The Legend of the Foco Finger

1. Title: The Legend of the Foco Finger

2. Informant info: Carolyn Strauch was born on May 21, 1996, and grew up in Chicago, IL. Both of her parents are from Massachusetts. She is studying Biology and psychology as a sophomore at Dartmouth College. She is a former rower, former DDS worker, and a UGA in East Wheelock.

3. Type of lore (Genre, Sub-genre): Verbal Lore, Legend, Urban Legend

4. Language: English

5. Country of Origin: May 14, 2016, Hanover, NH, USA

6. Social / Cultural Context:

Foco is the main student dining center on campus. Given the volume of students that make their way in and out of the dining hall every day, there is high demand for workers to make sure that the center is running as efficiently as possible. Often, DDS will hire student workers (at a pretty reasonable wage) to work alongside the full-time DDS workers in order to help them out. Naturally, students mingle with the workers and pick up on lingo, stories, legends, etc. surrounding the dining center and its workers. The following item is a legend explaining the reason why one Foco employee has only nine fingers.

7. Associated file (a video, audio, or image file): N/A

8. Transcript (if verbal lore):

“One legend I learned as a Foco employee was about Joe and the Foco Finger. It was rumored that a really long time ago, a worker named Joe was working in Ma Thayer’s and cutting up carrots for the main soup of the day…he was super pressed for time since it was like 5 pm and foco was opening soon…so he was cutting rather quickly and sliding the carrots into like a large pot of broth that was sitting on the ground next to his work station. However, Joe started to get sloppy and started cutting super fast — he accidentally chopped off his pinky finger and…slid his finger and carrots into the broth! [laughing] ….but because it was so late, Joe didn’t want to ruin a whole batch of soup, so he wrapped his finger up, said nothing to the other workers, and set the pot on the stove to cook. Later that evening, after the students had poured into Foco to eat dinner, I was told that a freshman girl was serving herself some of the soup and found the finger when she looked down, she fainted and was taken to Dick’s House. But!!!…. Joe was never identified as the owner of the finger — and that’s apparently why he has nine fingers”

9. Informant’s comments:

“I don’t know whether or not the story is real, but it seems to be more a source of entertainment rather than anything else…Joe doesn’t really mind it and he doesn’t deny or confirm it. I think that just adds to the mystery, and it’s funny!”

10. Collector’s comments:

The origin and time when this legend developed is still unknown, but it definitely doesn’t predate the subject matter. Much like other forms of legends, this urban legend requires the audience to suspend disbelief. It seems to serve the purpose of explaining why Joe only has nine fingers, but also to entertain the workers and keep things in the workplace lighthearted.

11. Tags/Keywords: food, foco, finger, legend, verbal lore

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