Tag Archives: recipe

Pho

Nationality: Chinese American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/19/12
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Soak some beef bones overnight in water.

Bring the bones to a boil for around 10 minutes.

Dump the water and rinse the bones.

But the bones back in the pot with clean water and bring to boil again.

Add some more water and once the water reaches boiling again, drop to a simmer.

Add blackened onions, ginger and star anise.

Simmer for 4-5 hours, adding water if the level drops below the bones.

Slice some beef into thin bite-sized slices.

Soak some noodles in warm water for 30 minutes.

Place the beef into a bowl with scallions, onions, coriander, basil, beansprouts, lemon juice and chili sauce.

When broth is ready, remove the bones, strain the broth, and add some fish sauce.

add the noodles to a pot of boiling water and then drain.

add noodles and broth to the bowl of spices and beef.

My informant is 1/16th Vietnamese, and is rather ashamed of his Viet. ancestry. He does not practice any Vietnamese traditions, however, he does love to eat Pho, a traditional Vietnamese dish. Pho serves as his only connection to his Viet. ancestry. He knows the recipe to make Pho, but never makes it himself, however he frequently visits restaurants that serve it, and enjoys it when his mother makes it. The fact that this serves as his only connection to his Vietnam is either a coincidence, or speaks volumes about how good this traditional food way truly is.

Sofrito

Nationality: Italian-American, Puerto Rican
Age: 56
Occupation: Registered Nurse
Residence: San Diego, California
Performance Date: 3.23.12
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish, Italian

Sofrito is a Puerto Rican folk base in a lot of the culture’s dishes. It also exists in a lot of Italian dishes under a similar name, though it varies slightly.

Sofrito as described verbatim by informant:

“Puerto Rican food, Italian food, everything the basis is garlic, onions, and green pepper and then you add to that. That’s really like that’s mostly Puerto Rican food though and so what you add to that is salt, pepper, and oregano and that’s the beginning of what we call sofrito. Sofrito’s like the basis of everything and usually you add tomato paste to that in olive oil and that’s the basis for just about everything you make. That’s the way you start a stew, a soup, the beans that are famous—arroz con habichuelas (rice and beans) not frijoles, but habichuelas because they’re beans, they’re Puerto Rican beans. So everything starts with that: garlic, onion, pepper (pepper vegetable). And then you add to that cilantro, you add tomato paste, but those are the three things you have to have to make anything Puerto Rican.”

My informant who is half Puerto Rican and half Italian-American says she makes sofrito all the time. She changes it in different ways when she cooks Italian food depending on the dish, but uses it in every Puerto Rican dish she makes. She learned it from her Puerto Rican mother who taught her how to cook.

Dictionary of Food: International Food and Cooking Terms from A to Z. London: A&C Black, 2005. Credo Reference. Web. 24 April 2012.

“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.

Swedish Lutefisk Recipe

Nationality: Finnish, Swedish American
Age: 77
Residence: Temecula, CA
Performance Date: 4/8/12
Primary Language: English

The informant is 77 years old. She was born in Minnesota, and is of Swedish and Finnish descent.

Over Easter Brunch, my informant supplied me with some traditional Swedish folklore. The first thing that came to her mind was a recipe for Lutefisk that her family used to make. This is what she told me about the traditional Swedish recipe:

“Lutefisk is an old Swedish fish dish. It’s cod preserved in lye. I think my mother used to soak it in milk, or actually probably water. The only time she would make it was Christmas Eve. I used to help a little bit, but I think I mostly got in the way. It was actually really disgusting. No one liked it, not even my mother who spent the time making it every year! I don’t know why we kept making it for so long, but it was a traditional thing that made us feel more connected to our roots. After leaving the old country, it was nice for my parents to have a little something traditional, even if no one really enjoyed it!”

I agree with my informant’s reasoning about why the tradition continued. If no one actually enjoyed eating the lutefisk, then it was most likely made as a way to stay in touch with the family’s Swedish heritage after moving to America.

Recipe:

1 piece dried lutefisk, sawed into 6 lengths

2 tablespoons lye

Prep: Soak the fish in water for 3 days. Add two Tbsp. lye into a gallon of water. Soak for 3 days in this solution. Then soak for 4 days in water, changing water every day.

Cooking: Tie the fish loosely in a square of cheese cloth. Drop in a large enamel pot of boiling water. Cook 10 minutes or until well done. Remove cheese cloth put on a platter and debone. Serve with a mustard sauce.

German Recipe: Curry Wurst

Nationality: German
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Hamburg, Germany
Performance Date: April 19th, 2012
Primary Language: German
Language: English, French, Greek

German Curry Wurst Recipe:

Ingredients: 

Ketchup, 10 tablespoons

Water, 5 tablespoons

Salt, ½ teaspoon

Pepper, 1 teaspoon

Paprika Powder, 1/2 tablespoon

Cayenne Pepper, to taste

Chili Sauce, 1 1/4 tablespoons

Curry Powder, 1 tablespoons

Sugar, 1 tablespoon

Bratwurst sausages

Instructions:

First, cook your sausages on either a grill or pan if you don’t have a grill.  Once the sausages are done cooking, set them aside.  In a saucepan add ketchup, stir in 4-5 tablespoons of water and boil while stirring. Remove from the heat and season with salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, chili, curry powder and a little sugar if necessary. Serve hot!

(Warning: SPICY!)

Analysis:

When I first traveled to Germany, I really wanted to try some local cuisine.  My informant suggested that I try curry wurst, because the fast food dish is very popular and she thought I would like it.  I had curry wurst for the first time at a small open air market in Berlin.  There were all kinds of condiments you could add to the curry wurst such as mayonnaise and hot sauce.  The curry wurst was also sold with potatoes, french fries, and white bread rolls which you would use to dip in the extra sauce.  My informant told me that Berliners normally get white bread rolls with their curry wurst, and I wanted to do ‘the local thing’ so I got a bread roll to go with my snack.  To me, doing things as they locals do them when I travel is my way of trying to get an understanding for the culture.  I hoped that in trying many different types of  German food, I could get an understanding of what kinds of foods Germans like.  Are they the kind of culture that likes spicy, savory, or sweet foods?  German food seems to be a good combination of all those food tastes, like the sweet taste of apple strudel, the savory flavor of potato dumplings, and the spicy kick of curry wurst.  I ended up loving the food so much that I asked the informant’s mother for a curry wurst recipe that I could take back to America with me.  I think the recipe is very close to what I had at the market in Berlin, but of course nothing can compare to the real thing.

The invention of curry wurst is attributed to Herta Heuwer, who created the sauce in 1949 when she obtained ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and curry powder from British soldiers in Berlin.  Her recipe soon became very popular and her stand was selling as much as 10,000 servings per week. Heuwer patented the recipe as ‘Chillup’ in 1951 and started her own restaurant.  Today curry wurst stands can be see all over the major cities of Germany, and they are a popular form of fast food for tourists and Germans.

My informant was born in 1992 Hamburg, Germany.  She studied at USC from 2010-2011 before moving to Brussels, Belgium to study international policy planning for her undergraduate degree.  She lives part time in Brussels, Belgium and part time in her hometown Hamburg, Germany.