Tag Archives: family cooking

SALSA

Nationality: Half-Mexican, Hal-Jewish
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC, from Dallas, Texas
Performance Date: 4/23/15
Primary Language: English

EXAMPLE:

My informant’s family’s Salsa recipe.

A can of tomatoes (16oz)

A handful of cilantro from the bushel

A little less than a quarter of an onion

Two Serrano Peppers, unstemmed

Take all the ingredients above and blend them together. Once at a good consistency, not too watery, able to see slices of the cilantro in it, sprinkle the top with garlic salt to taste. Blend again. Serve with tortilla chips.

BACKGROUND/CONTEXT:

ANALYSIS:

This definitely has the feeling of definitive folklore, as it has been passed down from generation to generation, family to family, race to race, even making adjustments for people’s tolerance levels of spice. The recipe has now become the salsa recipe for so many different people and walks of life. For my informant in particular, what started as a way to taste and remember home, has turned into something that he has inadvertently passed along to his friends, who use it all the way on the other side of the country with their family and friends.

The salsa recipe seems to be more than just a recipe but also a story of this family. It is fascinating that they have kept the recipe, and passed it down to all of the parents, children, and children’s friends, swearing that the recipe is theirs, even though they do not even speak to the person who brought the recipe into their life. I cannot help but feel my informant’s grandmother remembers her estranged son, the same way my informant remembers him, every time she makes this or eats this. It is almost as though she is keeping his memory and presence alive because after all there are so many salsa recipes out there; why stick with the one that surely causes the most heartache?

Christmas Sausage

Nationality: Swedish-Polish
Age: 60
Occupation: IT Manager
Residence: Washington, DC
Performance Date: April 29, 2014
Primary Language: English

My mother and aunt, when I was a kid, would make sausage at Christmas time. My mother would hang the sausage in her and my father’s bedroom for days and the smell would permeate the house. I asked my mother one day about the recipe and why she made it every year, as well as why she stopped when I was in middle school. Turns out that this was a dish that her mother, who was Swedish, would make around Christmastime. She did not know if there was any sort of name for it, so she and my aunt just called it “Christmas Sausage.” And when grandma got to old to make it, my mother and aunt began to make it every year. The reason that my mother hung the sausage in her bedroom was that it was one of the coolest rooms in the apartment that time of year, as a window was usually left open and the radiator turned off. Why my parents did that, I don’t know.As for why my mother and aunt stopped the tradition, wel, that’s because when my grandma died when I was in middle school, my mother and aunt stopped making the sausages, probably because it reminded them of their mother, and the grief was too fresh. My mother believes that this is a traditional Swedish dish, as “hanging raw meat out at ‘room temperature’ seems like the kind of thing you would only do in a cold climate.”

Recipe:

Cook 1 pound of barley with 1 chopped onion and beef broth
Add salt and pepper to taste.
When fully cooked, cool completely.
Mix the barley with 1 pound raw ground beef and 2 pounds raw ground pork.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Stuff into hog casings.
Hang at room temperature for 3 to 5 days.
Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Holiday Fudge

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: Housewife
Residence: London, UK
Performance Date: March 19th, 2013
Primary Language: English

“My mother taught me how to make fudge, and we didn’t have a timer in the kitchen because it broke, so it was my job when I was little to watch the second hand on the clock and every time another minute passed, I would take a playing card and put it on the table so that we would be able to keep track of the minutes and we would know when we got to six it was time to stop boiling the sugar and milk. Then when I got older, I would either do the marshmallows and the butter or the sugar and the milk, we would each take one pot. And then I taught you, although you did not get the fun of putting the cards on the table. I don’t know why my mother was so cheap, year after year after year not buying a timer, but it’s true, for years we didn’t have a timer.”

This tradition occurred every year in December, in preparation for Christmas. Fudge is rather difficult to do alone (as both pots have to be stirred constantly and then combined when they are at the same temperature), and thus in my informant’s family it became a tradition in order to get children interested in making it, and then willing to help with the process as they aged. It has been passed on to the second child in the family for two generations, though quite possibly just by chance. It’s an activity that the mother and daughter to together, thus spending time with each other through the production of food to feed their family over the holidays.

The recipe:

12 large marshmallows

1/2 pound butter
1 small (5 oz) can pet evaporated milk
2 cups sugar
1 small (6 oz) package chocolate chips
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, optional
Melt butter and marshmallows.  Boil milk and sugar at a rolling boil for 6 minutes.  Mix butter and marshmallow with milk and sugar.  Add chocolate chips and beat immediately until creamy.  (We always cooled the pot in water while beating.)  Pour into 8″ or 9″ square pan and refrigerate.