Tag Archives: food

Joke: Asexuality and Garlic Bread

Nationality: American
Age: 17
Occupation: Student
Residence: Staunton, VA
Performance Date: April 21st, 2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: 

Collector: “I remember a while ago you were talking about the link between garlic bread and ace people, right? Can you explain that?”

Informant: “Well, essentially, the consensus is that garlic bread is better than sex. And thus, slowly, over time, through memes and such, it became part of ace- asexual culture to just be like ‘Sex? Phhht. Garlic bread. That’s pretty good.’ It’s like that with various other foods. Like cake. Lemon bars are one thing- no, wait, lemon bars are bisexual. I don’t know why they’re bisexual, but they are.”

Collector: “What’s like a formula of one of these memes? Like if you had to cite a stock meme to me.”

Informant: “Like here’s the basic thing of how they kind of go. Sex. Then reaction pic of somebody going no, or nuh-uh, or whatever—”

Collector: “Like the Drake meme along the side.”

Informant: “Yeah. Like that and then the good one.”

Collector: “The approving side of the picture. 

Background:

My informant is a member of several online asexual communities designed as spaces of solidarity and safety. The common practices of these communities include sharing struggles unique or semi-unique to ace people, figuring out or helping others figure out whether the sexual identity applies to them, and sharing memes about asexuality. 

Collector: Why do you think this developed?”

Informant: “Primarily firstly because garlic bread is just good. It’s just fantastic. And then garlic bread being better than sex was kind of a meme outside of asexual culture. Just around, I used to occasionally find one just out in the wild.”

To my informant, garlic bread being better than sex was the adopting of a pre-existing, potentially ironic meme by a community that agreed whole-heartedly with the sentiment. Oher potential benefits include bonding over a meme.

Thoughts:

It seems telling that this is a joke told within communities specifically labelled as asexual safe spaces and not frequently elsewhere. It’s likely there’s an element of safety and community to this meme. The meme is proliferated within a safe asexual space to prove that the space is safe- saying that sex is bad is fine here and we’ll do it in a funny way. It’s also likely that catharsis is another element at play. In a culture dominated by people who value sex, it’s likely that the community has latched onto garlic bread as just one example to hold up of the many things they see as more appealing. By participating in the meme, consuming and posting, they reaffirm their feelings and get a release from the tension of being misaligned with a sex-dominated culture.

Practical Joke: Eating an Orange Like a Monkey

Nationality: American
Age: 52
Occupation: Medical Writer
Residence: Staunton, VA
Performance Date: April 18, 2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: 

Informant: “It comes from my dad. I remember distinctly, I was probably four and he said ‘I’m going to show you how to eat and orange like a monkey.’ And this is how you do it. You take an orange and you orient the stem perpendicular, and you cut it in half so that you see, you know, the typical cross-section if an orange with all the sections in a radiant circle like a sun. So, then you pick up- you do this to each side of the orange -you pick up the half of the orange and you take your little four-year-old teeth which grow into sixteen-year-old teeth and you go around the orange, you dig the flesh of each section out with your front teeth. Particularly good when you still have your front teeth but you don’t have your side teeth because you’ve lost them. So, you scoop the orange meat- pulp -out, going around the perimeter of the orange. Then, what you do is you take the orange and you squish it in half. So, you know, it’s a straight line on the top and you’ve got a semi-circle underneath it. Does that make sense?”

Collector: “Yeah.”

Informant: “So, you squish it in half and you hold it up to your mouth and you drain the orange juice that you can get into your mouth. So, then you take it down and then you fold it the other way so you still got a straight line, but now you’re taking the rest of the pulp- you understand what I’m saying? Like you fold it the other way and you do the same thing; you squish and you get all the orange juice out of the other half. And then what you do- now it’s all pliable, so you take your orange half, which is mostly peel now and some pith, and you turn it inside out and you eat each of the like sectional pith pieces one by one. And that- and then you do it to the other side of the orange -and that is how you eat an orange like a monkey. And I always did this my entire childhood.” 

Background:

My informant considered this something almost unique to her family, though she said that she thinks her father learned it from a kid he went to high school with. She described this as something of a practical joke with practical benefits for her father: 

“And then, about two years ago- I’m fifty-two, so when I was about fifty I said to my dad ‘You know, Dad, I’ve now fifty years old and I have never in my entire life seen someone eat an orange like a monkey except your children.’ And he said ‘Well, I learned it somewhere and as soon as I realized I had five children and as soon as the first one- as soon as I stopped peeling an orange for one through five then the first one would be hungry again. I knew I had to teach them how to eat an orange by themselves. Fortunately, I recalled how to eat an orange like a monkey, and I taught you all, and that’s how I escaped a life of peeling oranges.”

My informant says she did not proliferate this practice because she only had two kids- she didn’t mind cutting up two oranges.

Thoughts:

This practice is difficult to interpret. Its marketing seems geared towards kids- eating like a monkey is fun for kids -so I wouldn’t be surprised if this was originally intended as a trick to get kids cutting their own oranges. However, the informant’s father learned it from a peer, not as a parenting trick, and applied it that way himself. I would tentatively suggest that this is folklore originating from children, given Jay Mechling’s analysis of how children’s rituals are often highly complex and absurd but treated with enough solemnity to follow the exact labyrinthine instructions. This also strikes me as a possible practical joke. Presumably, the goal would be to keep a straight face as you forced someone else through an intricate and increasingly ridiculous process. This seems likely as something taught by one high schooler to another.

Yusheng

Nationality: Malaysian and Taiwanese/Singaporean
Age: 22 and 21
Occupation: Student

Description: It is the tossing of fish salad done during the New Years. People would circle around with chopsticks in hand. Then they would throw the salad as high as they are able, the higher meaning better fortune for the next year and having your wishes come true. The fish is the most important part due to the pun of the Chinese word for fish sounding like the word for abundance.

Background: It is something commonly done within her household. I was able to observe this ritual when we did it with a group of friends.

Procedure:

The salad is prepared with sauces, assorted vegetables and most importantly fish. The dish will then be presented on a table where people would gather. Each participant will be equipped with a pair of chopsticks. When the ritual begins, each participant will toss the contents as high as they can while saying their wishes. The duration of the ritual varies. At the end, the salad is consumed like a normal meal.

My thoughts:

In terms of cuisine, the salad is delicious. While the tossing does tend to make a mess, the sense of community and energy it brings is well worth it. There are many elements of this tradition that I believe are very neat. One thing is the origin of the tradition. It is mainly practiced by people who are ethnically Chinese living in Singapore or Malaysian. Most of the wordplay originated from the Chinese language, the fish signifying abundance is well known to any one who is Chinese. This tradition creates a branching and unique identity that separates itself from the traditions of the mainland and Taiwan. Food is commonly seen as something that brings people together; sharing food is often a bonding experience especially with home made cuisine. The community aspect is especially true for those in Malaysia, where ethnically Chinese people are part of the minority.

Soba for Long Life

Nationality: American/Chinese/Japanese
Age: 21
Occupation: Student

Description: During New Years, people would cook and eat long noodles believing it to mean having a long life.

Background: This tradition is something that the informant’s family engage in every year.

Transcript:

ML: My mom would cook a certain soba noodle dish on new years to signify a long life. Toshikoshi Soba I think. 

Me: Is the noodles cooked in any special way?

ML: Not anything special, it’s just cooked soba noodles, it’s kind of just a symbol and not like a ritual, it’s just a dish as in like long noodles means a long life.

Me: And your family would do that every year?

ML: Yeah it’s always on new years.

My thoughts:

Special traditions and events in the start of the new year is something that I believe to be quite universal. The practice of eating noodles for a long life is also something that is seen in other Asian traditions such as in China. In China’s case, it would also be done during birthdays, signifying that the person would live for years to come. Sometimes, people would say that eating longer noodle strands will extend your years. It’s obviously not true, but it’s a good way to signify a special occasion while trying to think positively about the future. Of course, any special occasion should be paired with good food or drink but that’s just my opinion.

Annotations: 

Chinese Longevity Noodles – Author: Na Zhang and Guansheng Ma – https://www.researchgate.net/publication/307875115_Noodles_traditionally_and_today

Chicken Soup has Healing Properties

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 56
Occupation: Microbiologist
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/25/2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

What is so special about chicken soup?

“All Jewish grandmas think that chicken soup will cure most of the things that are wrong with you. It’s called Jewish penicillin. And then I’ve heard that there’s some scientific support for this, in a paper I cannot find… supposedly if the chicken soup contains at least these four ingredients, it has anti-inflammatory properties, so your Bubby [Jewish grandma] might actually be right. The four ingredients are chicken, onions, carrots, and celery.”

Do you have a parent/grandparent that held this belief?

“I have a parent and a grandparent who would make me chicken soup, and now I make chicken soup, and I fed my daughter who got her covid vaccine chicken soup last night because she wasn’t feeling so great. She felt better after the soup (laughs).” 

Background/Context:

My informant is my father. He was raised culturally Jewish, and his career is within the science field. This information was collected during a family Zoom call after my sister got the first dose of her coronavirus vaccine. Chicken soup is considered an iconic Jewish food. Variations include chicken noodle soup and matzoh ball soup.

Analysis: 

I have been eating chicken soup as a cure for illness my entire life, and I had known that it was called “Jewish Penicillin,” but I had never heard that there might be actual scientific proof that it worked! My father’s statements about the ingredients line up with claims in an article by Alan Hopkins titled “Chicken Soup Cure may Not be a Myth.” Instances of folk medicine being investigates scientifically and then incorporated into Western medicine are common, and these instances highlight that just because a group doesn’t have access to “science” and “technology,” it doesn’t mean that their cures and treatments are necessarily less valid. 

Hopkins, Alan B. “Chicken Soup Cure may Not be a Myth.” Nurse Practitioner, vol. 28, no. 6, 2003, pp. 16. ProQuest, http://libproxy.usc.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/chicken-soup-cure-may-not-be-myth/docview/222356779/se-2?accountid=14749.