Traditional Arabic Dessert – Ka’ak

Text/Context

EM – Ka’ak is a traditional Arabic pastry that is usually a cookie. However there is a version that is more like a sweet bread that is traditionally made for Easter. This is the version that’s been baked in my family for generations. My mom would watch her grandmother make it (she wasn’t allowed to touch it until it was done). It’s always a special time of year and a special day when it’s made. It takes most of the day and the whole house smells delightful.
Also in my family, we usually make a quadruple batch.
First, the heat in the house is turned up to at least 70°F (this is the one day a year the heat is turned up above 64° in my house). The dough, using specifically King Arthur flour (no other brand is allowed) whole milk, sugar, and a bunch of spices including anise and mahlab (crushed cherry seeds) is made early in the morning. Then it’s covered in every extra blanket, quilt, and wool coat in the house, because if the dough catches cold, it’s ruined.
After the first rise, it’s rolled into balls, and set on baking sheets for the second rise. After that, the balls are padded onto a special homemade ka’ak press made of chicken wire, then set to rise again. They’re baked and cooled, and then they’re glazed in a milk, sugar, and rose water mixture, dried, and enjoyed. We distribute it to everyone in our family and community.
Interviewer – You said the sweet bread version is usually just for Easter. Does your family make it just for easter? Or is there some other cause for celebration with ka’ak? Is “special time of year and a special day” a particular day each year, or an arbitrary day and it is just the recipe that makes the time special?
EM – The ka’ak we make is traditionally the Easter version but we usually make it at Christmas because mom had more time. We don’t make it on a specific day but because we really only make it once a year that day becomes special.
Interviewer – Why a quadruple batch?
EM – We make a quadruple batch because we give it to a lot of people. We even ship some out to family in California (From Massachusetts).
Interviewer – Since even the kind of flour is so strict, and your mother was not allowed to touch the dough as a child, does that mean there is no change allowed to the recipe?
EM – The only change to the recipe is that my great grandmother always used ghee but we use regular unsalted butter.
Interviewer – Have you learned the recipe, or done it on your own?
EM – I’ve learned the recipe, though I don’t know it by heart yet, and have made it with my mom and then with my aunt in California, when I visited and brought the spices with me from home.I got pulled aside at the airport because of them. They didn’t believe me when I said they were spices.
Interviewer – Who counts as community, when it comes to distributing the ka’ak?
EM – We give ka’ak to neighbors, some people at our church, and like I said, family, including those in California.
Interviewer – Do you feel that the recipe is part of your Arab heritage?
EM – Yes this recipe and experience is absolutely part of my heritage. All of my family’s recipes are either in our heads, or in the case of ka’ak and other desserts, the recipe is written down but no directions are given, so the only way to learn to make them is to observe and learn from our elders, making special bonds and memories.

Analysis

This dessert is made only once a year and I did not collect this story during that time. The story was not performed with the actual food but rather in a context of discussing favorite foods.
Ka’ak is an example of food connecting a person to their family and their heritage. The informant has never travelled to Lebanon, and knows only a few words in Arabic, but is proud of their heritage and feels connected when they learn the recipes that are passed down through family, learned by memory, and made with and for their family. The informant is also excited to share the dessert—and part of their heritage—with people outside of their family.
It is also an interesting case when the food itself becomes cause for celebration, because it is very labor-intensive and time-consuming, so the dessert becomes very, very special.

Watergate Salad

Text/Context

EM – Watergate salad is a tradition in my family that has been a controversy for years and years. Every Easter, my Aunt brings a dish that mainly consists of marshmallows and is dyed green. The name of this concoction is Watergate salad and every year my aunt puts it on the dinner table arguing that it is meant as a side dish with dinner. Everyone else argues that it’s a dessert. The same arguments are made every year and the issue has never been resolved to this day.
Interviewer – What are some of the arguments your family makes for and against Watergate salad being a salad instead of a dessert?
EM – My aunt argues that it’s green, so its a salad. Everyone else says it’s sweet, made of marshmallows and jello, so it’s a dessert.
Interviewer – Does anyone besides your aunt eat it as a side at dinner, or do people wait until dessert, or do people not even eat it and it’s kinda just a prop?
EM – A couple of my cousins sometimes take a minuscule scoop at dinner. Most other wait til dessert.
Interviewer – Is it only an Easter meal?
EM – Ya, only Easter.
Interviewer – Do you know any other families who have a similar recipe at their Easter meal?
EM – I’ve never heard of anyone else having it.
Interviewer – Is it always present at Easter, and is it mainly a yearly joke that everyone still enjoys, or is this serious debate?
EM – It’s always at Easter when my aunt comes. And it’s both a joke and a debate that still gets laughs.
Interviewer – Does anyone else know the recipe or just your aunt?
EM – As far as I know, my aunt is the only one.

Analysis

This family’s traditional dish is only for Easter, so it was not collected in a natural context. However, the informant and I were talking about favorite foods, which veered into dishes we eat only at certain times or events.
Watergate salad is named for its controversial status as a “salad” or a “dessert.” This folk group consists only of the informant’s immediate and extended family, and close friends who attend their Easter dinner.
The dish is not a regular recipe meant only to be eaten. It is also a joke. The family engages in playful debate about the salad and may refuse to eat it during or after dinner, but it gets eaten nonetheless. The dish brings the family closer together, because it is an inside joke, and always gets laughs no matter the stance.

Ancestral Spirits of Guam – Chamorro taotaomo’na

Text/Context

DA – In the Chamorro culture in Guam, there are the spirits of the Chamorro ancestors. You ask for permission so you don’t disturb the spirits, called the taotaomo’na.
Interviewer – For entering the forest?
DA – Yeah. The taotaomo’na live in the forest and also protect it.
(DA shows me a picture of a stone structure. It is made of two massive stone shape: one is a wide column, and on top is a round bulge with a flat side facing upwards. There are two people in the background to show how massive this structure is)
DA – If you see these structures in the forest, you should leave immediately. These are the latte stones and it’s a marker that it’s an ancient Chamorro site. They were just used as pillars or support for ancient Chamorro homes and stuff like that.
Interviewer – What is the significance of Chamorro sites and what would happen?
DA – I guess you can kinda treat them as tombs. There’s probably very likely ancient spirits in there that you shouldn’t disturb out of respect, and if you do, you would be cursed and get some sort of illness or physical pain.
Interviewer – Are ancestors and spirits generally a big part of Chamorro culture?
DA – Yeah! Respecting your elders is one of the important things you have to learn in the culture, so that also plays a part in it.
Interviewer – And is there anything you can do to lift the curses of the Chamorro?
DA – Yeah! Witch doctors (in the Philippines: albularyo, in guam: suruhanu). First they see what’s causing whatever you’re feeling. Usually with melted candle wax and a bowl of water: they let it drip and the hardened wax would form into who caused it. And they tell you what to do based on that. But I don’t really know much about this part.•
DA – I read up on it to refresh my memory, but it makes sense why they wouldn’t be kind to visitors. Spain, Japan, and the US fucked up the culture pretty bad. (By the 18th and 19th centuries, travelers were likely to see latte stones in areas abandoned after foreign diseases wiped out a lot of the Chamorro population)
DA – It’s a good thing a big part still survived, but barely anyone speaks the language. It’s part of the required courses in the education system. My Chamorro teacher and I talked about this before. The problem is not many people are really interested in continuing to learn beyond the requirements. You only need to take one year of Chamorro language in high school, and most students take it freshman year. And like everyone tends to do, they forget most of it by the time they graduate. And there aren’t many speakers in the first place either.

Analysis

The taotaomo’na spirits were the ancestors of the Chamorro people, native to Guam. It is important to be respectful not only to living ancestors, but also to those who passed on a long time ago. Signs of their presence, like the latte stones, are common in places where many of the Chamorro had been killed of from foreign plague, and also act as tombs. It is common knowledge in Guam not to risk drawing bad things or curses to yourself by disrespecting the dead. The informant recalls that these stones are some of the best preserved remnants of the Chamorro culture, because so much of it died out due to foreign plague, assimilation into western cultures, including the language. Although the informant learned more of the Chamorro language than most in their high school, the informant regrets that they have also forgotten much of what they learned.

Midnight Requisition

Text/Context

HS (informant): So it’s, unofficially lending something. Lending without renting, but with no formal requisition process. The idea is, the boss has gone home, any administrative types have gone home and the people left there just let someone borrow something.
Interviewer: So its like if you’re working at a costume shop and you have like, a friend or someone who wants to use a piece, but you can’t like rent it, or don’t want to rent it, so your friend working in the costume shop might just like, wait until everyone else has left.
HS: Ya. People who, people who are working late at night just let someone they know, borrow something, off the record.
I: Do you know how long that saying has been around?
HS: I would’ve heard it by the early 80s. It may have, I don’t know if it exists in other fields. It might.
I: How long have you been working in costume shops?
HS: Since, Oh, I can’t tell you that! ’73? 1973!
I: So there was like, seven-ish years that you hadn’t heard it.
HS: No.
I: Did you hear the term when you were working late night?
HS: Oh, it was like when I was a grad student. Dealing with ISPs (Independent Student Productions). When something wasn’t going to matter to just let it out, or lend it out. I don’t know how limited it is as a term. One of the other grad students was the one who I remember using it the most. Somehow I don’t think it would apply to tailors, because I think it has to do with if you have access to stock.

Analysis

The informant and I were speaking generally about sayings around a costume shop, so this term did not occur in a fully natural context. In addition, this particular costume shop does not operate late into the night, so the term does not apply in this particular environment. I recorded our conversation and later transcribed it.
The term midnight requisition is an official-sounding label to discuss under-the-table activities behind the backs of workplace superiors. Costume shops generally have hundreds of items of clothing in storage for use and reuse in theater performances, ranging in time period, culture, and levels of decay (some pieces are decades old and barely holding together). Generally a midnight requisition would be a request by a costume shop worker’s friend to borrow a costume, which they may not want or be able to spend money on. The informant mentioned such requests may be for 1920s flapper dress, a pristine top hat, or something more comical for a halloween party.
The term recognizes the improperness of the lending, but makes it sound more official and therefore less objectionable.

Thumper

Context: This is usually played as a theatre student or children’s game and is chanted while alternating between clapping your hands and slapping your thighs.

A.F. : It’s called Thumper, which—
P.Z. : Thumper?
A.F. : Which, it is played two ways, like the main two
P.Z. : Okay
A.F. : So it’s like “Thumper, thumper, this is how you play, one, two, three, four,” and then you can say like, say we can play the name way. So like “[name], [name], [collector’s name], [collector’s name], and then when it’s passed to you you have to say “[collector’s name], [collector’s name],” then someone else’s name and if you mess up then you’re out.
P.Z. : So if you mess up, as in..?
A.F. : Like, you’re off beat, or you forgot to say a name, so say if I say “[name], [name],” then I forget to say the next name then I’d be out
P.Z. : Okay, so you want to be the last person?
A.F. : Yeah. And then the other ways you can play are like, you’re an animal, or have a sign, like you can be like, a llama, a narwhal, a unicorn, like, you have to do your sign and then the other person’s animal. So that’s the two ways we typically would play.
P.Z. : And there’s two versions of that one?
A.F. : Yeah, one about names and—
P.Z. : And was that another camp game, or..?
A.F. : Thumper’s just a childhood game.
P.Z. : Childhood? Like elementary school?
A.F. : Yeah, I’d say elementary/middle school

Thoughts: I’ve heard of numerous theatre-style games from my friends who are acting majors or simply took an acting class. Some other examples include the game Zip Zap Zop. It seems the purpose of these games, traditionally played with children from elementary school to high school age, is to have players focus on memorizing multiple requirements and keeping track of a number of rules and names simultaneously.