Title: Traditional Chinese Meal

General Information about Item:

• Genre and Sub Genre: Familial Folklore

• Language: English

• Country where Item is from: China

Informant Data:

• Marshall Peng provided us with what his family eats every year for Christmas Dinner. He is 19 years old, currently a ’20 at Dartmouth College and lives in Wisconsin. Both his parents originate from China. Tyler’s family practices Christianity.

Contextual Data:

• Social Context: On large holidays families typically have a traditional meal that they will make for that holiday. Christmas is no exception as all of the people we interviewed spoke about a traditional meal that they have every Christmas.

• Cultural Context: Steamed Dumplings is a very popular Chinese dish. Marshall’s parents are both from China and they brought this traditional meal to the U.S. and incorporated with their celebration of Christmas.

Item:

• His mother makes his favorite meal, steamed dumplings. She makes this every single year and he has eaten it every Christmas he can remember. It is traditionally a Chinese New Year dish but his mother makes it for Christmas.

Collector’s Name: Clay Chatham

Tags/Keywords:

• Food, Tradition, Christmas,