Adventist Communion Bread

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

Text:

JB: “There’s a recipe for making Seventh-day Adventist communion bread, and there’s a tradition that whatever you don’t use, you’re supposed to take it outside and burn it. I think that some churches still do this – I don’t actually know. It’s supposed to be whole grain flour, salt, water, and oil. I think that because it’s been blessed, it shouldn’t be used for any purpose other than communion. I think it’s an Adventist tradition. And the recipe for the bread, I think it’s… you can either do part whole wheat flour and white flour or you can do all whole wheat flour. And then.. I don’t know the precise amounts but some salt, some water and some oil. And then you want it to be a pretty firm dough, you roll it out. A lot of times people will kind of score it and then bake it till it’s firm.”

Context:

Informant JB was raised in the Seventh-day Adventist church, which is a branch of Protestant Christianity that is distinct for its dietary restrictions and emphasis on the Sabbath. For Adventists, communion is a symbolic act of consuming the body (as unleavened bread) and blood (as grape juice — Adventists typically do not consume alcohol) of Jesus to commemorate his crucifixion. JB suggested that the tradition of burning leftover communion bread because according to the Bible, Christ’s body did not decay in the tomb.

Analysis:

The ritual preparation and burning of the unleavened bread reflects the church’s intentions to set apart the bread as sacred. Sometimes the leftover grape juice is also poured out. Interestingly, these acts are considered grave sins in the Catholic church, as the bread and wine which are blessed during Mass are believed to be literal manifestations of Christ’s body and blood. Leftover Eucharist is typically consumed by the priest or dissolved in water and disposed of in a respectful manner. This reversal of meaning reflects the broader Protestant departure from Catholic beliefs as well as the particular bias in the Adventist community against the Catholic church. Overall, this tradition points to the nature of reactionary movements in the history of religion as well as performances of sacredness in religious communities.

How to cure a cold (with optimism)

Nationality: American
Age: 59
Occupation: Psychology Professor
Residence: Forest Falls, CA
Language: English

Text:

“My cure to the cold is to drink lots of fluids, like tea, and to have an optimistic mental attitude. I synthesized this from drinking lots of fluids being good for you and tea kind of being a good warm…. like tea, so warm fluids being good, and the… I can’t remember where it is… and a combination of the Bible, in Proverbs or wherever it is, and kind of the medical stuff like… I don’t know. It seems like you can release endorphins, I don’t know if ‘endorphins’ is the right thing, but it seems like you can fight off infections that way. So I just put this stuff together and thought that you could have this optimistic attitude to fight off what’s coming. But it seems to me like it only works at the tipping point, like it could be right at the balance. But once you’re sick, you’re sick.”

Context:

Informant KB is a highly educated individual and has a background of studying psychology and religion. He was also raised in the Seventh-day Adventist church, which is distinct for its emphasis on health and dietary restrictions. Despite general anti-science and anti-evolution tendencies in the Adventist church, KB is an adamant believer in synthesizing his faith with the findings and practices of the scientific community. As for Biblical references, KB may be referring to Proverbs 17:22, which reads, “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”

Analysis:

Cures to the common cold are numerous and variable, especially because there is currently no institutionally recognized cure. KB’s hypothesis is representative of the nature of folklore as “might be right” knowledge. KB draws on his background in psychology, citing the potential healing power of endorphins in response to a positive mindset. However, this particular cure implies that if one does not succeed in being optimistic enough, they are responsible for their own fall into illness. This may or may not intentionally parallel the common Christian view that if one does not take responsibility for their ‘sinful’ human nature, they are responsible for their eternal damnation.

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.

New York Ticker Tape Parade

Nationality: Irish

Occupation: Financial Engineering

Residence: New York, NY

Text: 

“After the Giants won the Super Bowl in 2008, they did the traditional victory parade through New York. The parade goes along a narrow section of Broadway in lower Manhattan called the ‘Canyon of Heroes’, where all of the employees of the banks watch the parade from their office windows. When I worked at BGC my office was along this section of Broadway, and that morning someone had left out boxes full of thin strips of paper. As the parade went by everyone threw the paper out of the window like it was confetti. Workers used to throw ticker tape, hence the name, but ticker tape was obsolete by 2008 so we just used paper.”

Context:

New York City has been doing ticker tape parades since long before my father moved to America in the early 90s. Historically the parades were done to honor anyone considered worthy, including returning soldiers, astronauts, and politicians. However in the time my dad has lived in New York, they have only been done for championship winning sports teams, and he only worked in an office on Broadway for one of them. Historically, these parades featured employees at financial firms throwing ticker tape; ticker tape is a thin strip of paper which was used to receive live stock market updates through telegraphs. The employees would throw the tape out of the window in celebration, and it would fall down like confetti. After the internet rendered ticker tape obsolete, employees began throwing slits of paper out of the window instead.

Analysis:

Both the use of ticker tape (and the paper that replaced it) and the parade going down the “Canyon of Heroes” are ways that New York differentiates itself from other cities when conducting championship parades. First, there is the deliberate choice to use paper that replicates ticker tape instead of using normal confetti (like any other city would). Ticker tape symbolizes Wall Street and the stock market, which are major parts of the fabric of New York City. Additionally, the parade route going through the financial district to have employees watch from windows is very different from other parades. Most parades go through areas with areas for spectators, but in New York the parade is meant to be watched from an office window. This is a reflection of the work culture of New York, especially in the financial industry. At businesses where employees often work 60+ hours a week, nobody would have time to leave the office to watch a parade, so instead the parade follows a route allowing it to be watched from the office. Ticker tape parades turn generic championship parades into unique celebrations that reflect New York City.

Baseball Curses

Nationality: American

Occupation: Student

Residence: San Diego, CA

Text:
“There are tons of curses in baseball but the two main ones are the Curse of the Billy Goat and the Curse of the Bambino. The Curse of the Billy Goat was placed on the Chicago Cubs after a man brought his pet goat to Wrigley for a world series game. The goat was annoying the fans sitting around him so security very reasonably tried to kick the guy and his goat out. This enraged the man, who declared that the Cubs would never win the World Series ever again. It took 108 years but the Cubs finally broke the curse in 2016. The other major curse is the curse of the Bambino, which happened to the Boston Red Sox after they traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees. It’s impossible to know why they would even consider trading the greatest player ever to their arch rivals, and after making the trade in 1920 they didn’t win the World Series until 2004.”

Context:

My friend described both of these curses as if they were fact, which he later justified by saying that there’s no way a team could go 108 years without winning a World Series unless they had been cursed. In general my friend takes a very analytical approach to baseball, and he is very interested in advanced statistics and sabermetrics, which made it more surprising he would accept superstition as fact. He said that the baseball community overall accepts both of these curses as being real, undeniable things that happened. When I asked him more about this he brought up multiple incidents that were “proof” that the curses were real. For the Red Sox he mentioned the Bucky F. Dent incident, where the worst hitter on the Yankees hit a home run to eliminate the Red Sox, and the Bill Buckner incident where a horrible error by the Red Sox’s first baseman allowed the Mets to beat the Red Sox in the World Series. For the Cubs he mentioned the Steve Bartman incident, where a Cubs fan interfered with play which led to a late inning meltdown eliminating the Cubs from the playoffs. Despite my friend being focused on the analytical, statistically backed aspects of baseball he firmly believes that these curses are real.

Analysis:

Like my friend, I am also interested in statistics. Out of curiosity I calculated the odds of a team going 108 years without winning a World Series because on the surface that feels like an impossibly long drought. Surprisingly, the odds of any one team not winning over a 108 year stretch is 57%, meaning that it is more likely than not for a team to suffer that long of a drought. This statistical quirk, combined with the incidents my friend listed when I questioned him, reveal a lot about how superstitions form. First, it feels impossible for a team to go 108 years without winning (even though the opposite is true), which leads to people questioning how that can happen. This leads to a theory being formed, in this case the theory being that these teams are cursed. Once the theory is formed, confirmation bias leads to random events being attributed to the curse. So many superstitions spawn from a desire to have a better understanding of the world, and in this case the superstitions appeared out of a desire to understand counterintuitive statistics.