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Food and Clothing Traditions for Chinese Lunar New Year

Informant Details

  1. Gender: Female
  2. Occupation: Student
  3. Nationality: Chinese-American

Folklore Genre: Holiday Rituals and Superstitions, Calendar Year

  1. Text

The informant explained some traditions and superstitions associated with the Chinese Lunar New Year. During the Lunar New Year, it is traditional to place oranges around different rooms in your house for good luck and prosperity. On New Year’s Eve, you eat a vegetarian diet so that you don’t bring bad energy from hurting other forms of life going into the new year. On New Year’s Day, there is a big feast with a lot of specific lucky dishes. It is best to eat as a family because this brings good fortune and togetherness, but it isn’t considered bad luck if you are eating alone. During this feast, you have to eat some of each dish to ensure you are lucky in all parts of your life. Noodles are eaten to represent longevity. It is bad luck to cut these noodles because this implies that you will shorten your life. Chicken is eaten to ‘fly’ into a year of good fortune, fish is eaten for prosperity and good luck, and green vegetables are eaten for financial wealth and good fortune. Similarly, you are meant to wear colors that represent certain aspects of your life. Wearing red brings good luck, wearing green brings wealth, wearing gold brings success, and wearing yellow brings good health. You can wear more than one color to cover all these areas of life. It is considered very bad luck to wear black on New Year’s Day because this color represents death. The superstition is that if you wear black, you or someone in your life will die. 

2. Context

These traditions and superstitions are done during the Lunar New Year, which usually occurs around the end of January. The informant learned these rituals from her mother and grandmother. Her mother is Chinese-American and her grandmother is Chinese.

3. Analysis

Cultural values are reflected in the specific areas of life represented through the dishes and colors. Many of the traditions are meant to bring financial prosperity. This suggests that striving for wealth is viewed as admirable in this culture and wealth is viewed positively. Health and longevity are also highly prioritized. This suggests that growing old is seen as a blessing in this culture. Additionally, togetherness is valued, which indicates that family relationships are a priority. Overall, these rituals focus on bringing blessings into the new year, instead of reflecting on the past year, which suggests that this culture has a future-oriented viewpoint. These rituals also connect to the idea of homeopathic magic because you are meant to eat and wear things that symbolize the future you want. 

Southern-Irish Oyster Dressing

Text: 

“One family ritual we had growing up for Thanksgiving was that rather than having cornbread-based dressings [for Thanksgiving], we always had oyster dressing… Oyster dressing would have been a standard addition to our Southern-Irish Thanksgiving dinner growing up.”

Minor Genre: 

Holiday Ritual; Traditional Foods

Context: 

The informant explained in the interview, “My understanding is that [oyster dressing] has roots in my family’s Irish heritage rather than in Southern culture.” The informant grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, in a deep Southern setting, but her family immigrated from Ireland in the 1800s and maintained a strong connection with their Irish roots.

Analysis:

Although the informant believed the oyster dressing was connected to Irish culture, my research indicates that it actually became deeply embedded in Southern cuisine. The recipe was brought to New England from Britain in the 18th century, where it then migrated down the East Coast and took root in the deep South.

I think the most interesting part of this interview from a folkloric perspective is the informant’s belief that their traditional oyster dressing dish originated from Ireland. Although my research indicates the recipe was brought to America from Britain, it is entirely possible that the recipe was brought to the informant’s family from Ireland. The part of the family from Ireland lived in the coastal town of Dungarvan, which is located in one of the counties in Ireland that accounts for the highest production of oysters. Therefore, the informant is not necessarily incorrect in her belief that the recipe originated from Ireland –– though it is also possible that her family adapted the recipe from their Southern environment.

An additional note on oyster dressing is that the informant was specific in saying dressing rather than stuffing. Stuffing and dressing are terms used for the same traditional Thanksgiving dish, but “dressing” is specific to the South, and is the term the informant used before moving to California, where her husband’s family used the term “stuffing.”

Christmas Raviolis

Text: 

“At Christmas, we make homemade raviolis. When I was growing up, my grandmother [made homemade raviolis] most of the time, and then when you kids were younger, Nonni (the informant’s mother) did it a number of years, and now we do it.”

Minor Genre: 

Holiday Ritual; Food Traditions

Context: 

“My dad has a funny story about the first time he had dinner with my mom’s Italian family. In the Italian meals, they would serve raviolis almost as an appetizer. My dad filled up on the raviolis and then there were still like four more courses of dinner to come.

“I never made [the raviolis], I just ate them. My grandmother made them and I didn’t really pitch in as a kid. It wasn’t until Nonni started making them with you kids that I helped. We would have raviolis throughout the year but really the ritual of making them was saved for Christmas.”

Analysis:

I have memories of making raviolis with my grandmother, Nonni, every Christmas growing up. It was a process that involved the whole family: we first made the pasta dough using an old recipe from the informant’s grandmother (my great-grandmother); then we rolled out the pasta into thin strips using a pasta-roller attachment to the kitchen table; then we used ravioli dishes to place the dough, add in the filling, and press the food into ravioli shapes.

Ravioli originated in Italy and is a type of pasta dish containing filling typically composed of meat or cheese. Nonni’s side of the family immigrated from Italy from the regions of Tuscany and Campania. Although the filling of our family’s ravioli is likely an Americanized version of the Italian original, we reference an old hand-written recipe for the pasta that could reasonably be believed to have been brought over by Nonni’s Italian ancestors.

The ritual of making raviolis each Christmas is a way to honor our family’s Italian heritage while simultaneously engaging in a community-building activity that will ultimately be enjoyed by every member of the family at dinner.

Quesadillas

Text:

Quesadillas are a traditional Hispanic food that can be found in most Latin American countries and Latin American communities.  They are a flat-like food, wrapped in either flour or corn tortilla bread, and cooked with an abundance of extra ingredients, such as tomatoes, guacamole, sour cream, and cheese.  While meat is almost always used in the dish, the kind of meat used often varies.  Most often, either chicken or pork is used.

To make a quesadilla, first cook a slice of tortilla bread on a frying pan at low heat.  Only cook the tortilla bread until it’s warm to the touch and slightly golden.  After this, take the tortilla bread, and leave it to rest on a cutting board.  While it rests, take the frying pan, and use it to cook the meat that one plans on putting in their quesadilla.  It is important that one avoid shredding the meat used in the quesadilla until after it cooks.  While the meat cooks, dice up the food that one plans on using in their tortilla.  While the food varies, traditionally, sour cream, cheese, and salsa or guacamole are used in a quesadilla.  Spicy foods can be used as well, such as peppers, but are not used as often for quesadillas.  Once all the ingredients are properly diced up, place them into the tortilla bread, and wait for the meat to finish cooking.  Once it does finish cooking, place it in the tortilla bread as well.  Then, roll the tortilla into a flat, rectangular shape, and place it back into the frying pan.  Cook the quesadilla until both sides of the tortilla bread are brown, by which time it will be ready to be served.

Context:

The subject, N.S., grew up in a Hispanic family, and had a number of Hispanic recipes and foods as a result, including quesadillas.  The subject explained that quesadillas were always an excellent and versatile food for his family to make, as they were simple in instructions, didn’t take long to cook, and had a number of food items and nutrients to be a part of the meal.  The subject also explained that they could be made for any meal, and were especially good for a quick lunch in case the subject and his family were in a rush to be someplace fast.

Interpretation:

Quesadillas likely are such an important stable in the Latin American culinary culture because of their ease of access and general nutritional value that each quesadilla has.  Quesadillas in general do not take long to make, and can be feasibly made quickly enough to create a full meal without spending too much time or worrying about how long each quesadilla will take.  Additionally, quesadillas contain a number of food stuffs that are generally valuable and nutritional, and are able to fill a number of food pyramid requirements through their consumption.

Silky Black Skinned Chicken Soup

Nationality: Chinese/Vietnamese
Primary Language: English
Other language(s): Mandarin, Cheo Chow (Chinese Dialect)
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: LA, California
Performance Date: 3/12/2024

Context:

My informant, AC, is a friend of mine from my freshman year at USC from Los Angeles, California. I talked with her about food one day in second semester freshman year after getting some soup for myself while out at lunch. On that topic of food, we touched on soup, as this is what I was planning to eat. As we discussed soup at this point, all different types of it, she mentioned that at home, she would have this chicken soup with the skin of the cooked chicken still in it, but the skin was burnt black. I questioned her further about this and she said it was a natural homemade remedy and all around good soup that was apparently, as discussed with her parents, supposed to cure her asthma and other illnesses, as a sort of magic.

Text:

“So basically, this soup would help me feel better whenever I was sick or whenever I had asthma attacks or problems. I could never figure it out, but whenever I had it, my sicknesses would just seemingly disappear the next day. And with asthma, if I ever had wheezed or anything worse, I would have this soup and then my breathing issues would just dissipate. But, I don’t know how it works, though I know it does. Again, it’s pretty strange, magical almost.”

Analysis:

Well I did a bunch of research on this topic and ended up finding out that black skin chicken soup, also known as Black Bone Soup, is a popular Chinese dish which is said to have exceptional medicinal properties. Based on my research, apparently, dark meat of black chicken breeds like the Kadaknath or cooked black skin chicken provides a rich source of carnosine, which is a protein-building compound that has antioxidant properties. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, this black chicken soup recipe tonifies (balances, stabilizes, or unblocks) qi (chi)/energy in the body. It is also believed to strengthen the liver and kidneys, nourish the blood, and improve immunity and overall energy. So, in turn black chicken soup can indeed somewhat help stabilize breathing issues due to asthma and act as an aid to sickness symptoms. Apparently, black chicken has been known since the 7th century, and it is believed that eating these chickens, known in China as gu chi, ‘chicken with black bones,’ has a beneficial effect on human health. This has been a recurring theme in Chinese culture for centuries, and based on multiple human health articles I’ve read so far, its benefits are seemingly scientifically accurate. It’s extremely interesting for me to see this form of folk medicine and near magic to be used and be historically proven to work as well. I’ve dealt with my fair share of folk medicine personally, but this one, not only have I never heard of it, it blows my mind to see how beneficial it is in the field of science when dealing with its positive effects on the human immune system.