Tag Archives: recipe

Recipe – Baccala (Cod Fish Stew)

Nationality: Italian-American
Performance Date: April 2007

The following recipe is from the Italian (paternal) side of my family.  The principal ingredient is salt cod or baccala.  This dish was served on Good Friday every year before Easter.  Though my paternal family, who are mainly Catholics, do not abstain from meat as part of the tradition of Lent any longer, their ancestors did.  Fish, however, was not counted among the other meats, and was allowed during Lent.  This recipe would have been one of the last served before the breaking of the fast on Easter Sunday.  According to my informant, the salting and aging of the fish improves the flavor.  This celebratory dinner likely helped to mitigate whatever sense of deprivation anyone (at least fish lovers) felt during the meatless fast.  My family also ate the same dish after the midnight Mass at Christmas (!!!).

Baccala (Cod Fish Stew)

Heat:
1/4 c. vegetable oil in a Dutch oven

Add:
sliced onions:    4 large sliced
potatoes:     6 large peeled & cut in chunks
tomatoes:    2 large cans
1 piece of salted codfish which has been soaking 48 hrs. to get the salt out, changing the water frequently

Boil until potatoes are almost done.  Add the rest of the cod fish.

My informant added: “I buy around 1 lb. [of salt cod] at the Italian store.  This makes a great stew, but only I like it of my siblings!!”

Guanti – Fried Snack

Performance Date: April 2007

The following recipe is for a traditional holiday treat from my father’s sister.  She tells me, “Your great grandmother made these by the bushels at Christmas and Easter.”  It seems every culture worldwide has devised a unique way to fry dough and satisfy the sweet tooth: funnel cakes and doughnuts in America, beignets in France, churros and sopapillas in Spain and Mexico.  This particular cookie seems familiar to me, but I did not realize it was from Italy.  In my father’s family, food – especially pasta and sweets (unfortunately for someone like me who avoids sugar) – has always been a central unifying aspect of culture.  Indeed food is one of the central aspects of ethnicity and heritage, and my informant says this is especially true in Italy.

 

Guanti (Wands)

 

Beat 3 eggs with 2T of sugar.  Add:

 

1t lemon juice

1T evaporated milk

6T vegetable oil

½t salt

 

Add 2 c plus 2T of flour.  Knead on floured board.  Roll paper thin.  Cut into very thin strips and shape each strip into a loop.  Fry in vegetable oil 5 seconds.  They’ll be golden in color.  Drain on paper towels and sprinkle with sugar.

Chicken Adobo Recipe

Nationality: Filipino
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Toledo, Ohio
Performance Date: 4/10/11
Primary Language: English

The informant is a 19 year old Filipino female. She lives with her mother in Toledo, Ohio and has one older sister. She was raised Roman Catholic. She is currently a student at a university in Southern California. The informant is the co-president of the club volleyball team at her university.

Chicken adobo is a traditional Filipino dish, although there is a lot of variation in the exact ingredients depending on the region of the Philippines. The informant’s mother made chicken adobo for her and her sister all throughout their childhood. The informant saw her mother making the dish as a child, but never learned to make it until she went college. The informant specifically asked her mother for the recipe because she missed having the dish. At home her mother makes the dish about twice a month. The informant herself makes it at least once a week. The informant uses prepared adobo seasoning for her chicken because it saves time and doesn’t contain chiles, which she does not like. Her mother makes her own seasoning, including cloves, chiles, garlic, salt, pepper, etc. The informant’s mother fries the chicken pieces until crispy. The informant herself prefers to bake the chicken.

Recipe: Take chicken pieces, thighs, drumsticks, breasts, etc. Marinate in soy sauce, lemon juice and adobo seasonings. Place chicken pieces on a piece of foil on a baking sheet. Bake until done. Serve with rice.

Analysis: This account illustrates how important foodways are in constructing ideas about home and identity. The informant never learned or tried to learn how to cook chicken adobo until she was separated from her home and family. After being away from home, she purposefully learned how to cook this dish from her mother. Now, living away from home and the seat of her childhood identity, she cooks the dish much more often even than her mother did at home. It is likely her desire to learn how to cook chicken adobo, and the frequency with which she prepares it, represents a need to reestablish ties with her home, family, and cultural background. That she associates this dish with her home is reinforced by the fact that she specifically requests her mother cook this dish every time she spends time at home. For the informant, it is this foodway that reconnects her with her childhood and family.

Folk Recipe/Foodways – Chocolate Cake

Nationality: American
Age: 74
Occupation: retired
Residence: Marble Falls, Texas
Performance Date: March 2011
Primary Language: English

Folk Recipe/Foodways – Little Nonnie’s Chocolate Cake – American

“For every birthday in our family, I make the same cake. It’s a recipe from my great-grandmother… she was born in Chicago, but her parents were from Ireland… and she married a German man. I don’t know if she made it up or not, but it’s been the same cake at every birthday since she was alive. It is a dry cake, and it’s supposed to be, but the icing is amazing. The cake is made like regular cake: flour, eggs, butter, and cocoa powder. But there is one secret ingredient that gives it the unique touch, and that’s sour cream. Then the icing is made with powdered sugar, butter, chocolate, and coffee… so the cake ends up being sort of a mocha chocolate cake. And it only works if you do it an exact way… if you try to double the recipe, it won’t turn out right. But this cake is a family tradition because every family member always gets one on their birthday… and everybody loves it… it’s their favorite. And it’s always the grandmother that makes it. We call it ‘Little Nonnie’s Chocolate Cake,’ that was my great-grandmother.”
The informant believes that this cake is important because it is a family tradition and gives the family something to look forward to, and something they all have in common: they all love this cake.
I agree with the informant in that this cake provides a commonality between family members, and gives them a characteristic that identifies them as members of this family. Furthermore, this cake ties them to their ancestors and their family history. Although this cake isn’t necessarily German or Irish, it makes the family think of these people and where they came from, and their heritage. Additionally, the idea of a “secret ingredient” makes it that much stronger of an identifying characteristic. Only the family is aware of this “secret,” so it binds them together, and makes them feel as though they are unique as a family unit. The fact that the grandmother always bakes the cake allows her to be tied to the younger generations, to teach them, and nurture them. An intergenerational link within a family is extremely important, as it allows for family heritage to be passed down. Additionally, this cake alone serves as an excuse for the family to gather, which gives it a social aspect.

Recipe – General European

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 33
Occupation: IT Manager
Residence: Westlake, Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 19, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Conversational French

The informant learned the following recipe for potato soup from her mother:

The informant briefly summarizes the recipe: “It was just a few, um, ingredients: potatoes and milk and cream, and salt and pepper, and onions, and usually it was in a crockpot, uh, but it made a nice, simple, creamy tom—potato soup . . . a simple potato soup that you’d make for the big family. Um, I’m sure it had some of her European background to it, uh, as well. But just simple.” Her expanded account of the process of making the soup is here: Potato Soup

She describes the recipe as “pretty much something you’d make quite often, but not for any particular occasion . . . just, you know.”

The informant likes the recipe but has given up on making it for the moment due to her frustration over the last time she tried to do so: “I haven’t—I haven’t had very much—the last time I tried to make it I screwed it up and something meant—went wrong with the milk, or either the milk was in there and got scalded, or, uh, it cooked too long with the onions or something, but I screwed it up last time and haven’t tried it since.”

Potatoes are known for being cheap, hearty, and, despite the informant’s difficulties, easy to cook, so it makes sense that the recipe would have been made for a large family, since large amounts of the ingredients could be thrown in a crockpot and left to simmer without effort until the milk and cream were added. The informant didn’t specify what part of Europe her family was from, but at least two cookbooks, The Frittata Affair (134) and Delicious Soup Recipes (36) contain similar recipes under the title “Irish Potato Soup,” which is not surprising given the status of potatoes as a staple in Irish cuisine. Both of those recipes, however, substitute butter for cream.

Sources:

Johnson, F Keith. Delicious Soup Recipes. New York: Ventures, 2010.

Pochini, Judy. The Frittata Affair: Adventures in Four-Star Dining at Home. Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2007.