Tag Archives: Family tradition

“Tamales on Christmas Eve”

Nationality: American
Age: 7
Occupation: None
Residence: Redondo Beach, CA
Performance Date: April 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

            At a tender seven years of age, the informant shared a family tradition of eating tamales on Christmas Eve, which, according to her account, is a shared tradition among most Mexican families. Her mother’s side of the family is Mexican and has practiced the tradition through generations. Indeed, the informant described an annual large family gathering with such an excess of tamales that it feels like “forever” until the leftovers are finished.

            For the informant, it seems the tamales on Christmas Eve is a fun way to spend her vacation―she talks about how delicious the food is, her presents the next day, and the fact that school is on recess.

 

            Every night, uh, I mean before every Christmas night, we go to Nana’s. Actually, we used to go to Nana’s, but then she passed away. But we would go, and lots of people were there and we would make yummy tamales during the night and take them home!

            I don’t make the tamales, I just eat them. I’m not old enough; they don’t let me touch the things in the kitchen yet. Usually it’s just the girls, but sometimes my dad helps, too, and the other people. I don’t know all of them, just some, but there are lots. I didn’t know my family was so big.

            My mama said she did it with Nana when she was a girl, too, and that lots of Mexican families do it. I just know that we make so many tamales, like, so many tamales. Well, there’s rice and beans, too, but even when we bring them home we just keep eating the tamales the next day, and the next day, and the next day. . .it feels like forever. It’s still my favorite dinner though! We eat the tamales, and then the next day we get presents. Plus, there’s no school.

 

            Although some of the finer details may be absent from the informant’s narrative, in sifting through her account we can find some more thematic values embedded in the tradition. Family is clearly an important element in the Mexican Christmas Eve tradition. For one, the women gather together in the kitchen, presumably to “catch up” and bond through the cooking process. The informant mentions how so many family members gather together that she doesn’t even recognize them all. In that vein, her Nana’s recent passing seems to have made a significant impact on her family’s practice of the tradition. The informant did not provide information about where her family would make tamales in the future, but it is quite evident that the familiar setting of her grandmother’s home, a symbol of the stable matriarchy, is no longer accessible to her, further showing how integral family is to this tradition.

            Additionally, the theme of bountiful celebration is quite clear. The family makes so many tamales that guests must take them home, and even then the informant herself must eat tamales for days after Christmas Eve. While the rest of the year she and her family may practice moderation, tamales on Christmas Eve is clearly a happy abandonment of that principle.

The Tour de Franzia

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 18th, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: French

“The Tour de Franzia” is a spinoff of “Le Tour de France”. In the informant’s words: “You bike with a bag of Franzia and see where the night takes you”. Franzia is a cheap wine that usually comes in a box, produced by The Wine Group. The idea is to get drunk off wine while biking and to have an adventure.

The informant first heard about The Tour de Franzia from a female friend at his old college. They were sitting in a dorm with a group of other students “taking shots of Sobieseski and listening to Cake”, and she was telling him about how she broke her wrist. She and her family would go to their summer house on Cape Cod every year, and all the adults and older kids would do the Tour de Franzia. It was a rural tradition. But the last time, she had broken her wrist. The informant claims that he would love to try the Tour de Franzia, despite the girl’s broken wrist account. The informant enjoys drinking alcohol and trying new things for fun, and he thinks that this tradition sounds like a blast.

The Tour de Franzia is a rural tradition, probably because there are less clubs and bars in rural areas, unlike Los Angeles, so the locals have to be more creative with their nighttime adventures and drinking. Furthermore, the tradition centers around bringing people, adults and older kids, together. It is a fun group activity. I feel like smaller towns celebrate connections between family and friends because they share common ties to a place.In contrast, Los Angeles is full of immigrants from both in and out of the country, and there aren’t big familial connections to be celebrated.  However, the tradition has been appropriated by college students, such as the informant. This is because college students enjoy drinking, especially when it is cheap, and going on fun/dangerous adventures. I don’t think I would try this particular tradition, but I would be willing to lend a helmet to someone who would. It is an interesting combination of a material brand, Franzia wine, and a folk tradition.

 

Smorum (Bohemian Breakfast)

Nationality: Bohemian, 1/4 German
Age: 74
Occupation: Accountant
Residence: Benson, MN
Performance Date: 3/19/13
Primary Language: English

Smorum is a pancake like breakfast dish that my grandpa has cooked for me and my cousins since we can remember. It is a flour based, pancake like breakfast dish. It is his signature dish, and every time any of his grandkids are staying at his house, you can find him in the kitchen at 8am making smorum. I know of no one outside of my family that has ever heard of smorum. I remember in first grade we had to do a project on a family tradition and I did mine on smorum and couldn’t find the correct spelling anywhere because it was only passed down by the performance. It is unclear how to even pronounce or spell the word. My grandpa makes it so much that he doesn’t even use a recipe at all, he knows how much to put in of everything and makes it the same very time even though his measurements might not be exact. The context of this collection is the same as my entries about the world’s smallest church and James McCone except this collection took place in the kitchen as I watched my informant prepare the breakfast. The best way I can describe the process is that it was very casual. He cracked some eggs, tossed some flour loosely into measuring cups and poured it into his big mixing bowl and let it stir while he talked to me. He poured out the mix into a frying pan so it took up the entire pan. After a few minutes he flipped the smorum up in the air, caught it in the man and allowed it to cook the other side. He cuts it into little squares with his spatula, walks over to the kitchen table, and pours the steaming smorum into the big glass bowl sitting on the table. This performance is tradition in our family. Not only is how my grandfather cooks the meal important, but the set up of the table, and how the food is presented to us is tradition. The large white, glass bowl contains the fresh hot smorum, the little tea plates are set out to eat the smorum, and old plastic cups are used to drink either the grape or orange juice that is already set on the table as well. Smorum is always served with syrup, usually homemade by my grandmother.

Story:

Grandpa: “We always had shmudum for breakfast! Poor people’s breakfast. We never had cereal you know in our day. We just made shmudum.

Rebecca: What are the origins of shmudum?

Grandpa: Well in the Spillville cookbook it is spelled smorum, but that’s not how I pronounce it, so I don’t know.

Rebecca: How do you spell it?

Grandpa: S-m-o-r-u-m.

Rebecca: But that’s not how you spell it?

Grandpa: I would have spelled it shmudum. But I couldn’t find the recipe anywhere, I can’t find the spelling anywhere…So I don’t know.

Rebecca: So where did you learn to make it?

Grandpa: From the Spillville Church Cookbook

Rebecca: didn’t you learn it from your mother?

Grandpa: I never knew how my mother made it.

Rebecca: So your mother made it for you?

Grandpa: Yep. She made it for me every morning

Rebecca: what made you want to make it then?

Grandpa: because I tried to once at our house and the grandkids just loved it. And it was a whole lot cheaper than cereal. When we were in Jacksonville (FL) last month, Kenny made it one morning and it was very good. Just like I made it

Rebecca: I heard Kenny is good at it, but its hard to make it just like you. My dad burns it every time. Its not the same if you don’t make it

Rebecca: do you know where your mother learned to make it?

Grandpa: From her mother probably. I’m sure that was handed down for 10 generations or more.

Rebecca: From where? Is that Bohemian?

Grandpa: You know, I thought it was Bohemian but I’m not so sure if it wasn’t German. But I call it Bohemian. You know the Germans infiltrated Bohemia at that point on the border. About 1/3 of Bohemia was German. My dad was Bohemian and my mother was German. Well my mother was both, Bohemiam and German. So I never knew for sure where anything came from. But I always call it Bohemian. And whatever I call, wasn’t anybody going to dispute. (laughter). Because nobody has… support.

My informant learned this dish from his mother, and ate it growing up. It has developed into a huge tradition in my family, and we don’t go a family get together without having smorum in the morning, and my family gets together quite often. It also amazes me how smorum never gets old, no matter how many times I have had it. Smorum is also something that my father and my uncles have tried, but no one can quite make it like my grandfather does. He cooks it just the right amount without burning it, which is often what happened when my father tried to make it. The performance has been adapted since my great grandmother made smorum for my grandfather. My grandfather adapted his performance for the grandchildren. As a grandchild, smorum is very important to me and is an association I make with my grandfather. My grandfather performs it as a sentiment to his childhood, but also for his grandchildren. He continues on the legacy of what his mother made, but adapted it to be a treat for the grandchildren. Smorum started out as a cheap and easy breakfast on the farm, but now is a unique thing that my family all shares.

Food: Bacalhoada

Nationality: American-white, Portuguese, and Brazilian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 25, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Not fluent in any other languages

My informant told me her grandparents come from the Azores a group of islands off the coast of Portugal. Ever year around Easter, on Good Friday, her grandfather cooks a dish called Bacalhoada. It is basically a dish formulated from potatoes, fish, hard-boiled eggs, olives, onions, and whatever else is available in the kitchen. This tradition comes from the Portuguese sailors. Since they sent a lot of time at sea they didn’t have access to fresh foods. They would catch a whole bunch of fish because they were never sure when get would get more food. So they dried and they would rehydrate them with milk later. For this dish they would have the fish and they would then throw-in any vegetables or food that they happened to find on the ship.  Even during war-time they would take the time to make this dish every Good Friday. According to my informant the recipe varies from year to year. Part of the concept of the dish is to put in whatever you have available. My informant says that she enjoys the tradition because she doesn’t fell she has that many. She enjoys the tradition but not always the food that goes with it.

It is interesting that the informant places more emphasis on the history of the tradition than the food itself. It was probably because she didn’t know the recipe off the top of her head but the history of this dish still seems more important. Especially since the recipe seems to change yearly because that’s how the dish was originally made. That might be why the informant follows the tradition even though she’s not all that keen on the actual food. The history behind this dish gives it importance so not practicing it might seem disingenuous.

Tradition: Luminaras

Nationality: America- Caucasian
Age: 25
Occupation: Lab Administrator/ researcher
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 18 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Intermediate French

Note: the informant was originally from New Mexico

 

Christmas Luminaras

This tradition is primarily a New Mexico. Before Christmas my informant’s family sets up luminaras around their house. Luminaras are made of paper bags,sand, and candles. Generally brown paper bags and wax candles are used although some people use electric lights in lieu of candles. They do not have to be decorated. To make them you just fill a bag with sand and place the candle inside. According to the informant this is a very collaborative process, the whole family (her nuclear family) gets involved, they take turns doing different steps and they all put the luminaras outside. They place several hundred outside the house. On Christmas Eve the informant and her family go out and look at the neighbor’s Christmas lights and luminaras. Then they drive to Old Town in Alberquere, a plaza where a lot of people gather to look at the luminaras. 

In this case the time the family spending time together is the most important part of this tradition than the object itself. The emphasis is about preparation because that’s a collaborative process. Its fairly similar to other Christmas traditions (well h=the ones I’ve experienced) where the traditions like putting up a tree and opening presents are more about spending time with the family.