Tag Archives: holiday food

Christmas Eve Soup

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 10, 2017
Primary Language: English

I asked my friend if she had any holiday traditions. She told me that on Christmas Eve, her mom prepares soup:

Me: Why soup?

Lindsey: My mom’s side of the family is Irish, so I think it’s tradition in Irish culture to have soup on Christmas. Maybe the warmth of the soup is comforting in wintertime? Also, I think soup is an easy meal to have on Christmas when people would rather be focused on their family than on cooking.

Me: What type of soup does she traditionally make?

Lindsey: It’s just a stew of different vegetables and beef. Really light. Really simple.

 

Analysis: Having soup on Christmas Eve is not a tradition I had ever heard of. I think the idea of spending time with one’s loved ones instead of cooking in the kitchen makes sense. It is more important to have Christmas with family and invest in quality time, than having an extravagant meal.

Şeker Bayramı

Nationality: Arab American
Age: 22
Occupation: Law student
Residence: Silver Spring, MD
Performance Date: April 22, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Arabic, Turkish

Turkish: Şeker Bayramı (literally, Sugar Holiday, a.k.a. Eid Al-Fitr, following Ramadan)

“Turks deem Eid Al-Fitr as a holiday meant for the distribution of sweets and delights (so do Arabs, but Turks generally take it to larger extents). I’ve experienced 2 days of Şeker Bayramı in İstanbul following a month of fasting for Ramazan/Ramadan. What I remember the most about it was the sheer amount of cotton candy everywhere on Cevdet Paşa street nearby the bosphorus in Istanbul’s Bebek neighborhood. It was a good time to indulge in sweets following the best Ramadan I have ever experienced (so far!).”

Context: The informant told me this in a conversation about folklore.

Thoughts: I have been to many (Arab) Eid celebrations, but the only type of sweets they generally had were dates, chocolate, and Jordan almonds (pastel color coated almonds). It is interesting to see that cotton candy is a big part of the celebration in Turkey, as it is not exactly something I would expect to be a part of Eid, considering that it is not Middle Eastern/Muslim in origin. It is intriguing to see the different desserts of the world they take in to complement the event – a part of globalization, perhaps?

Japanese New Year’s Ozoni

Nationality: Japanese-American
Age: 53
Occupation: Higher-Education administrator
Residence: Pasadena, CA
Performance Date: 4/17/16
Primary Language: English
Language: Japanese

KM is a third-generation Japanese-American from Los Angeles, CA. She now lives in Pasadena, CA with her husband and 18-year-old son.

KM described to me some of the basic traditions her family has for New Years Day, especially the cooking of “ozoni”:

“Ozoni is just a soup made with chicken broth, green onion, shiitake mushrooms, seaweed, chicken and mochi. My Auntie Kazuko would make it for us every year when we were growing up, and it’s always the first course of a New Year’s Day meal. All of [my mom’s] siblings and my cousins would get together at [Auntie Kazuko’s] house and while most of the day would be, you know, just a family gathering, we would all sit down together to eat the ozoni. It’s only cooked on New Year’s and you have to go to special Japanese markets to find the ingredients.

“Now with my siblings and kids and nieces and nephews, we get together at my sister’s place – she’s married to a Japanese man, and his mother makes the ozoni. The holiday is pretty similar to how it was for me, where everyone just gathers at someone’s house to watch football and eat food, but the making of the soup and eating it together is like one concrete tradition we do every year. I’m not sure who will keep making it after [my sister’s mother-in-law] passes away though…”

My analysis:

The most interesting part of this food tradition for me is the shared background of the family members who actively carry it out – KH told me her Auntie Kazuko was most connected to their Japanese heritage, which is why she insisted on making the soup every year. Similarly, her sister’s mother-in-law is from Japan, and she is the one who facilitates the tradition. It really reveals how certain customs make it overseas when families would move to America, but also how fragile they are. KH isn’t sure anyone else in her family is motivated enough by their Japanese traditions to continue the laborious process of making this particular food. Traditional holidays tend to become more Americanized (in this case) over the years they’re observed away from their roots, and unless enough people are committed to certain customs, they can easily die out.

For more information about ozoni, see:

“Ozoni (Zoni) Recipe.” Japanese Cooking 101. 2016. Retrieved from http://www.japanesecooking101.com/ozoni-zoni-recipe/.

Collard Greens and Black Eyed Peas for New Year’s

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 3rd, 2013
Primary Language: English

This is a New Year’s tradition practiced by my informant and her family every year.

“If you have collard greens on January first then you’ll make a lot of money, maybe because they’re both green. Similarly, if you have black eyed peas, then you’ll have luck throughout the rest of the year. And it has to be on January first. And then you just have meat, that’s not symbolic but you need something to go with collard greens and the black eyed peas. My grandmother told me that, and so she cooks for us for every new year.”

The tradition of eating black eyed peas for luck is also a Jewish tradition, and goes back for many centuries. It’s popular in the American south, probably brought there by the Jews and adopted by the society at large. As the informant says, collard greens are also a common New Year’s food thought to bring wealth in the coming year, as they resemble American bills. Both foods are exceptionally common in the American south (thus allowing most people to partake in the tradition without causing undue budgetary stress), which is where my informant’s family lives. The emphasis on it being January 1st also reflects the notion of its importance as the beginning of a new unit of time, in a liminal period where anything could happen and one could presumably set the tone for the next stage in life (ie, the new year).