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

British Slang: “Berk”

Nationality: British
Age: 28
Occupation: Ph.D. Student, Instructor
Residence: Southwest Exeter, UK
Performance Date: April 17, 2018
Primary Language: English

For presentations in one of my classes, we had panels grouped by subject. Our instructor titled the panels, and tried his best to make them clever. One title is “Becoming Berk-men in The Squid in the Whale,” which is playing upon the fact that the characters’ last name in The Squid and the Whale is Berkman. The informant is NB, and the following exchange happened on a classwide basis. It was afterward that I asked the informant’s permission to put this in the folklore database.

NB: So now, we have “Becoming Berk-men in The Squid in the Whale” [He emphasized the word “Berk”]

Everyone in the class exchanged confused glances and made confused noises, such as “huh?”

NB: What? You don’t get it? I thought it was quite clever. Do you guys not know what a berk is?

Various people responded no, asked him to explain

NB: Ohh, it must be a British thing! Really? You don’t use “berk”? Huh, wow. You know, it’s someone annoying or rude or… Like you might say, “That guy’s such a twat–”

Student: Like “jerk”? (Other classmates agreed)

NB: Oh, yeah sure, whatever.

At a later date, the following exchange occurred.

PH: Oh, for my folklore project I need to know where you’re originally from!

NB: I’m from southwest Exeter, but the things I’ve said haven’t necessarily been specific to that area
It was interesting that the informant was not aware it was a solely British slang word, and that when trying to explain it, he once again used a distinctly British slang word, as opposed to an American one. It is also interesting to me that students’ attempt to relate it to an American word chose a word that rhymed, as if there might be a connection. Based off of the informant’s synonym of twat, the word jerk isn’t an accurate synonym, but I think he just wanted to move on with the class. The informant does not know the origins of this slang word, but it is documented on various websites.

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.

Gutter School Superstition

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.

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

GG: Oh, I think I have one. I don’t know for sure if it’s folklore.

PH: You tell me and then we’ll see.

GG: Okay, at my elementary school there was this gutter by the lunch tables and kids would say… just to freak other kids out… they would say it was built on an old ranch where there was a princess or something or a rich family and where the gutter was used to be a little stream and she fell face first and hit her head and died in the stream so people would never step in the gutter because she would come to haunt you

PH: Yes, that is folklore! Thank you.

The Three Christs of Ypsilanti, MI

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Ann Arbor, MI
Performance Date: April 13, 2018
Primary Language: English

The informant, a screenwriting major, mentioned to me he one day wants to write a screenplay involving “The Three Christs of Ypsilanti.” Ypsilanti is a city in Michigan, the informant’s home state. TP is the informant, PH is myself.

PH: What is that? Is that a legend? Could I collect it for my folklore project?

TP: You can collect it, I’m not sure if it’s folklore because I’m pretty sure it’s true

PH: How about you tell me and then I’ll decide later whether to put it in?

TP: Okay. The Three Christs of Ypsilanti. There was a really well known mental institution in Ypsilanti in the ‘50s.

In it, there were three different men who thought they were Jesus Christ and they decided to put them in a room together and see what happens.

So they spoke to each other for eight hours and at the beginning of the conversation they all got along really well but when they got into who is Christ there was an argument and by the end of it they each decided that the other two were mentally ill and they were Jesus and then they were friends after that

For a published, book-length detailed version of this legend, which was in fact a psychiatric case study, see The Three Christs of Ypsilanti by Milton Rokeach