Tag Archives: food

Tradition: New Year’s Day good luck

Nationality: African American
Age: Harris- 99, Millsap-73
Occupation: Retired: Harris- former maid, Millsap- former office worker
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: March 31, 2013
Primary Language: English

Note: My informants are originally from Mississippi.

Good luck for the New Year

Recipe for Black-eyed peas

Black Peas

Hammock

Rice

Cornbread

Boil the peas with hammock for 2 hours. Pour over rice with cornbread.

According to my informant it is a common Southern tradition to eat black eyed peas on New Year’s Day. Its supposed to be good luck, my informant didn’t know why. All the cooking is done on the day of the New Year’s Day. My informant loves this tradition. She does this every year. She says she learned it from her mother.

I would like to know why black-eyed are specifically good luck. My family has made this dish before but there nothing particularly special about it. It was just dinner. Maybe the eye shapes are what make them so lucky. Eyes have been put on good luck charms in various places because they ward off the evil eye. Although the evil eye folk belief is not that common in the states so maybe there’s not much of a connection there.

Food: Ras Malai

Nationality: American-Indian(from India not Native American)
Age: 20
Occupation: Graduate Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: March 26, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: limited Spanish

Ras Malai- it’s dessert reserved for special occasions. The dish starts out as a mixture sweet milk with pistachios.  It is cooked with saffron and sugar. Lastly, a sweet baked cheese mixture(she couldn’t remember the name) is added to the sweet milk.

My informant states that the last time she had this dish was when her cousin got married. Whenever a couple gets married they go to the mother’s brother’s house for dinner shortly after the wedding.  This is special occasion because its supposed to welcome the couple to the family. At this dinner there are a lot of special foods served. At this dinner the informant’s mother made most of the food. However the informant’s father generally makes this dish on special occasions. The dish does not have to be made by anyone in particular. It’s a dish that’s generally saved for special occasions, especially if their related to weddings. However the dish is also served in fancy restaurants so its not purely a ceremonial dish.

This dinner reminds me of a concept we learned in class. When a person gets married they are marrying the whole family. I find it interesting that the dinner takes place at a member of the extended families house. In contrast to western society(at least in my experience) where important dinners are reserved for members of the nuclear family unless it’s a reunion or Thanksgiving.

Food: Barbeque Recipe

Nationality: American-Causian
Age: 23
Occupation: Student Researcher
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 22, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Conversational French

Note: The informant is from Connecticut but she has family in the Midwest.

 

Barb-Q Recipe

This recipe has been passed down from the informant’s grandmother to her mom to the informant.

Ingredients

4lbs of spare ribs

1 cup of sliced onions

1 cup ketchup

1 cup water (the informant’s mother doesn’t use water)

1 tsp of salt

2 tbsp worcheshire

¼ cup of vinegar (the informant uses apple vinegar instead)

¼ cup brown sugar

2 tsp dried mustard

1 tsp paprika

Instructions

Cut spare ribs into serving pieces and brown. Combine ingredients and pour over ribs. Place the ribs in a pan and bake 350 F° 1 ¾ hours. Some of the sauce will drip onto the pan, spoon the sauce over the ribs three or four times to prevent the food from drying out.

The informant collects recipes that have been passed down generations. She has scans of the recipes in her computer. She says it helps maintain family traditions so maybe the hand written version feels more authentic version.

I find it interesting that the informant scanned recipes into her computer instead of just typing them out. She did state that she likes collecting the recipes because it makes her feel connected to her family traditions. Maybe looking at the handwritten version of the recipes make the recipes feel more authentic then looking at generic typeface.

A can of Spam is opened every three seconds

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student, fast food employee
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/27/13
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My informant claimed to have heard this information through the internet community Facebook. He said that he read it as a status update, but then later found the same information on the internet site Tumblr.

Did you know that a can of Spam is opened every three seconds in the world?

Odd facts of sensationalism are common within internet communities, and my informant could recall having heard several similar facts even over the past week. He expressed some doubt as to its literal truth, assuming it was a average or approximation, but nonetheless accepted its essence as fact. Variations on this fact can be found throughout the internet community on unofficial chat boards or fact sites such as http://euw.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=697753 or http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/2163808 but is also listed as fact on slightly more reputable sites such as http://forgetmagazine.com/032301.htm.

Thanksgiving Ham

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student, Part time facilities attendant at on campus gym
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/27/13
Primary Language: English

In the following, my informant recounts how her family traditionally has Ham on Thanksgiving rather than the more traditional Turkey:

We always have Ham for Thanksgiving, always, I mean, yeah, its not a Thanksgiving without ham. Turkey? Not turkey. We’ll have some turkey,  but we always have ham because my great, my grandma, or my Nana on my dad’s side, she cooked the best honey baked ham, oh my gosh, and um , we loved it when we were little, and, so each Thanksgiving she would make it for us, and we’d always have that.

The fact that my informant and her family continue to celebrate Thanksgiving with ham rather than turkey, even after, as she informed me, her grandmother, who made the ham, has died, shows that they do it in remembrance of her. My informant told me that for her family Thanksgiving is a way of not only celebrating the family currently there, but the family which either is absent or has died, and eating ham is a way of remembering not only her grandmother, but all the family members she once shared a Thanksgiving with.