Category Archives: Rituals, festivals, holidays

Senior Assassins

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Laguna Niguel, CA
Performance Date: April 9, 2018
Primary Language: English

My friend was already aware of my folklore project. While getting coffee, we were happened to be telling stories about our experiences in high school. I realized this would be perfect for this assignment. GG is the informant, PH is myself. Another friend was sitting with us, who I did not collect folklore from, but she does talk during the following collection. She is CC. Both GG and CC are from Orange County, though they were from different cities and did not know each other before attending USC. Both of their high schools had the following tradition.

PH: Do you have any folklore about your school, like stories everyone would tell, or things everyone would do?

The informant then told me of a legend/superstition, which is documented separately.

GG: Do games count?

PH: Yes!

GG: Our high school, senior year we had senior assassins. [This was not a tradition that only happened during her senior year, but it was a tradition you had to be a senior to partake in.]

CC: Oh, we had that too!

PH: Okay, could you explain what that is?

GG: You didn’t have that?

PH: No.

GG: Basically, everyone who wants to be in it has to sign up and they get assigned someone they need to shoot with a water gun.

PH: Oh, yeah I’ve heard of that. I’ve seen it in TV shows actually.

GG: Yeah, and the last one standing gets money.

PH: Woah, what?

GG: Yeah, supposedly, but I never heard of anyone actually getting any money.

Swedish/Norwegian Meatballs Recipe

Nationality: American
Age: 59
Occupation: Former Curator
Residence: San Diego, CA
Performance Date: April 17, 2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Norwegian, Swedish

I asked my mom for any recipes that have been passed down/recipes that she did not learn from a book, but learned from others. She emailed me the following recipe, which was my grandma’s (her mom’s). Photos of my grandma’s original typed meatball recipe index card are attached. Now, my mom makes this recipe every year for Christmas Eve. The recipe also includes how to make a gravy. My grandma had Norwegian parents, but this recipe is labeled as Swedish with the Swedish word for meatballs, köttbullar, and Sweden and Norway are rivals, so I asked my mom about this discrepancy, as my grandma is no longer alive. AH is my mom, the informant, and PH is myself.

PH: Do you know where grandma learned this recipe?

AH: Her mother! Martha Hovda Haugen. From the farm [my great grandma, Martha, grew up on a farm], but I doubt they had veal??

PH: Do you know why they would have a Swedish recipe?

AH: Well they call them Swedish meatballs, but since they [my family] were Norwegian, they [the meatballs] are really Norwegian!!

PH: The word köttbullar is Swedish, though

AH: Grandma mom [my mom sometimes calls my grandma, her mom “Grandma mom”] typed it! Grandma [my grandma, her mother] never learned Norwegian because her parents would speak it when they didn’t want the girls [their daughters, my grandma and her sister] to understand. Kjøttboller is more Norsk. [My mom speaks Norwegian]

PH: Do you know why the Swedish word would be typed on the recipe or why it would say Swedish?

AH: Because people always call them “Swedish meatballs,” even if they are Norwegian. I use breadcrumbs and cream and onion, which is much simpler than that typed version, which I think is probably what mom and grandma Haugen realled used for everyday purposes. Also nutmeg.
Serves 8, from Arline Haugen Hales’s recipe box
1 pound ground beef
1 pound ground veal
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup toasted bread crumbs (GF)
1-1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoon butter
• Combine beef, veal and onion
• Add water to crumbs
• Add crumbs, egg, salt, nutmeg, ginger, and pepper to meat mixture
• Mix well, shaped into 40 balls (about the size of a walnut)
• Dredge in flour (or arrowroot)
• Melt butter in large frying pan, add meat balls and brown on all sides
• Cover and cook slowly 20 minutes
• Remove balls from pan
To make gravy:
• stir remaining flour into drippings and loosen particles from edge of pan
• Add water, milk, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• Cook, stirring constantly until thickenedScreen Shot 2018-04-26 at 1.22.54 PM Screen Shot 2018-04-26 at 1.23.25 PM

Grandma Pat’s Shortbread Recipe

Nationality: American
Age: 59
Occupation: Former curator
Residence: San Diego, CA
Performance Date: April 17, 2018
Primary Language: English

I asked my mom for any recipes that have been passed down/recipes that she did not learn from a book, but learned from others. She emailed me the following recipe, which is my paternal grandma’s recipe. My grandma is from Old Kilpatrick, Scotland (she moved to Canada, and eventually the United States, in her 20s), and shortbread is a Scottish specialty. I don’t like shortbread unless my grandma has made it, and anyone I know who has tried her shortbread says it’s the best they’ve ever had. Ironically, my grandma is absolutely terrible at making any other food, and she always has been; shortbread is her one dish. I was there when my grandma taught it to the two of us, going along as she went. She didn’t have the recipe written down and couldn’t write it down from memory, as she goes through the motions automatically. Although I collected this from my mom, she collected it from my grandma, so here is her information:

Nationality: Scottish
Primary Language: English
Other language(s):
Age: At the time of collection, 87
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Old Kilpatrick, Scotland, UK
Performance Date: December 14, 2015

The following recipe is what my mom wrote down from that experience, on December 14, 2015.

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups flour
Knead sugar and butter together with hands.
Add flour, continue kneading.
Press into cookie sheet with your knuckles. Make fork marks on top.
Bake @360 degrees F, 40-45 minutes until edges are lightly browned.
Cut immediately into fingers, okay to leave in pan (important to cut quickly!).
Sprinkle sugar on top!
Yum.
Learned from Aunt Mary who sponsored her to come to Canada/Denver, 1952.

Ability to See Ghosts

Nationality: Filipino American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Bay Area, CA
Performance Date: April 24, 2018
Primary Language: English

A fellow student in this class and I met to exchange folklore. We are both very aware of the guidelines of the project, so there was no explaining necessary. Neither of us had any preference for certain category of folklore, so we agreed to share whatever we wanted. She chose the following story. BD is the informant, PH is myself

BD: My name is Beanna, I am 19, I am from the San Francisco Bay Area. What other questions are there?

PH: Nationality

BD: I’m Filipino but I’m also American, my family is third generation

So when my mom was a senior in high school her dad passed away and then she…was the only one there when he actually passed away and ever since then she says that she can see ghosts or like not see ghosts but she experiences ghostly things..so…like seven years ago my grandmother on my dad’s side passed away, and again, like, my mom was not the only one there but, after that we were cleaning up my grandmother’s house and my mom said that she saw my grandmother in the …mirror? Like the main mirror of the house and like every time she passes it she sees like a white flash…and I’m not really sure if that white flash is also supposed to be my grandmother? It’s kind of freaky…and, yeah, things like that happen. Like whenever someone passes away and my mom knows about it, all of a sudden, she gets, like, mirror sightings ‘cause I don’t think it helps that in our house in our main hallway we have this very large mirror and like our neighbor’s…mom passed away …two years ago? And my mom kept insisting for like three weeks after that she kept seeing flashes in the mirror… Yeah.

PH: Wow. So, do you believe that she is, like, seeing those things and seeing ghosts?

BD: Not really, no. (Laughs) It’s also kind of like a Filipino superstition thing because her mom also thinks that she can see ghosts which is really weird because, like, my mom thinks it stems from her being present when her dad died, but my mom’s mom was not there, so why would she be able to see ghosts by that same logic, sort of?

Moses Toeses Tongue Twister

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Washington, D.C.
Performance Date: April 4, 2018
Primary Language: English

At dinner with two friends, we started talking about our school experiences as young kids, and tongue twisters were brought up. One friend recited the “if a woodchuck could chuck wood” tongue twister, which spurred another friend to say the following. LA is the informant, PH is myself.

LA: Moses supposes his toeses are roses but Moses supposes erroneously for nobody’s toeses are poses of roses as Moses supposes his toeses to be

Everyone laughs and the other two of us are confused.

PH: What?! What is that?

LA: Moses supposes his toeses are roses but Moses supposes erroneously for nobody’s toeses are poses of roses as Moses supposes his toeses to be, you don’t know that?

PH: No! (Neither had my other friend at the table; both of us are from Southern California)

LA: Huh, that’s weird

PH: Can you say it again slowly so I can collect it for my folklore project?

LA: Sure! (slower) Moses supposes his toeses are roses but Moses supposes erroneously for nobody’s toeses are poses of roses as Moses supposes his toeses to be

PH: Thank you! Do you know where you first learned it?

LA: I don’t, I’ve like heard it from multiple sources I feel like?

PH: Okay, cool!