Category Archives: Holidays

Holidays and holiday traditions

Lechon

Age: 51
Occupation: English
Residence: Corona, CA

Text

“When I think about big Filipino parties like weddings, baptisms, birthdays, Christmas, and even some funerals, the first thing that comes to mind is the lechon.

Lechon is a whole roasted pig, skin golden and crispy, head and all. It’s not just food; it’s also a spectacle. When the lechon arrives, someone always yells, “andiyan na ang lechon!” (the lechon is here), like someone famous just arrived. People gather around it, phones out, kids ready to grab, and family members grabbing their plates to have a piece.

Here in California, we usually order it from a caterer. It arrives crispy and ready to eat. The most important part of the lechon is the skin. It’s crispy, salty, and slightly sweet.

Lechon isn’t just something we are eating. It is a real celebration that marks abundance, pride, and hospitality. It shows that you spared no effort to feed your guests, too. Sometimes it can become a competition of who had the best lechon.

Even when there are other yummy dishes like pancit or lumpia, the lechon is always the centerpiece. It almost feels like the lechon is the guest of honor.

When I see lechon on the table, I don’t see just food. I see a tradition. I see a family showing love the Filipino way, which is full of laughter and full bellies.”

Context

The informant of this narrative was born in the U.S. to immigrant parents from the Philippines and grew up attending traditional Filipino gatherings in both domestic and community settings. Her story centers on lechon, which is a whole roasted pig that serves as the focal point of large celebratory events. The presence of lechon transforms an ordinary gathering into a culturally significant event, and its performance carries a deep symbolic and social meaning.

My Interpretation

From a folklore perspective, lechon functions as a material symbol of abundance, kinship, and collective identity. While it is technically a food item, it is best understood as a ritual object within the context of Filipino celebrations. Its preparation and presentation serve as a ritualized performance, where cultural meaning is enacted, remembered, and passed down.

The centrality of lechon to the events positions it as a symbolic quest of honor. The pig, therefore, is not just food but a performative symbol that embodies both economic investment and cultural pride. Its role aligns with the folkloristic principle that everyday practice scan function as nonverbal, expressive culture, encoding shared beliefs and values.

Lechon also serves as a visual and sensory expression of Filipino-American identity in diaspora. Even when the preparation changes from backyard firepits in the Philippines to pre-ordered catering in California, the core symbolic structure remains there. This demonstrates the multiplicity and variation that define folklore: traditions persist not because they are static but because they adapt meaningfully to new environments while preserving key elements. 

In this sense, lechon is more than just a cuisine. It is a ritual marker of festivity, community, and cultural continuity.

Tang Yuan

Nationality: Taiwanese-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Animation Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA / Queens, NY
Language: English

Text:

“One of the foods that we made is um.. Tang Yuan, which is like a… kind of like mochi? It’s like a glutinous rice ball and then on the inside is sesame paste. And so, it… it’s usually typically eaten during the New Year. Um… it’s just like kind of a dessert. I know it’s been more popularized within like, um… like, Taiwanese dessert places nowadays, or like dessert places in general, but they’re usually served as like a treat for introducing the New Year. Um… a while ago, like when I was really really young — I’d say like before I was five — my grandma used to make Tang Yuan by like… She didn’t have the sesame paste, it was just like flour balls, I guess? Like she’d make the sort of like, dough out of rice flour and water and then she’d dye it into different colors and like, cut it up into strips and then she’d have me and my cousins like prepare the dough balls together. And then she’d prepare a kind of uh, kind of soup, like a sweet soup to go with it. Um… I believe also typically… I prefer to eat it plain, but my dad um… My grandparents on my dad’s side — and my dad — they both kind of… they have like a somewhat Cantonese background, so they end up drinking it with like, this fermented wine, like rice wine. And it… has an ‘interesting’ taste, it’s like… it’s like the sweetness of the Tang Yuan on itself is pretty good, and it’s like, the fermented rice wine is very bitter, and very pungent…. and so it’s like, I don’t know how they acquired the taste for it but, um, my dad typically eats it with this sort of rice wine. And also, when you eat it… I think it represents currency. ’cause the ‘yuan’ at the end… and ‘tang’ is usually like ‘sweet.’ So like ‘sweet money.'”

Context:

Tang Yuan are a traditional Chinese dessert, although they can be sweet or savory. They are often made for holidays and festivals, especially the Lunar New Year. There are several variations on Tang Yuan recipes, but the most common one involves making a dough out of glutenous rice flour and water, stuffing the dough balls with a sweet black sesame paste, boiling, and serving warm in a sweet syrup. Tang Yuan are said to represent togetherness and completeness.

Analysis:

Dishes like Tang Yuan are often made for festivals to commemorate calendar cycles and bring people together. They represent connections to community and a sense of continuity of tradition and culture. For informant JC, Tang Yuan are a dish that holds significance beyond the process of cooking and eating — they play a role in connecting him to his Taiwanese identity as he and his family navigate American culture and expectations of assimilation.

How to make Gluten

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Marriage & Family Therapist
Residence: Forest Falls, CA
Language: English

Text:

JB: “Okay, you’re gonna start with some gluten flour, however much gluten you want to make, otherwise known as ‘dough pep’. And then I mix in a couple handfuls of usually whole wheat flour — I think it gives it more flavor — and then you mix it up dry. And then you add in cold water, and you want to be mixing it up while you add it so it doesn’t turn into glue too much, and then you want to mix it up into a ball that holds together that is a little soft, not too gluey. And then you can kind of let that sit in water. And then you’re gonna make a ‘witch’s brew’ [smiles and laughs] — however you wanna make a really strong broth. Whatever you got to make a really strong witch’s brew of a broth. I like to use Vegex [a brand of yeast extract] and soy sauce, I usually chop up an onion, umm.. might add some different powders, like packets of George Washington broth I’ll put in, like onion powder, sometimes I’ll put in barbeque sauce? I’m sure there’s other things too. You can use like the box vegetable broth. But a witch’s brew. And then you tear up the chunks of dough, make little balls and kind of flatten them out, and drop the dough in  — well you want to get the witch’s brew boiling first — and then you drop in the bits of dough and boil it for about 45 minutes. And then after you’ve cooked it in the broth, I like to store it in the broth so it kind of marinates and absorbs the flavor, and then you can do whatever you want with it. I usually make it for special occasions, like Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

[JB’s husband]: “It’s too bad you don’t do it for Adventist-specific days. You should be doing it every October 22 for the Great Disappointment.”

Context:

Informant JB was raised in the Seventh-day Adventist church, which is a denomination of Protestant Christianity that is distinct for its emphasis on vegetarianism, health, and the Sabbath. The ‘Great Disappointment’ refers a date in 1844 on which the Millerites, a 19th century religious movement, falsely believed that Jesus would return to Earth. The reference to a ‘witch’s brew’ was especially humorous in the context of Adventist culture because witchcraft and ‘spiritualism’ are taboo subjects. She also shared further details on where she learned the recipe and its significance in the Seventh-day Adventist community:

“I learned the Gluten recipe from my mom. She usually made it for special occasions. Mom [husband’s mother] also made Gluten. I think a lot of Adventist people made it, that was their special Thanksgiving dinner. [Gets old cookbook from the kitchen] In An Apple A Day, the Gluten recipe is listed under ‘Mrs. Robert Chung’. This is the most traditional Seventh-day Adventist cookbook, and it was put together by doctors’ wives. Because it was so traditional, they didn’t even write the women’s names, just ‘Mrs.’ and then their husband’s name. This was my mom’s, but every good Adventist had this. Sold at the ABC bookstore, everybody had it. Adventists have been pretty good cooks in my experience. I mean, they had to kind of reassess their approach to cooking. I think they embraced probably ethnic foods in earlier parts of American culture.”

Analysis:

Gluten serves as a replacement for meat-based holiday dishes for many Seventh-day Adventist community members. Interestingly, the process for making ‘Gluten’ is very similar to the process of making seitan, a dish that is traced back to ancient China and is believed to have been invented by Chinese Buddhist monks who followed a vegetarian diet. This potential connection is further reinforced by the authored version of the recipe in the An Apple A Day cookbook, listed by a person with an East Asian surname. The Seventh-day Adventist church’s early days also coincided with Chinese and Japanese migration to America the the early 20th century. Whether via evangelizing or close contact, the practice of making a gluten-based meat substitute likely spread to Euro-Americans during this time.

Collard Greens and Black Eyed Peas for Financial Luck

“While I don’t have a whole lot of rituals or superstitions my family does have a few things we do every year around the holidays. The first is that on New Year’s Day we always have collard greens and black eyed peas with dinner. The greens symbolize paper cash and the peas coinage. The idea is that eating these foods will bring us wealth and success in the New Year.”

Context

“Though both are soul food staples and are enjoyed across the country, I’m not entirely certain where this tradition comes from. My Dad was born in South Carolina and my Mom was born in Michigan and I think it’s a tradition from my Dad’s side of the family more so than my Mom’s so it’s possible the tradition stems from the Black community in the American south.”

Analysis

Personally, I saw an immediate connection between the superstition and the symbolic representation of the greens and peas. Similar to communion bread and wine representing the body and blood of Jesus Christ, the collard greens and black eyed peas represent financial symbols. I assume this metaphor is based on the visual similarities that the food has to their symbolic objects: collard greens evoke green paper bills, while the small collections of round peas could loosely reflect a collection of circular coins. The folkloric representation of these two objects as food is directly tied to observable and similar aspects both share.

Additionally, the act of ingesting these symbols as food is itself symbolic of the intent of the ritual: to gain financial success in the New Year. These symbols, and the folkloric power they carry, are digested and become a part of the energy needed to sustain ourselves into the new year. Financial success gets as close to us as it possibly can through the consumption of its metaphorical representations, becoming a part of our being that we carry into the future.

Samhain and Spiritual Perseverance

“Samhain is the Celtic new year. There are essentially 8 big observational holidays/festivals in the Celtic wheel of the year. Those observe the solstices and equinoxes, as well as the halfway points between them. Samhain is the start of the year, which starts going into the dark months instead of out of them. This is because the Celts were so focused on the harvest. For them, the day started when the sun set, not when it rose.

It’s one of the bigger [Celtic festivals]. It overlaps significantly with All Hallow’s Eve, which inspired Halloween. It’s a 2-3 day celebration. Traditionally people would dress up during this time. Because it was going into the colder months, people believed that the veil between our world and the next was especially thin, so they would dress as spirits to ward off interference from other spirits. Turnip carving, which was also meant to ward off spirits, eventually evolved into pumpkin carving. All Hallow’s Eve has definitely transitioned into more of a Catholic thing though.

That’s when they would do the wicker man burning. [The details] depends on which clan you’d ask, but they would build a massive… man out of straw and kind of put a sacrifice in there. Obviously, the informant doesn’t do that. It’s about the new year, honoring the dead, and the final harvest. It would end with the Dumb Supper. This might overlap more with witch stuff, but it’s celebrating the final harvest with your family, and members who have passed have come to join in the feast and celebrate with you. That’s October 31st to November 1st.”

Context

The informant tends to celebrate it with a bonfire and feast since it’s the biggest of the fire festivals. The informant also liked spirituality as something that existed in harmony or in connection with nature. They found something meaningful in the solstices and equinoxes, more so than Christmas or other holidays. The changing of nature has a lot of concrete meaning. It’s an energy that they can see and feel as opposed to something more abstract.

Being in harmony with nature is important to the informant. She started learning about the druids first (she’s not a formal member of the religion) when she was working on a project. She felt a “vibe,” the festivals made a lot of sense to her, and they honored harmony with nature while maintaining a certain whimsy. They referenced the circle of life, its ebb and flow, the constant motion rather than static holidays.

Analysis

The informant felt an emotional connection and spiritual resonance to festivals like Samhain. Despite not being an official member of the Druidic faith, these seasonal celebrations aligned far more with their perception of reality far more than static, arbitrary holidays like Christmas or New Year’s. It’s well documented how festivals and rituals are markers of great change, and I think it’s interesting to note how these festivals form around perceived changes in our environments. Furthermore, how similar observations hundreds of years later can compel a person to find affinity with celebrations of old. Beliefs shared across the diaspora of time connect our past and present in profound ways, and it’s fascinating to comprehend why Druidic beliefs can still resonate so strongly with people outside of the faith and beyond its heyday.