Tag Archives: food

“Don’t break off your noodles when you’re eating them.”

Informant: William Lam
Nationality: Chinese
Primary Language: English; Other Language: Mandarin
Age: 24
Occupation: Student
Residence: Pomona

“Don’t break off your noodles when you’re eating them.”
William told me that his family has always abided by the rule of not breaking off noodles when eating them. He said that he and his family believe that noodles represent lifelines, and breaking them off will mean their lives are going to be cut short as well.
Chinese people think of longevity as a very important concept, so anything that will harm their longevity will be avoided. This is probably why noodles, which represent life, are not cut short by being broken off. As William informs me, noodles are often symbols of life and are eaten to increase the length of life.

Cheese Casserole at Easter

Nationality: European, Lebanese
Age: 20
Occupation: Children's Book Writer
Residence: Brea, California
Performance Date: 8 April 2012
Primary Language: English

You start by buttering slices of bread and decrusting them and then cutting them into little cubes. Then you put them all in a big baking dish and mix 2/3 quart of milk (as this recipe got handed down it really got complicated), four eggs, a teaspoon of dry mustard, 2/3 a teaspoon of dry salt and you mix all of those ingredients together and whisk it and then you pour it over the bread. Also before all this, you would fry up eight pieces of bacon. So, after you have the bread in the pirate’s pan and the milk poured over the eggs you crumble the strips of bacon and sprinkle them on top and then put it in the refrigerator and let it sit overnight. Then, in the morning you bake it at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Every Easter, my informant would have this Cheese Casserole/Souffle. Her mom used to make it every Easter and she had it given to her by a friend at a church and the church was the one she used to attend when she was little, so she would eat it there too. Her daughters say that they will make it for their families as well.

For me, it was interesting to here that a casserole dish was so popular amongst a family. For some reason, all my childhood, I had thought that brussel sprouts, casseroles, meatloaf, and fruit cake were the four no-no foods in American society. I had never eaten any of then because my mom would always make us traditional Chinese food and though I always ate more American food anyways, my mom knew nothing about casseroles.  So, to hear that this dish was passed down so many generations and actually liked was so mind-blowing. In this case, the informant always made this for Easter Day and I believe that it is made on that particular holiday because of the main ingredient of eggs and the yellow color of the dish. I remembered last year actually when I celebrated Easter with my friend’s family, there were an array of egg-based dishes and only egg-based dishes, but such an assortment it was. Since on easter we have the tradition of the Easter Egg Hunt and Spring chicks, that is a natural food we eat on that Holiday as well.

Peas in the Lungs

Nationality: Mexican- American
Age: 65
Occupation: Business Owner
Residence: Fullerton, Ca
Performance Date: 4/21/2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“Okay so, this man was eating peas, and he accidentally inhaled one, and the pea grew in his lung because it was using the carbon dioxide and nutrients in his lung to get bigger. He went to the doctor’s and they x-rayed him and saw the plant growing. He went to the hospital and the doctor operated on him and took it out, then fed him pea soup as a joke.”

My informant heard this urban legend from his cousin. It’s a pretty blatant message that one should eat slowly and chew their food carefully. This narrative sounds remarkably like the watermelon-seed-in-the-stomach story, and my informant made it quite clear that he didn’t believe a word of the it. He said that his cousin isn’t known for being particularly believable. However, upon further research, it seems that this story is actually true!

An article from ABC news.com states that two years ago a man named Ron Sevden from Massachusetts had a pea go down the wrong pipe and lived with it for a month before going to the doctors, who had to surgically remove it. They even really fed him something with peas in it!

Reference: Blackburn, Bradley. Pea Sprout Removed From Massachusetts Man’s Lung. Aug 11, 2010.  http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2010/08/pea-sprout-removed-from-massachusetts-mans-lung/

Baba Ghanouj (my daddy is spoiled)

Nationality: Arab-American, mixed, biracial
Age: 22
Occupation: Waitress, activist, journalist
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/25/2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Arabic, some French and Spanish

Baba Ghanouj is an Arabic dish that means “my daddy is spoiled.” It’s also known as Mutabbal in different regions, which means “it’s mixed up.” She said that it’s common for kids to make food for their parents after a certain age in her culture, and baba ghanouj was such a delicious and straightforward meal, kids would make it and say something like, “look, see how spoiled my dad is?” My informant ate it a lot growing up; she learned all of her recipes from her mom, because recipes were passed down in her family and her mother also inherited recipes from her stepdad’s mother, because he is Palestinian-Jordanian, so compared so Saudi food, theirs is a little bit lighter and distinct in her mother’s recipe knowledge.

This recipe, as well as many others, is significant to my informant, because since her family was poor growing up, her mother cooked cheap recipes like lentils stews (which are also used as a folk remedy for colds) hummus (which literally means “chickpea” in Arabic), and baba ghanouj with pita for her and her siblings all the time.

She also listed the cooking directions for me:

Directions:
Burn eggplant skins on stove until eggplant juice is bubbling out, this is when they’re fully cooked
Let them cool & remove skin
Toss eggplants in bowl
Mash with fork
Place mashed eggplant in strainer over other bowl to remove excess water (save and use in soup or other recipe)
Return pulp to mixing bowl
Add smashed garlic (smash in wooden mortar)
Add salt and lemon juice
Mash together
Add tahini 1 tablespoon at a time
Mash together
Add Salt, Sumac & Olive Oil to taste
Mash together
Top with sprinkled sumac, chopped parsley, tomatoes and olive oil
*Do your best to get all of the skin off. Don’t use any hard parts of the eggplant (usually the little bump at the bottom)

Chi va piano, va lontano.

Nationality: Italian American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 23, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Italian

The informant related an Italian proverb which was told to him several times in Italy.

“Chi va piano, va lontano. Which means ‘He who goes slow, goes far.’

So, it’s like the idea slow and steady wins the race.”

He said that it was generally used on him to tell him to slow down when eating his food so he would be more able to finish it all. But he says that the general use was more in terms of setting goals so that you don’t have to be great at something when you start, but if you keep improving, you will go far.

The fact that this is a regional oicotype of a very common phrase in english is interesting. Did the phrase originate in Italy and travel to the states, or did they develop independantly?