Matzah Pizza: Jewish Folk Cuisine

Nationality: Jewish-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Memphis, TN
Performance Date: 4/21/19
Primary Language: English

Context: I invited the informant to my dorm room at USC to work on the project collaboratively. He sat down next to me, and we began having a conversation about the passover holiday. He told me that Passover snacks were somewhat strange, but ultimately delicious. I inquired further, since I was unaware of the specific snacks that accompanied the holiday. I began recording, and asked the informant to tell me about his favorite Passover snack.

Transcription:

EG: Oh man, it would have to be matzah pizza.

WD: Matzah pizza? What’s that?

EG: So, Passover is the celebration or annual remembrance of the Jews’ exodus from Egypt. In the biblical story, one aspect of it is, when they were preparing to leave and escape from the Egyptians, they started baking bread. But, they had to leave, like rush to leave, so there was no time for the bread to rise in the oven. So, it’s all this flat stuff…

WD: Yeah, like, the unleavened bread, right?

EG: Yeah exactly. Anyways, so now we eat this thing called matzah, it’s like, unleavened bread or kind of like a cracker.

WD: But what’s matzah pizza? I’ve never heard of that before.

EG: So, the diet restricts you… or, people who strictly adhere to the diet of passover don’t eat anything that has any, like, bread related products or anything, except for the matzah, since it’s so symbolic. So, it’s hard to think of any good snacks to eat, but one thing that’s easy is to take a piece of matzah, put some tomato sauce on it, put some cheese on it,  maybe a little garlic…

WD: Oh, I see where this is going…

EG: Yeah, maybe some basil even… you put that baby in the oven and it’s a great snack.

WD: So it’s almost, like, a comfort food, huh?

EG: It is a comfort food. And it’s turned into one of those things where… where I really like matzah pizza now, and I’ll look forward to it. You know, Passover’s not, like, usually the most fun holiday, so it gives me something to look forward to.

WD: Oh, so you know that whenever Passover comes around, the matzah pizza’s comin’ too?

EG: Yeah, exactly. It’s not really something I eat normally, just around the Passover season.

Informant:The informant is a 19 year old student at the University of Southern California. He is from Memphis, Tennessee, and is Jewish-American. The informant attended high school at Memphis University School in Tennessee, a unisex private catholic school. The informant’s parents and family have been making the snack since as long as he can remember, and he’s grown a strange affinity for the particular food.

Analysis: This food is highly symbolic for the Jewish peoples, but it also integrates Italian culture into the dish. Since, around the Passover season, strict practitioners of the Jewish faith are prevented from eating raised bread, they have created alternatives to their favorite foods. Matzah pizza is no exception, as it adds new flavors to the traditional matzah cracker. Contemporarily, the dish has become a staple of the religious holiday, and Jewish peoples look forward to making and eating the dish. Although it doesn’t necessarily match the flavor quality of pizza, it has a distinct flavor that Jewish children learn to love at a young age. Not only does it provide a direct tie to the religious faith of the Jewish peoples, but it has also evolved into a type of comfort food during the Passover season. 

For another recipe for matzah pizza and other Passover snacks, see Randi Sherman, April 10, 2009, “Matzah Love Year-Round” in The New York Jewish Week, pg. 3.

Moles: The Marijuana-Smoker’s Addiction

Nationality: Iranian-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Gatos, CA
Performance Date: 4/25/19
Primary Language: English

Context: I asked the informant if he wished to participate in the folklore project fifteen minutes after he had smoked a bowl of marijuana from a bong. He was extremely enthusiastic about participating in the collection project, but wasn’t sure exactly what I meant by “folklore.” I explained to him that it could be a slang term for something he’s done or seen others do, and he quickly recognized the opportunity to talk about the term “mole” for smokers. I began recording, and asked him to explain what he meant by the term.

Transcription:

WD: So, tell me about moles?

DO: A mole, otherwise known as a moke, a mook, a chop, a T-bowl, a hairy Pete…

WD: 50/50?

DO: Yeah, it’s when you like, put 90% tobacco and a little bit of weed on top into a bowl of a bong, and you light the whole thing on fire, and you snap the whole thing.

WD: Yeah.

DO: And so, what happens to you is you basically [cough], become an incapacitated person for a good 25-30 seconds…. And you can’t stand, or do anything like drool or, like,  just look like an idiot. And they’re extremely addictive, since that whole effect is from the nicotine. And it makes you feel the nicotine in your head, like extremely in your head.

WD: Yeah.

DO: And they’re extremely addictive, like, there’s kids that do them all day. And it’s super bad for you. Like, I wouldn’t recommend it.

Informant: The informant is a 19 year old, male Iranian-American USC student. He was raised in Los Gatos, California, and attended a private all-boys catholic school in San Jose, California. The informant has heard many variations of the term “mole,” especially since he moved from Los Gatos, California to Los Angeles. Though the informant has experienced the effects of the practice, he told me that he wouldn’t recommend anyone doing it, simply because of the addictive qualities of a “mole.”

Analysis: The practice of taking “moles” can become a competition amongst smokers, especially in a party setting. By “snapping” the bowl (or, burning the contents of the bowl piece into ash before sucking it through the bong), smokers are forced to take the entirety of the contents into their lungs in a single pull. This leads to competitions to see who can pack more tobacco or marijuana into the bowl before taking the “mole.” This practice is meant to be lighthearted amongst smokers, but can be extremely dangerous as well. Taking “moles” can lead to vomiting and seizures due to the immense intake of nicotine, since one can smoke more tobacco through a bong in a single pull than with a cigarette in a single pull. In turn, this leads to nicotine addiction, one of the hardest substances to stop taking. Although taking “moles” can be a fun, lighthearted activity amongst friendly weed-smokers, it can also lead to a frightening dependency on the substances at hand.

The Scholar and the Boatsman

Nationality: Thai
Age: 60
Occupation: Restaurant Owner
Residence: New York
Primary Language: Thai (laotian)
Language: English

Context:

The following informant is a 60-year-old Thai immigrant who heard the following story growing up as a kid. This interview was carried out in a mix of Thai and English. In this I will be denoted as C and the informant will be denoted as S

Item:

S: This story is uh, this story is about a student and a person who is a boats man for hire. Like a boat driver but they use an oar. The boat driver and the student. In Thailand there are rivers, big rivers that you need to pay to get across. You pay them money and they will ferry you across the river. From one shore to the next shore, because the river is very wide. When they row the boat on the river there is a very strong current, and the person who rows the boat, the boat driver, has to be very careful. So, the student is sitting on the boat reading and studying, he’s studying on the boat. And, the student asks the boat driver if he’s ever read any history books.

“You ever read the history book at all?”

The boat driver responds, never.

The student responses, “So you missed a lot of opportunities because the history books have a lot of history about rituals and war, to let us know how people in the past lived their lives, how they dressed.”

So the student asks, “Why you never read history book?”

And the boat driver responds, “I never… uh I never went to school.”

So the student goes on as he listens to the sound the water being paddled, “Have you ever about geography before?”

The boat man replies, “No never.”

The student explains “Geography is a subject that lets us know about the world and different countries from mountains, rivers, and so on. Geography is a very interesting subject. You’ve never heard about this subject?”

The boat driver goes “Never.”

The student shakes his head and says. “If you don’t know about this stuff, your life, it means nothing.”

So he goes, “How about science? You ever read a science book?” The boat man replies, “No, Never.”

The student says, “What happen to you? Science book help explain the why things happen in our everyday life. Everything has to do with science. Scientist are the most important people in the world. If you don’t know about science your life is very low valuable.”

At this point there are clouds come over the sky, big clouds come over the sky, because it is about to rain. The wind is also getting rougher. There is a thunderstorm in the distance which shows a storm is coming. And the boat still has a long way to go, it is not even across half the river. Now the boat man looks at the sky and is surprised. He says “You, look, look at the clouds the storm is going to coming very soon. And you, do you know how to swim?”

The student is completely surprised and says, “Swimming? I don’t know how to swim.”

The boat man then looks at the student with a bemused face and says “Why, you don’t know how to swim? You have so much knowledge. You know about history, geography, and science. Why didn’t you also learn how to swim? Soon you know that you life means nothing.”

C: Damn.

S: So. the winds are getting rougher and the waves are getting higher. The boat is only a small boat so it is blow left and right by the wind. And, so the boat capsizes. The boat capsizes, and only the boat man manages to swim ashore. And the student, the one who was pitying the boat man got drowned in the water.

C: And what is the importance or meaning of this story?

S: The meaning is … if you have only knowledge you won’t make it. Meaning even if you know everything you need to know how to survive. You see?

Analysis: I think the analysis that the informant comes up with sums up the main message of the story. What I find very interesting is that the boat man never bothers to try and save the scholar and instead lets him drown. Either the currents were too strong or maybe he found the scholar that annoying.

Chick Constellation

Nationality: Thai
Age: 61
Occupation: Restaurant Owner
Residence: New York
Primary Language: Thai (laotian)
Language: English

Context:

The following informant is a 61-year-old Thai immigrant who heard the following story growing up as a kid in the Issan region of Thailand. This interview was carried out in a mix of Thai and English. In this I will be denoted as C and the informant will be denoted as U

U: If you look up at your sky there are seven stars together, I don’t know what they are called in English. They’re very small and there are seven of them they are easy to see in the sky. This is a history of where these stars come from. In the past there was, there was a small cottage with an old man and an old lady living together. The grandmother would cook and the grandfather would bring rice to the military and also to a mother hen and her six chicks. Every day the mother hen takes her six chicks to the forest to walk around and find stuff to eat. Once it is in the evening they return back to the cottage with the old couple. Now the grandmother and the grandfather are eating together and there is a rumor that there will be a monk coming to the village they are living in. So, they decide they should kill the mother hen and so they can provide an offering to the monk. They’re doing this because they want to receive good karma. The mother hen is sleeping with her six chicks and hears this, and when she hears this she says, “Oh my children it is time for your mother to die. It is time to repay my debt to the grandfather and the grandmother who raised me by giving me rice from when I was a chick to now.”

Once the six chicks hear this they all start crying and stay with their mother hen crying. The mother hen then says, “You six children need to take care of each other. The younger siblings should listen to their older siblings. Even after I’m dead don’t play too far away from the cottage in case you can get lost.”

The mother hen and the chicks hug each other all night crying. When the morning comes there is a strange feeling, so the mother hen doesn’t walk her chicks to the forest from the cottage like usual. Instead she stay with her chicks all day waiting to die at the cottage. Right before the mother hen is going to die to pay back her debt to the old couple she feels like she doesn’t want to leave her children and stays at the cottage hugging her children. Sometimes she thinks about escaping with her chicks but is worried it will be difficult for them to live outside the cottage. So, she accepts her death so her children can get raised by the old couple. The old couple come out of the cottage at this point and easily grab the mother hen. Normally when you capture a chicken, they don’t want to be caught. You have to help each other by running after the chicken like you’ve seen in movies. You understand?

C: Right.

U: But in this case, in this case, the mother hen let the grandfather grab her because she was willing to die to repay her debt for being raised. Tear are flowing uncontrollably from the chicks and the mother hen. They won’t stop and the chicks all run after their mother but there is no way to stop the grandfather from killing her. The mother hen then starts getting her feathers plucked out by the grandmother. She’s plucking the feathers off around her neck and the mother hen is screaming from the pain of having her feathers plucked. They have to pluck the chicken before they can kill it. You understand?

C: I thought they killed the chicken first then plucked it?

U: No, they don’t kill the chicken first, they have to pluck it before killing it. This is how they do it in Thailand. Once half of the chicken’s neck has been plucked the old man grabs a knife to cut to the throat of the mother hen. The mother hen squeezes her eyes shut and the chicks are bawling. Once the knife cut her throat blood runs out slowly and the grandmother bring a bowl to collect the blood. Once all the blood flows out of the hen’s body all the strength has left her body. Even though she is in pain everywhere she doesn’t have any strength left. She shudders twice and dies. And the chicks have been watching the whole time and they start crying and saying “Our mother is dead. How are we going to be able to live? Now that our mother is dead were going to be mourning her and calling for her.”

At this point the water is boiling so they can blanch the chicken, they blanch the chicken first before removing the rest of the feathers. The mother can no longer show the pain of getting plucked and her children want to die for their mother after seeing all the pain she’s been in and seeing her killed like this. So, the chicks start saying, “We’re going to die for you mother. No matter where you go we will follow you. No matter what you are reborn as we will be reborn as your children. So, we can be mother and child forever.”

At this point the grandmother has removed all the feathers and is going to bring the chicken to the grill to burn off down. This is a technique to remove the down to clean up the chicken before cooking. In the fire they have for the grill the mother hen the six chicks come to a decision to jump into the flames to die with their mother. Because of the determination of the mother and her chicks, the mother and her six chicks became the Chick Constellation. There is the mother and her six chicks in the sky.

Analysis: I did some research the the stars that this legend refers to is the Pleiades. It is a vert gruesome tale, but also I think it emphasizes how repaying ones debts is very important in Thai culture.

Pikul Flowers: Thai Folktale

Nationality: Thai
Age: 61
Occupation: Restaurant Owner

Context:

The following informant is a 61-year-old Thai immigrant who heard the following story growing up as a kid in the Issan region of Thailand. This interview was carried out in a mix of Thai and English. In this I will be denoted as C and the informant will be denoted as U

U: This story is called Pikul Gold or Golden Pikul. Pikul is the name of a flower, this is a story about doing good things. Once upon a time there was a beautiful young woman name Pikul. Her appearance was beautiful and the way that she acted was beautiful. And her mom died when she was a child and she was raised instead by a step-mother and had a sister named Mali. This is, uh, kind of similar to, uh, Snow White or Cinderella, or something like that.

The bad thing was her step-mother and her sister were bad people. Both of them made Pikul do hard work every day, which I guess is like Cinderella. One day after finishing all her work at home Pikul went to go fetch water from the well which was far from their house and heavy. And there was an old lady in front of her who was thirsty and asked for some water to drink. Pikul was happy to help the old lady and told her she could take the water to wash her face and body so she could feel refreshed. And she said, “Don’t worry about if there is not enough water, I can get some more.”

And took care of the old lady well. The old lady says, “Oh wow not only are you pretty but you are also nice.”

Even though the old lady looked very poor and dirty Pikul still treated her well. After that the old lady gave Pikul a special blessing: “With this blessing, the Pikul flowers will fall out of your mouth, Golden Pikul flowers will flow out of your mouth.”

C: They’re falling out of her mouth?

U: Yes, this was a special blessing.

C: That’s a blessing?

U: “Whenever Pikul feels sad, the flowers fall out of her mouth.”

After giving her the special blessing the old lady disappeared. Pikul knew at that moment the old lady was an angel who gave a special blessing to Pikul. When Pikul arrives at home late she is yelled at by her step-mother who says, “You’re skipping work, you’re not doing anything.”

So Pikul tells her step-mother the story of the old lady. As she’s speaking Pikul flowers are flowing out of her mouth and her step-mother is greedy, instead of feeling bad for Pikul she gets greedy instead. She goes from being angry to being greedy and takes all the Pikul flowers and orders Pikul to keep talking so the flowers will keep flowing out of her mouth. She does this so, so she can sell the Golden Pikul flowers for money.

Now everyone is the household is living well, Pikul doesn’t have to do a lot of work anymore but instead she has to talk all day, so the flowers flow out of her mouth. Pikul is tired, she’s very tired with her step-mother because she made Pikul be someone with a sore throat and a raspy voice. The step-mother gets mad at her and bullies and beats her to get her to keep speaking. She can’t speak a single word because her throat hurts and her throat stings.

Now instead to help satisfy the step-mother’s greed, the step-mother comes to the decision to send her other daughter, the one called Mali to do what Pikul did. The daughter that is actually is her daughter. So she goes to where Pikul met the old lady but instead of finding an old lady she meetings a beautiful young woman, wearing beautiful red clothes, standing underneath a large umbrella. The young woman asks Mali if she can drink some of the water that she is carrying, but because, because Mali is jealous of the young woman she acts rudely to the young woman because she doesn’t think the young woman is the angel. Mali curses at the young woman, and the woman, the woman who is wearing the beautiful red clothes, then it turns out she is the angel. So she curses Mali back, “Whenever you angry and you speak worms will fall out of your mouth.”

C: Uh oh.

U: So, Mali goes back home and explains to the mother what happened angrily and the house starts filling up with worms. As they’re falling out of her mouth the house is filled with worms. Because she was speaking with angry emotions. Now the step-mother she starts to think that Pikul, that Pikul was pulling a prank by telling them a fake story and making Mali have what happened to her. She thought she was lying to them, do you understand?

C: Yes.

U: Now the step-mother beat Pikul, chasing her out of the house. Feeling bad Pikul wanders around and she’s traveling on the same path and runs into a young prince riding a horse. The prince sees this young woman sitting and crying and asks her “What happened?”

As soon as he finishes speaking Pikul flowers start flowing out everywhere. The prince is so happy to see this and immediately asks to marry Pikul. After that they get married and become a King and Queen.

This is why there is a saying in Thailand when someone isn’t speaking people will say:

Direct Text:
กลัว ดอกพิกุล จะร่วง จากปาก หรือ อะไร ที่ ไม่พูด

Phonetic Spelling:
Klạw dxk phikul ca r̀wng cāk pāk h̄rụ̄x xarị thī̀ mị̀ phūd

Transliteration:
Are you afraid that pikul flowers will fall out of your mouth that why you don’t speak?

Translation:
Are you not speaking because you are afraid pikul flowers will fall out of your mouth?

Analysis: I think this an interesting tale about being a nice person even in the face of hardship. I think it is very interesting how the informant compares this tale to the tale of Cinderella.