Category Archives: Material

Apple/Pear Cobbler Recipe

Nationality: American
Age: 54
Occupation: Film
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 3/15/20
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

Ingredients:

CobblerToppingWhipped Cream
– Butter or Crisco for Baking Dish
– 2 1/2 cups peeled, and sliced Granny Smith Apples
– 2 1/2 cups peeled, and sliced Bosc/Asian Pears
– 3/4 cup of Brown Sugar
– 2 tablespoons of All-Purpose Flour
– 1 tablespoon of Vanilla Extract
– 1/2 teaspoon of Cinnamon
– 1/2 teaspoon of Allspice
– 1/4 teaspoon of Salt
-4 tablespoons of Unsalted Butter
– 1/2 cup of Self-Rising Flour
– 1/2 cup of Sugar
– 1/4 teaspoon of Salt
– 2 tablespoons of Unsalted Butter (softened)
– 1 cup of Heavy Whipping Cream
– 1/2 cup of Sugar (Powdered Sugar is best)
– 1/2 teaspoon of Cinnamon

Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (Fahrenheit). Prepare a 9×9 inch baking dish.
  2. Toss the apples, pears, sugar, flour, vanilla, cinnamon, allspice, salt, and 2 tablespoons of the butter together in a large bowl. Add to the baking dish and dot with the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter. 
  3. In a separate bowl, combine the self-rising flour, sugar, salt, and egg. With a spoon, drop the topping onto the apples/pears and top with pats of butter. Bake until the topping is golden and the fruit is tender (about 40 to 45 minutes).
  4. Serve with special whipped cream!

Background: The informant is a 54 woman who loves to cook, as she often serves this apple cobbler at Thanksgiving. She originally came across this recipe from her mother, who used to cook the same dish for the holiday as well. She claims the recipe has been passed down generations, and because of that holds a special place in her heart. She will continue to cook the dish, and plans to pass the recipe down to her daughter when the time comes.  

Context: The informant showed me the recipe in person when I was at her house. 

My Thoughts: Although this recipe is nothing special, the fact that it has been passed along throughout the informant’s family makes it special to them. It is something they, as a family share with one another, and serves as a unique way for her to always remember her mom and grandma. They’ve all experienced cooking the same dish for Thanksgiving and having to deal with the pressure of it meeting their families expectation. In addition, I find it interesting to see if any of them made small changes to the recipe. The informant claims to have not. However, she did share with me that her mom added the whipped cream aspect to the dish. The dish has been served for over 60 years within the informants family, making it quite the staple for their Thanks Giving celebration!

Lutefisk

Nationality: American
Age: 52
Occupation: Communications Manager
Residence: Woodinville, WA
Performance Date: 4/29/20
Primary Language: English

Informant: I grew up in a family that was part German, on my mother’s side, and part Swedish and Norwegian on my dad’s side. My great-grandparents had traveled to the United States, and my grandparents were born in the United States, but there were still a lot of family traditions from Scandinavia and Germany and… the ones that really stand out in my mind are the Scandinavian side of things, more Sweden and Norway. My dad especially was pretty connected to those kinds of traditions. One I remember vividly – because it was always brought up as a threat – was the idea of eating lutefisk. Lutefisk is a dried fish, except it isn’t dried, it’s kind of… gelatinous, in a really disgusting way. And it’s a fermented fish, so it gets steeped in lye, which is also not something you think should be ingested, and yet it’s a delicacy! And even better, it’s such a delicacy that it’s saved for the holidays! So, you know, bringing out the Christmas lutefisk was something that was supposed to be revered, but I could never get into it. And then it became a running thing in my family that you’d be made to eat lutefisk if you weren’t behaving to anticipation, or what people were expecting of you. 

Background/Thoughts:
The informant is the interviewer’s mother, who grew up in the suburbs of Seattle, Washington. As described in the piece above, the informant’s family adhered to many Scandinavian and German traditions, some of which have been in our family for generations. Lutefisk has remained a threat as the years went on, and I have the same opinions as the informant does. I personally don’t understand the appeal of the dish, but I recognize that many members of my extended family in both America and Scandinavia love it. Even though I’m not personally a fan of the recipe, I do appreciate that it keeps my family in touch more with our traditions and history from Scandinavia.

Tió de Nadal, A Catalan Christmas Tradition

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Kansas City, MO
Performance Date: 4/12/20
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Main Piece:

“The Tio de Nadal is a Catalan Christmas tradition that some Catalonia immigrant communities brought with them to other parts of the world, particularly in the Western Hemisphere there are big Catalan populations that still do it. But basically what it is a little log that you prop up on a kind of legs or stool or something. You can draw a face on it, you don’t have to. You put a blanket on it but you put it up weeks before Christmas and then it’s something fun for kids to do because you get a stick and you beat on it with the stick. And there’s all sorts of Catalan language chants and little songs, you know like Christmas songs, that they sing to encourage the log to shit out presents. Like small nuts and candies are the traditional idea because its a medieval tradition so like little sweets basically. The idea is that if you hit the log well enough, then on Christmas, you can take off the blanket and then the little kids are gonna have a bunch of little almonds or cheeses or something that they got from the log. There’s all sorts of names for it but there are regional specifications in Catalonia.”

Background:

The informant is a 21-year old male from Kansas City, Missouri who has lived there for the majority of his life. For his elementary and middle-school schooling, he studied at a school with a Spanish immersion program, making him near fluent in Spanish. Furthermore, he now attends Georgetown University where he intends to graduate with a major in History and a minor in Spanish. Last semester, he spent several months living in Madrid as part of a study abroad program.

Context:

This was a conversation we had late at night about Holiday celebrations around the world.

Thoughts: 

This piece, to me, seems very rooted in old Catalan culture. One of the most interesting revelations that came about researching this topic and talking to my informant is how the piece relates to Catalan identity. Catalonia has infamously had issues with the Spanish mainland as it relates to their own identity. Oftentimes, the celebration and practice of Catalan traditions have been restricted in order to better assimilate them into Spanish culture, so by celebrating these old traditions, it seems like a method of rejecting the push to assimilate and a method of maintaining their own unique identity from Spain. The other interesting part to this piece is the timing of the piece as it is close to Christmas, which is a liminal time for a majority of Europe.  As mentioned above, the origins of the practice go as far back as Medieval times and it seems to still be practice in Catalan culture. Furthermore, it does not seem to fit into the Christian canon of traditions associated with Christmas, making me feel like this might have roots back to Pagan rituals. This outlook is only further supported by the emphasis of the piece being wood, which would fit the notion of Pagan holidays that celebrate the natural world. Finally, the informant is not from Spain, but has visited there and taken the culture and reworked it into his own Christmas celebrations which somewhat shows the spread of originally location-specific culture to entirely new places and contexts. This type of reinterpretations across such a large physical location would not be nearly as possible with modernity and the increase in cross-cultural communications.

Cajun Seafood Fettuccine

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 2020
Primary Language: English

Piece

Recipe: Seafood Fettuccine

Make normal fettuccine noodles and then in a separate saucepan, you use velveeta cheese, the kind that comes in a mac and cheese mix and you take the shells out and just use the cheese. You mix it with whole milk or any heavy cream and then dice tomatoes, onions, and celery and then cook it in the sauce.

Then take the seafood, can be crab meat (usually) or shrimp or crawfish. Then you add cajun seasoning which is usually paprika mixed with several other spices. Use Nunu’s if you don’t want to make it yourself.

Background

    This is a Cajun recipe for a dish that my girlfriend grew up eating. She is from the south where seafood is really prevalent. This dish’s recipe was passed down from her father’s side. Her father is italian, hence, the fettuccine. 

Context

My girlfriend was cooking a dish that she makes a lot so I asked her if she had a recipe for it. It turns out that her recipe was a traditional recipe that spanned several generations. Although she is creole, not cajun, her father might have lived around other Cajuns and picked up this recipe. 

Thoughts

    The prevalence of seafood in many southern delicacies is probably due to a large amount of protein available from the sea creature lush coasts that the southerners were close to.

Recipe for Channa Masala

Nationality: Indian
Age: 56
Occupation: Corporate Manager
Residence: Pune, India
Performance Date: April 2020
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi

Piece

Channa Masala

450 gms tinned, cooked channa or 2 cups of channa soaked in water overnight. Cook in 4 cups of water and salt to ½ teaspoon Salt For approximately 3 – 3.5 cups cooked channa

1 small onion chopped

¼ teaspoon ginger 

¼ teaspoon garlic 

Grind all the above three ingredients to a paste  —-(1)

¼ teaspoon cumin seed powder

¼ teaspoon turmeric powder

¼ teaspoon chilli powder

¼ teaspoon garam masala

¼ teaspoon Aji’s masala powder

1 large tomato diced into small cubes

3 table spoons coriander leaves chopped finely

2 tablespoons oil

Heat a large heavy bottom container; add oil, followed by paste 1.

Saute` till pink or light brown in color. Add tomatoes, 1 tablespoon coriander leaves, turmeric powder, chilli powder, cumin powder. Saute until the mixture starts to look rich brown and the oil starts to separate. 

Add the cooked channa and cook for 20 to 30 minutes or until flavors blend. Add coriander leaves and serve hot with rice. 

Background

This is the legendary recipe for Chana Masala  (chickpeas in spices) passed down through generations on my mother’s side. This is my favorite food and my mother’s favorite food and so on. 

Context

This recipe has been passed through the ages. It isn’t exactly something that is unique to my family as all of India has their own takes on Channa Masala. This shows multiplicity and variation in the folklore. Interestingly enough,  there is a “secret ingredient” in this Channa which my mother calls Aji’s masala powder which means “Grandmother’s spice powder”.  All this time, I thought it was my grandmother’s spice powder, but now I realize that it is just  a term for a special secret mixture of spice powder that was passed down from my grandmother. 

Thoughts

    Recipes are interesting pieces of folklore as they are so important to survival. Food permeates through tradition and generations. An interesting thing about food is the multiplicity and variation in each instance. For example, my mother’s cooking varies from day to day and every time she makes the   dish is slightly different from the previous time.