Category Archives: Material

Armenian Manti Soup

Age: 28
Residence: Fresno
Primary Language: English

Manti is a delicious traditional Armenian soup filled with dough wrapped lamb meat. It kind of looks like a ravioli with a side of it cut off, exposing some of the meat inside to the juices of the soup.

Armenian moms and grandmas are known for notoriously laboring on every little piece of Manti by hand. First they make little meatballs and cut the dough into little squares, place the meat inside, then pinch the corners of  the dough against each other to create the Manti. Then they cook it chicken stock and serve it with yogurt and garlic.

Oh, and the best part, at least in my family, my grandmother would hide a button, you know from a shirt, inside one the pieces. The point was that whoever found the piece was supposed have good luck or make a wish or something like that. So, it turned out to be a like a race between my siblings and cousins to see who finds the button. I think it was more of a tactic to encourage the kids to eat more than anything else.

Context: Informant was born in Yerevan, Armenia and came to the US at the age of 14.

Thoughts: Being of Armenian origin myself, I thought it was very interesting that I have never even heard of Manti. My family is originally from different city in Armenia, and I guess that minor difference in location is large enough to evident in the food culture. It goes to show the amount of variation you can find in a single “culture.” I thought the button hidden in soup was a fun touch… although I wonder if it’s a bit dangerous.

Double-Cross Blunt and Other Shaped Blunts

Nationality: Italian-Irish-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student (Mechanical Engineering) and Technology Assistant at USC
Residence: 2715 Portland St Los Angeles 90007
Performance Date: 2/8/21
Primary Language: English

This friend knows a lot about marijuana, and on Halloween (a few days after his birthday) he made a double-cross blunt or a large blunt with two smaller blunts inserted at the far end. The goal is that the smoker will get two friends to light all ends of the blunt so that the smoker gets an initial rush of smoke. This rush of smoke is more powerful than smoking a single blunt, and the idea was first shared in the movie Pineapple Express.

“Basically, it’s this guy, who’s a process server. That’s Seth Rogen, by the way. And then this is James Franco… And then there’s Danny McBride, who’s read and he’s this kind of comedic in the movie. But in the beginning of the movie, when Dale when Seth Rogen picks up his weed from James Franco. James Franco goes, Oh, Bro, I got this sweet Pineapple Express. And you know, like, Oh, they said the name of the movie. But he’s like, Oh, I who am I gonna smoke this cross joint with? I need two people. Because you need three lighters to light the joint. You need to light all three tips. I needed somebody to light the first two tips on the double cross joint and then like the other two for me as I lifted the front.”

There is no religious association with the blunt.

The speaker continued to explain that there are all sorts of shaped blunts (note: a blunt is not the same as a joint). There are turkey-shaped blunts and tarantula blunts (the legs or ‘feathers’ are additional blunts).

When asked what this double-cross blunt meant to him, the speaker said, “You’re smoking with two boys, or whoever’s there. But like, you’re just chilling out. You’re having a good time you’re smoking.”

*

I know that this piece was important to the speaker and he was very proud of his double-cross blunt. I do not smoke but it is interesting to see that there is an art to creating blunts and edibles (this speaker also creates cannabis butter from sativa which he then uses to make very strong edibles.) Because this speaker has knowledge of weed, I respect him more than were he just a regular ‘stoner.’

In this example, the speaker learned about the cross blunt from the film Pineapple Express, but this tradition is seen in other online weed forums and even Pinterest boards. Lighting the blunt is a group activity because the speaker cannot light all ends of the blunt at once. Adding the double cross shows that the speaker has improved the movie’s version of the blunt, and it allows for multiplicity and variation.

Fortune Telling From a Cup of Turkish Coffee

Nationality: Turkish
Age: 24
Occupation: Graduate Student in Computer Science at USC
Residence: 2715 Portland St Los Angeles CA 90007
Performance Date: 4/17/21
Primary Language: English
Language: Turkish

When my friend first read my fortune out of a cooled cup of Turkish coffee, I was told that he saw angels, tigers and trails in my future. He’d been using a Wikipedia article to help him read our fortunes, but he seemed excite to be sharing this experience with me and my other friend, who had never had our fortunes read in this way before.

Turkish coffee is very dense. It’s more like espresso than coffee, and because of this one only consumes a shot-glass or specialized tiny coffee mug. The person drinking Turkish coffee leaves a small layer of coffee grounds in the bottom of the cup and turns the cup over on a saucer to cool. The grounds may slide down the sides of the cup as they cool and solidify, which the reader then uses to tell the drinker’s fortune.

*

“This is very embedded in the Turkish culture. So it’s not something that you learn somewhere else, it’s around you all the time. You know, you grow up with your mom, your grandma, you know, the aunts and the ladies on the balconies, everyone does it. ” The speaker said as we sat in the Nuka Turkish Cafe in Westwood months after that initial reading in our home. He mentioned that shapes in a coffee mug might look like numbers or scenery.

“There are places in Turkey where you would go to visit like an actual medium. Well, those are self-proclaimed mediums. But the interesting thing is, I’ve been to certain mediums that would have incredibly accurate fortunetelling. Like, they will give you a lot of information about your past and your future. And very often, I’ve met people and I have had friends who have these professional medium fortune telling them, like their fortune telling actually becomes true in the future. And so it’s an interesting thing. And I really don’t know that side of it that well. It’s very supernatural. And I just feel like some people actually do have that supernatural talent to be able to use this. “

The speaker added that Turkish mediums also use tarot and palmistry to tell fortunes, and that this tradition is quite old. “The Turkish army that my father is, is a part of has an insignia on it that says before Christ, 200 something. It’s a 2200 years old army.” He added that before Christianity, many Turkish tribes practiced paganism. “

“We have a Turkish idiom that says, “Don’t believe in this fortune telling. But like, don’t live without it… it’s an integral and cultural part of our lives. But we also live in a society where, you know, we are aware that fortune telling is not a very scientific method… So it’s, it’s more of a fun sport at this point than actual people believing in it. It’s more it’s more fun than it’s taken like serious.”

*

The speaker was happy that we had come to visit him in the Nuka Cafe, and he pretended to be annoyed that I was recording his thoughts about fortune telling. When I asked him where he first saw fortune telling, he mentioned that much like a baby doesn’t remember their first steps, he doesn’t remember where he first encountered this tradition. Another friend mentioned that the speaker’s past fortune came true, and later that day he read another cup of Turkish coffee. He told our third friend that he saw a world map and a wedding.

This is important to me because much like the speaker, I enjoy fortune-telling tools but don’t really believe in them… unless something else changes my mind about their accuracy. I first came across the idea of fortune-telling from tea or coffee in the movie Coraline, and I showed the speaker the section of the film that includes fortune-telling after we had done the first reading in the house. I enjoyed having my fortune read and will not believe it while simultaneously “keeping it in mind.”

This seems to be a largely female craft. The speaker is interested in Turkish folklore and could not remember the meanings of symbols he described to us the first time he performed this tradition using Wikipedia notes.

Haunted House in Indiana- The Funny Man and the Woman with the Red Eyes: Sleep Paralysis and Two Traveling Ghosts, Cured by a Witchdoctor

Nationality: African-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student at FIDM studying fashion design
Residence: 2715 Portland St Los Angeles CA 90007
Performance Date: 2/8/21
Primary Language: English

I first heard this story when I asked the speaker if she had ever seen a ghost, but when she began telling her story I remembered that I had heard parts of this tale before. The speaker told her story in a very matter-of-fact tone and spoke first about her experiences with friendly and unfriendly ghosts. For another example of a ghost legend by this same speaker, search “Haunted Theaters and Ghost Lights” in the USC folklore archive.

*

When the speaker and her twin brother were three years old, they shared a room in Gary, Indiana in a house completely made of brick. “My mom came in [to the children’s bedroom], she had just put us to bed. And then she heard me and my brother laughing. And so she like came back into the room and she’s like, What’s going on here? She’s like, what’s happening? And we’re like, ‘The man, the man. He’s making a funny face.’ And there was nobody there.”

“Was I scared? No, because he was one of the friendly ones of the house,” the speaker said. “He was kind of just there for jokes and like to make children laugh, because apparently, um, his grandchildren died in the house. And he like, died out of grief. And he loved kids. So he would just play with my brother and I [sic] occasionally.”

The speaker said that there were also unfriendly ghosts, and that she had recently gotten rid of one of these malicious specters. ” “They moved with us to Florida. And at first, I didn’t notice because they didn’t approach me. At first, they would just stay in the corner. And I didn’t realize it would always be a really scary woman with two red eyes. And I didn’t know what she was. I thought she was just like, a spirit… But no, she turned out to be worse than I thought.”

The speaker said that she began to experience sleep paralysis and that “I would be screaming, and she’d be attacking me. And I couldn’t move. And I’d wake up with bruises on my arms and my legs because she was sitting on top of me.” She slept with her mother at age 17 because of these nightly attacks. When she returned to her bedroom, she said, ” “I was screaming to save my mom and my brother. But they couldn’t hear me. And then just the woman was just taking my family away from me. And I didn’t like I couldn’t do anything. I was just sitting there. And then again, my mom woke me up screaming, crying in real life. “

The speaker’s Puerto Rican grandfather, Julio, was a witch doctor. “We had to pin a square piece of black cloth underneath my pillow. I don’t know what it was to catch her something like that.” Soon after that she moved to Southern California to attend school, and she hasn’t seen either ghost since.

*

This story was told at night in the kitchen, and three college-age females were present. The speaker said that she was relieved to be rid of the ghosts, and that after her parents’ divorce, she rarely visited the Gary House. She also said that the house was torn apart after the divorce, and that her father would start projects that he wouldn’t complete (for example, fixing the bathroom tub). I think these ghosts may have something to do with the divorce, but I believe that this experience was very frightening for the speaker.

This speaker later scoffed at my mentioning that a friend received therapy when recovering from his parent’s divorce. Her response suggested that children do not need therapy for this life change.

For another example of ghosts stories indicating changes in property ownership or status quo, see the scholarly article “Ghostly Possession of Real Estate: The Dead in Contemporary Estonian Folklore” by Ulo Valk (2006).

The concept of traveling ghosts is certainly frightening, and this story was welcome after a long day’s work.

Good Luck to Bleed on Designs in Fashion Industry

Nationality: Afro-Latinx
Age: 20
Occupation: FIDM Student in Fashion Design, Food Service
Residence: 2715 Portland St Los Angeles CA 90007
Performance Date: 4/13/21
Primary Language: English

This friend is a student studying fashion design at FIDM, and she often alters housemates’ old clothes or creates new designs when she doesn’t have schoolwork. She attends one particular class that requires she use a small mannequin and canvas to create fabric patterns.

Three females including myself were in the kitchen when I asked her whether the fashion industry has any superstitions. We held this conversation after a day of work, and we discussed other folk beliefs in the same sitting. The speaker said that it is good luck to bleed on new fashion designs because this means the designer put their ‘blood, sweat and tears’ into the piece.

*

In the fashion industry, “It is good luck to bleed on things. Like if you’re pinning stuff on your body form, and you prick your finger a little bit, and you get like a little blood on like your costume or your design, it is considered good luck.” The speaker said that she had accidently done this while creating her own designs, and that she learned this tip from a female professor.

Designers are not supposed to bleed on purpose. Doing so ruins the sentiment. I asked if blood was still a good sign if the design were made out of expensive fabric, and the speaker said yes, that’s not a problem because blood is very easy to wash out with hydrogen peroxide and warm water.

The speaker said that this superstition meant a lot to her because she has bled on past designs and believes this helped make these projects successful. “It’s kind of like that statement, like I put my blood sweat and tears into this. So like, I can’t tell you how many countless nights I have cried over literal costumes, trying to get them done. And then when they come out amazing. Like, that’s how I know. Like, I can feel that good luck, because you know, you experience it.

*

This speaker has struggled to get where she is now. She did not go immediately to FIDM after graduating high school, and she started her first year in Fall 2020. She has needed to share a room with an incompatible roommate, and she has needed to take up two food service jobs to continue working toward her passion even when is is difficult. I think the idea that blood as a symbol of struggle resonates with the speaker in part because she has needed to struggle to complete her designs.