyone who crosses the threshold. I think that the duality between these two stories is what makes the Spy House so unique. Some people claim it is real. Others shout hoax. However, you will never know until you visit it for yourself.

Annotation:

If you want to read more on the Spy House, check out this Weird NJ Article:

Weird NJ Author. “Is the Spy House ‘The Most Haunted House in America’?” Weird NJ, November 3, 2014. https://weirdnj.com/stories/garden-state-ghosts/spy-house/. 

The Purple Hooter

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: N/A
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/26/2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

“It’s a vodka, a raspberry liqueur and lime juice. It all goes in a single shot. On the night before my parents wedding night, my dad was feeling really sick so he went to the bar and the bartender said that this would cure all his ills. I guess it’s a panacea.”

Background:

The informant is a 19- year-old female from St. Louis, Missouri. However, she now lives in Los Angeles and attends the University of Southern California. She lived in St. Louis Missouri for the first 18 years of her life. It was here where her father first told her the story of the Purple Hooter. He said that it worked and the next day he felt a lot better. The shot is to be taken at any time that someone needs a pick-me-up. The informant herself, not being 21, has never tried the shot.

Context:

The informant is one of my college roommates, who I asked to relate any folk beliefs or legends she had for the purpose of a project.

My Thoughts:

I think that this is a classic example of folk remedy, where an unexpected drink acts as a panacea. It’s a remedy that has little scientific backing but was reported by the informant as successful. I think considering the proximity of the event to a wedding, it could possibly be explained as alcohol helping pre-wedding jitters. However, I also think that a lot of cultures have different beliefs surrounding alcohol as a remedy for illness, particularly alluding to its ability to kill germs.

Italian Grandmother’s Pasta Recipe

Nationality: American
Age: 53
Occupation: N/A
Residence: Chicago, IL
Performance Date: 05/03/2021
Primary Language: English

Main piece

“Onion, Garlic, Tomato, Olive Oil. You dice up the onions finely, mince the garlic. My grandmother didn’t put quantities down. Put some oil olive at the bottom of a pot, put the onions in first and cook until transparent. Then put the garlic in and cook until fragrant. Then add canned Marzano tomatoes. Cook down the tomatoes, season with salt and pepper and Italian seasonings. Taste. If it needs more seasoning, put in more seasoning. And then put into a blender and blend to preferred consistency.”

Background: 

Informant: “Even though, my grandmother lived in America, since she was Italian, at any holiday she would always have a pasta with her sauce on it for the holiday dinner.  To this day, I use this simple recipe often when making pasta dinners.”

The recipe can be made at any time. Its not necessarily a holiday meal, despite the informant’s grandma making it on every holiday. The recipe can likely be found online but the informant specifically learned it from her grandmother, who learned it from her mother. The informant grew up living in a split house with her grandmother so often could witness her cooking.

Context:

The informant is my mother. I learned of the recipe over a Facetime call in which I inquired after any folk knowledge she had.

My Thoughts:

This is a fairly simple Italian pasta sauce that has been passed down through a family. I think it shows some different aspects of Italian culture. The first one is the importance of family. This recipe was specifically passed down and taught by females of a specific family line. Also the environment in which the recipe was often cooked, meaning holiday dinners, indicates a highly social family that is close-knit and spends at least holidays commonly together. Another aspect of Italian culture that might be shown is the importance of certain foods, in this case a pasta sauce. Considering it was always made at special events, including all holidays, many of which usually have their own specific cuisine that one is supposed to make, its possible that this meal was seen as a delicacy or important in indicating the celebratory nature of the event in which it was being eaten.