Tag Archives: food

The Piano Box Burial: Family Legend

Nationality: Italian American and "mix of other ethnicities"
Age: 58
Occupation: General Surgeon
Residence: San Diego, California
Performance Date: 3.23.12
Primary Language: English

Family legend of the piano box burial as told verbatim by informant (C. stands for a name to be kept confidential):

“My Great Grandpa C., who before people were really morbidly obese, Grandpa C. was morbidly obese. It’s like nowadays you see people that are three and four-hundred pounds all the time. But supposedly Grandpa C. was about 300 pounds, 350 pounds. (wife interjects and he answers) Yeah he was only about 5 foot tall. And uh he also, I’m pretty sure, also had congestive heart failure which means his body retained water. So not only was he obese but he retained a lot of water and you know at the end of his life he really could only sit in a chair and he could hardly walk and his legs would get massively swollen because of his bad heart. And uh the legend is that you know when he finally died, of course, he died sitting in a chair cause he couldn’t walk and he couldn’t lie down because he would get too short of breath when he would try to lie flat, um and so they had to lift him up, you know a bunch of guys lifted him up and he was way too big for any kind of casket so they had to bury him in a piano box.

My father told me that story. Usually when he took us out to dinner, to an Italian Restaurant of course. (chuckles) It’s it’s a family legend, you know. ‘We’re gonna eat a lot of food tonight but you know don’t make it a habit to eat or you’re gonna end up like Grandpa C.’ (laughs)”

Despite the fact that this family legend has an element of humor, the warning is very real. Since the informant’s family is Italian, a culture known for its obsession with food, by telling the story of the family member so sick and so fat that he had to be buried in a box meant for a piano, the pleasure of eating becomes an affliction—something to be wary of. Of course, that the informants father told this to his 8 children before dinner-out is a clever way of controlling their intake, and thus the bill. However, coming from the informant, who is a surgeon, the story took on a slow, somber note as his understanding of the poor health his great grandfather was in likely made it much more vivid. So, his telling had a naturally health-conscious air to it.

Carrots Improve Your Vision

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/21/12
Primary Language: English

My informant, a fellow dorm-mate of mine at USC, was eating whole raw carrots one night as I was walking past his room. I turned in, asking him why he would be eating such a snack. He said, half-jokingly, haven’t you heard?

“Carrots improve your vision”

Though this wasn’t the real reason that he was eating the carrot, I asked him more about the origins where he had heard such a thing. “I’m not sure”, he said “I just always heard that growing up as a kid. My dad used to say it to me when I didn’t want to eat my vegetables”. Others joined in the conversation as well, some saying it was fact, others stating it was myth.

After looking up this debate online, we found that it was once reported in the London Sunday telegraph that this rumor is a myth, and that it dates back all the way to WWII when Britan’s air ministry created the rumor that a steady diet of carrots would help their pilots see Nazi bombers that were attacking at night. In reality, the article read, it was to cover up their new technology of interception radar so the Nazi’s wouldn’t find out about it. Apparently it was so convincing that the English populous took to eating carrots to improve their vision (Sunday Telegraph). From then on, it appears the rumor has spread and hasn’t been overwhelmingly disproved to the many that still believe it. Further, I personally believe that much of its survival has been a tactic by parents to get their children to eat more vegetables and carrots. In addition, I believe the placebo effect may come into play in this situation, making individuals subconsciously convince themselves that their eyesight is improving after eating carrots.

Source:

London. Sunday Telegraph. “Don’t Expect to See Like a Hawk After Eating Your Carrots with Today’s Roast”. 9 March 2003. (p. 41).

There’s Always Two Sides

Nationality: Puerto Rican
Age: 36
Occupation: Chef
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/8/12
Primary Language: English

This saying is one that my informant said she uses on a regular basis:

“No matter how thin the pancake, there are always two sides”.

My informant said that she learned this proverb or saying from a friend that was born and raised in Japan. Her name was Kozuko, and my informant met her in the 1980’s when her husband was stationed in Japan for the army. My informant believes that it was a proverb that was common within Kozuko’s family. Kozuko had translated the phrase from Japanese and told them how to say it in English. My informant thinks that it originally may have been a different word than ‘pancake’, because those are not a Japanese food. My informant uses this saying, she says, to express that there are always two sides to a story. She told her kids this when they would make decisions without considering the consequences or the people that they could hurt in the process. She says that she always thinks of her friend Kozuko when she uses the phrase, and is happy that she was able to bring it back to California.

I, for the most part, agree with my informant’s analysis of this piece of folklore. I believe it was likely developed as a more clever way to say that there are two sides to every story. I believe that this metaphorical way of saying that is a good way to get the message across. I had never heard this saying before, and after researching it more, could not find many sources and sites of it. This leads me to believe it is a rather rare saying, and potentially rarely translated from Japanese, or wherever its true origins lie.

Polish Pierogi Recipe

Nationality: Polish American
Age: 83
Occupation: Avocado Farmer
Residence: Temecula, CA
Performance Date: 4/8/12
Primary Language: English

The informant is 83 years old. He is Polish, but was born in Michigan.

Over Easter Brunch, my informant told me about his own Easter tradition that he used to celebrate with his family:

“Every Easter, we used to make Pierogis. These were somewhat of a delicacy for my family and they were more expensive to make than anything else my family usually had to eat. Pierogis are made with cabbage and pork, kind of like a Polish ravioli. We would only ever be able to make them for special occasions, so we chose to make them for our Easter Meal.”

Recipe:

Dough:

2 cups flour, sifted

1 egg

½ cup lukewarm water

½ cup milk

1 tsp. salt

2 Tbsp. melted butter

In a large bowl, beat all ingredients. Add additional flour to firm if needed. Roll out and double. Cut into ½ inch circles.

 

Filling:

1lb. of pork

3 carrots

1 leek

1 celery stalk

1 onion

Butter or oil for frying

Parsley leaves

2 eggs

Salt & pepper

Wash beef and put in salted water. Cook, until the meat softens. Peel and cut into small strips. Throw vegetables into stock with meat and leave gently cooking for 30 minutes. While the meat is being cooked with vegetables peel onion and cut it into cubes. Fry onion on the frying pan with the addition of butter, until lightly browned. Take the meat out of stock and tear into smaller pieces. Add fried onion and mix everything. Grind the mixture of onion and meat in a meat mincer. Chop parsley leaves up and add to stuffing. Break two raw eggs into a meat mixture. Add salt and pepper. Mix. Season to taste. Arrange stuffing on pierogi dough circles and carefully glue the dough, forming pierogi. Cook pierogi in salted water. After floating to the surface cook until become soft. Then sift out. Pan-fry the cooked pierogi. Use butter or sunflower oil. Fry pierogi, until browned on both sides. Serve.

“Pizzelle Cookies”: Traditional Italian Recipe

Nationality: Italian American
Age: 91
Residence: Arcadia, CA
Performance Date: 3/31/12
Primary Language: English

The informant was born in Pennsylvania but her parents immigrated to America from Italy. Despite living in America, my informant has very close ties to her Italian roots, and still cooks many traditional Italian dishes.

The informant has been making traditional Italian waffle cookies, or Pizzelles, for as long as I can remember. I asked her to teach me how to make them this month which removes them somewhat from their normal context. Usually, pizzelles are a holiday treat and my informant makes them only for Christmas. She learned to make these waffle cookies from her mother and they used a special waffle iron that her mother brought over from Italy. What’s really special about this tradition now is that my informant still uses that same waffle iron from Italy to bake these holiday treats. No one else in the family makes pizzelles, but my informant revealed that next Christmas, her daughter will have to take over because it’s getting too hard for her to make them (she’s 91 after all). This means that her daughter will become the active bearer of this tradition and the waffle iron from Italy will be passed into her possession. Eventually, it will make its way down through the family. Below, I have transcribed the interview with my informant that took place while we were cooking.

Me: So your mom taught you to make these?

Informant: Yes. We used to make them together was I was little. But when I got married and had kids, I took over the baking.

Me: And this is the same waffle iron she used to use? In Italy?

Informant: The very same.

Me: Why do you still make them? What’s so important about them?

Informant: It’s a Christmas tradition. It wouldn’t be Christmas without waffle cookies!

Me: But don’t you get tired?

Informant: Yes, it’s hard work making 96 dozen cookies one at a time. Eventually Terry (her daughter) will have to take over. Probably next year. She can have this waffle iron too.

Me: So is it just habit to make these Christmas cookies, or does it mean something more to you?

Informant: Well, the habit is the significant part. It’s a tradition that’s always been a part of my life. It’s always been a part of the rest of the family’s too. Isn’t that enough of a reason to keep making them?

Me: Yeah, but does it like help you feel more Italian or something?

Informant: You could say that. We’re keeping an Italian tradition alive by making cookies every year. It makes me remember my parents, my childhood, even my own kids’ childhood—how I would help my mother, and then later, when Terry would help me.

Me: So that’s why you go through all this trouble every year, making tons of these waffle cookies?

Informant: It’s not trouble…I like making the cookies, I’m just getting older is all. It makes me feel connected to the past, to my parents that died a long, long time ago. And because I know that Terry will keep making these cookies, I feel connected to a future I probably won’t get to experience.

I always understood this baking tradition as a way of connecting to the family’s Italian roots. My informant sees it that way too, but she also thinks of it in a way I never would have considered. She knows that the tradition will last into the future, carried on by her daughter, then probably her daughter’s daughter, and so on, which connects my informant not only to the past, but the present and future as well. Perhaps this is why the women in the family make these cookies: to connect to past, cultural roots but also to those of the future.

Recipe:

½ cup shortening

2/3 cup sugar

3 eggs

13/4 cups flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. vanilla

Pinch of salt

Mix shortening, sugar, and eggs. Beat until blended and smooth. Add flour, baking powder, and vanilla a little at a time mixing well. The texture should be soft but should not run. The more flour, the thicker the pizzelle will be. Other flavors may be substituted for the vanilla such as: anise seed or oil, lemon juice or grated rind, cocoa, orange juice, chopped nuts (very fine).

Annotation:

A very similar recipe can be found in 1000 Italian Recipes by Michele Scicolone. Unlike my informant’s recipe, this one does not use shortening and adds butter to the cookie mix.

Scicolone, Michele. 1000 Italian Recipes. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley and Sons, 2004.