Tag Archives: dinner

Camp Hayward song

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Massachusetts
Performance Date: March 13, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My informant sung me a song that she said is often sung at the sleep-away camp she attends in the summer called Camp Hayward:

“Camp Hayward born and

Camp Hayward bread and

when I die I’ll be (pause) (clap)

Camp Hayward dead!

So, rah-rah, Camp Hayward, Hayward

Rah-Rah Camp Hayward, Hayward

We love Hayward, we love you!”

My informant said that she and the other campers were taught this song from the leader of the camp at their first camp-fire session. After that, the campers would sing it before every breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It is a happy song that gets everyone into the spirit of being at Camp Hayward. To this day it still reminds her of her experiences there. She told me that her younger sister, who also attended the camp, will often subconsciously hum the tune before they eat with their family.

I went to a similar camp when I was younger. We had songs that we sung before eating, but we called them “dinner songs.” They were similar in purpose, and often included the name of the camp in the lyrics. It was meant to keep us happy and our spirits up. Now, my friends and I will often sing the songs together as a way of connecting and remembering the time we spent there together.

German New Year’s Dinner

Nationality: German/Irish-American
Age: 52
Residence: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Performance Date: April 2007
Primary Language: English

My informant, whose background actually features multiple nationalities, remembers her traditional dinner that they had every New Years day for good luck. It consisted of pork and sauerkraut. When she talked of this dinner she actually referred to it as a Pennsylvania Dutch tradition, the Pennsylvania Dutch actually referring to German Immigrants, a mispronunciation of the German word for Germans, Deutsch.

The sauerkraut is cooked in a crock-pot with the pork for the entire day, and my informant said that apples were sometimes included in the pot with the sauerkraut to make it sweeter. Considering the abundance of apples in the region, this is no surprise that they were used.

The Pennsylvania Dutch traditional dish from which my informant’s contemporary meal comes from is actually something known as hog maw, which was pork sausage and potatoes stuffed into in a cleaned pig’s stomach, boiled, and sliced.

My informant also mentioned that kielbasa, an Eastern European traditional sausage, was also included with the shredded pork and sauerkraut.  This influence comes from the Pittsburgh area, which features a large eastern European population that immigrated to the area for jobs in the steel mills around the turn of the century 1900s.