S.M. was born in Virginia on March 15, 1999. She was raised by a single mother who works as a high school arts teacher and administrator in Windsor, Virginia. Her family origins are Puerto-Rican and Western European, primarily Irish and Scottish. She is a senior at Dartmouth College studying Theater, English, and Russian.
Contextual Data:
S.M. downloaded TikTok in January of 2020 and uses the app for at least twenty minutes everyday. It is a way for her to pass the time.
Item:
This dance is to the song “Supalonely” by BENEE. It involves a lot of hip movements, all to the beat of the song. It is quick but not as involved as “Renegade” or “Savage.”
HH is a senior at Dartmouth College majoring in Biology with a concentration in genetics. She was born in Cologne, Germany in October of 1998, but now resides in Lawrence Township, New Jersey.
Contextual Data:
HH has a TikTok account with several videos of her dancing with friends, sorority sisters, and family members. She knows several dances, roughly five, that she learned as a fun way to bond with friends or out of boredom. While she doesn’t follow TikTok influencers that perform dances, she discovered dances through their popularity, through Twitter, or through seeing parodies. She considered performing “Laxed Siren Beat” to highlight her German heritage, since the dance was commonly used to spotlight different cultures. HH has a video dancing to “Say So” with her sorority sisters. She often picked dances to learn based on their popularity, relative simplicity, or if she liked the song and would learn the songs from watching tutorials or viewing the TikTok enough times to pick it up. Her ‘for you page’ has a greater focus on educational content, food recipes, comedy, and skincare.
Item:
This dance is extremely involved, utilizing a lot fo hip movements and frantic hand work.
Dance Example:
Informant’s Comments:
Really difficult. Knows of, might even know parts of. Never actually tried to learn.
Collector’s Comments:
This dance seemed to be one of the more difficult ones for respondents to learn.
SM was born in Virginia on March 15, 1999. She was raised by a single mother who works as a high school arts teacher and administrator in Windsor, Virginia. Her family origins are Puerto-Rican and Western European, primarily Irish and Scottish. She is a senior at Dartmouth College studying Theater, English, and Russian.
Contextual Data:
SM downloaded TikTok in January of 2020 and uses the app for at least twenty minutes everyday. It is a way for her to pass the time.
HY was born in August 1998 in Suffolk, Virginia. She is a sales associate at Best Buy and current senior at Old Dominion University.
Contextual Data:
HY uses TikTok everyday and enjoys sending videos to her friends. She has never taken the time to learn a dance, but she has inadvertently picked two up from seeing them frequently on the app.
KG was born in July of 1998 in Baltimore, Maryland, but he has lived in Suffolk, Virginia since he was seven years old. He currently works as a manager at a local bank chain.
Contextual Data:
KG loves TikTok and spends about thirty minutes on the app every day. His sister and best friends also have the app, and they frequently send videos to each other.
MH was born in June of 1999 and has lived just outside of Chicago, Illinois her entire life. She is a current senior at Dartmouth College studying Philosophy on the pre-law track.
Contextual Data:
MH has a younger sister who is an avid TikToker. Her sister has taught MH a couple different TikTok dances in the process of creating videos together.
SG was born in October of 1998 and has lived in Andover, Massachusetts her whole life. She is a current senior at Dartmouth College studying Engineering and Environmental Studies.
Contextual Data:
SG has never downloaded the TikTok app, but she is in several group chats where her friends will send TikToks that feel relevant or interesting to the rest of the group. She does not consider herself super in tune to Internet trends, but she knows of three different TikTok dances because of how frequently they get sent to her or come across her various social medias.
SK was born in December of 1998 and has lived in Rockville, Maryland her whole life. She is a current senior at Dartmouth College studying Biology and Anthropology.
Contextual Data:
SK downloaded TikTok in the summer of 2020 following the coronavirus quarantine. She considers herself barely a user of the app, spending less than fifteen minutes on the app a day. However, she still enjoys watching TikTok dances and has even learned some of them from repeatedly seeing them on her For You Page.
Genre: Material Lore – dish; Customary Lore – celebration, family tradition, superstition, cooking technique
Language: English with some Chinese (Mandarin)
Country of Origin: China
Informant: V.Y.
Date Collected: November 7, 2020
Informant Data:
V.Y. is a 21-year-old senior studying Physics at UCLA. He is from Shanghai, China, though his family lived in Beijing for eight years before settling down in Shanghai. While in China, he celebrated traditional Chinese festivals with his family. He has especially fond memories of his grandma’s cooking.
Contextual Data:
Cultural Context
Chinese cuisine varies greatly from province to province in terms of style, but Chinese chefs have classified eight regional cuisines, the most prominent ones being Cantonese cuisine, Shandong cuisine, Jiangsu cuisine, and Sichuan cuisine. In the modern age, it is not uncommon for Chinese families to combine ingredients and cooking techniques from two or more regional cuisines or modify existing dishes to better suit their tastes.
Chinese culture places heavy emphasis on the symbolic meaning of flowers: chrysanthemums symbolize longevity, plum blossoms symbolize perseverance, magnolias symbolize beauty, osmanthus flowers symbolize wealth and royalty, etc. Many types of flowers are used in teas and dessert dishes to infuse them with the corresponding symbolic attributes.
Social Context
In China, there is a stereotype that all grandmas are good chefs. Children always look forward to visiting their grandma’s house on special occasions like Chinese New Year to eat delicious home-cooked meals. Grandparents often spoil their grandchildren by feeding them an extravagant amount of food, much to the chagrin of their parents.
Item:
Osmanthus Honey, or “guì huā mì” (桂花蜜) is a special jam-like topping that the informant’s family uses for traditional desserts such as “tāng yuán” (汤圆), glutinous rice balls, and “guì huā gāo” (桂花糕), osmanthus cake. The technique of preserving flowers in honey is native to Haiyang (海阳), the hometown of the informant’s grandma; however, osmanthus flowers are more commonly used in Shanghainese and Hangzhou cuisine. While fresh osmanthus flowers are often preferred for dishes, Osmanthus Honey allows the distinctive fragrance of osmanthus flowers to be used in winter festival dishes, even when the flowers themselves are not in bloom. The preparation of Osmanthus Honey is quite simple: fresh osmanthus flowers are dried and submerged in honey; the resulting mixture is then stored in a glass jar for future use. Osmanthus Honey can be directly applied to the top of a dessert or mixed into dessert doughs.
Audio Clip:
Transcript:
V.Y. (informant): Sure. So um, my grandmother, who is from Shandong (山东) used to make this honey infused with “guì huā” (桂花), which is a kind of flower that’s common in China, especially in Shanghai. And it smells very nice, and it doesn’t really taste like anything, but it makes whatever you put it in smell like the flower. And we used to put it in honey and then put the honey into various doughs that we use for desserts, and we used to sprinkle it on top of “tāng yuán” (汤圆) and put it in “guì huā gāo” (桂花糕), which I believe is kind of like Shanghai specialty, which is a kind of, I guess… I guess custard isn’t the right word. It’s a desert made of dough, I guess. Uh, yeah. And I always feel like it’s it’s kind of a unique thing to our family, because I don’t think it’s a very common thing in China doing this. And I was really like how… this is, I believe, this is like a technique people do in my grandmother’s hometown, which is not Shanghai. And this is a flower from Shanghai. And we is always just thought it was nice that, you know, it’s kind of customs of different parts of China that we combine in our family. And yeah, yeah, there are other dishes that we, but this is just something that came to mind.
W.W. (collector): Um, yeah, also do you mind telling me where your grandma’s from?
V.Y.: Uh, from Shandong from a small city by the sea, called Haiyang (海阳). And, yeah, I visited there once. And it’s kind of interesting. It’s sort of an isolated city. I mean, obviously, now, there’s roads and airports and everything. But historically, it’s somewhat isolated. So their cuisine is kind of not represented. It’s kind of different from general Chinese cuisine. Like it’s almost a little similar to Japanese cuisine, because they’re next to the sea, and they eat like octopus raw and everything. And, yeah, then this is the this putting flowers in honey is apparently one, something they do there is, as I can recall.
W.W.: It’s very interesting. And, um, so do you know, whether this has any significance for like, Chinese New Year in general, or how this tradition started within your family?
V.Y.: Um, I’m not… I suppose it started, I guess, when my grandmother moved to Shanghai, because that was she, you know, she didn’t grow up here. That, I think is something like 40, 50 years ago. And, um, I mean, I guess back then, it’s having you know, any kind of sugar at all is kind of a luxury. And, you know, certainly you couldn’t really preserve “guì huā” (桂花), is definitely a seasonal things back then. So I think putting it in honey, you know, it’s a it’s a nice and tasty thing, but I guess also preserves the seasonal, seasonal delicacy. And I guess it’s kind of a nice thing to have.
Informant’s Comments:
Talking about Osmanthus Honey, I kind of miss it now…
Collector’s Comments:
I also have fond memories of my grandma’s cooking. Every time my family went to visit her in Beijing, she would cook for an entire day and prepare a grand feast.
One of my favorite Shanghainese dishes is “nuò mǐ ǒu” (糯米藕), or lotus root with sticky rice. It is often topped with honey and osmanthus flowers, though they are added separated.
Genre: Material Lore – dish; Customary Lore – celebration, family tradition
Language: English with some Italian
Country of Origin: Italy
Informant: M.P.S.
Date Collected: November 19, 2020
Informant Data:
M.P.S. is a 22-year-old senior studying Mathematics and Computer Science at Dartmouth College. She is half Canadian and half Italian, but she spent most of her life in England. As a young child, she spent some time living with her relatives in Italy, where she learned to speak basic Italian and became accustomed to many local traditions, especially ones related to food. She is non-religious but enjoys celebrating Christmas with her family.
Contextual Data:
Cultural Context
In Italy, Christmas cakes, more accurately described as sweet breads, are traditional desserts eaten for Christmas celebrations. During the Middle Ages, only rich people could afford to eat white bread, and sweet bread was considered a luxury reserved for the nobility. Nowadays, they are much more affordable and extremely popular among Italian households. Most families purchase them at the store days or even weeks in advance, though some choose to bake their own at home.
Social Context
Christmas cake, as the name implies, is eaten on or around Christmas Day. Store-bought Christmas cake is often packaged in a beautiful paper container. Many families have their own rituals when it comes to unpackaging the Christmas cake and sharing the delicious contents within.
Item:
Pandoro, which translates to “golden bread,” is a type of traditional Italian Christmas cake that originates from Verona. It is a plain sweetbread dusted with vanilla-scented icing sugar that is well-known for its distinctive golden color, which signifies wealth. When viewed from above, the shape of Pandoro resembles an eight-pointed star, which symbolizes salvation and abundance from a Judeo-Christian perspective. When purchased from the store, Pandoro is nicely packaged with the icing sugar included in a plastic packet. For many families, the preparation of Pandoro is an entertaining ritual that typically takes place early Christmas morning: the whole sweetbread is placed in a plastic bag along with the powdery icing sugar. The plastic bag is then sealed and shaken vigorously until the cake is fully coated in icing sugar. Afterwards, the Pandoro is sliced and shared among the family. Unfortunately, Pandoro is difficult to find in the US. Many Italian American families prefer Panettone, a cupola-shaped Christmas cake from Milan that contains dried or candied fruits.
Image File:
Bauli Pandoro, a popular brand (Photo was taken by M.P.S. on November 30, 2020; she ordered the Pandoro from the store more than a month in advance)
Audio Clip:
Transcript:
M.P.S. (informant): So I eat this food, so my food is called a Pandoro. Am I meant to say that now?
W.W. (collector): Yeah, yeah.
M.P.S.: Okay, so my food is called a Pandoro. It’s basically a Italian Christmas bread, cake type food. And it is my favorite food of all time. I love it so much. I’ve eaten it every Christmas since I was a baby. Either if I was in Italy, that Christmas, or if I was in England, which is where I live. And this is basically a type of kind of big, fluffy yellow cake that you can eat around Christmas time. I don’t know if there’s any specific rules. But typically, my family we wait until Christmas day to open it. We buy it from the store, we don’t make them ourselves. And one of the fun-est things about them is that you take the icing sugar, and you mix it into, into this kind of plastic bag, and you put the whole cake in the plastic bag, and you shake it around until the cake is coated and icing sugar. So that’s kind of like the ritualistic element every Christmas morning. So the first thing we do is open the Pandoro and shake it up so that it’s ready to eat at lunchtime.
W.W.: Great. And the tradition that you just mentioned is something that you only do with your family, or is this a common thing for Italian families to do?
M.P.S.: Well, a lot of Italians eat Pandoro at Christmas. And I mean, you typically, when you buy them, they’ll come with a packet of icing sugar and a plastic bag in the box ready for you to do, so I think lots of Italian families do shake it up together. It’s kind of like celebratory, although I don’t know whether or not it’s specifically like on Christmas Day or just around the time. And some people obviously make them themselves. They home-make.
W.W.: So you mentioned Pandoro is Italian Christmas cake. Could you talk a little bit about how it’s, like what’s special about the cake? Um, like for example, like the shape, the way it’s made.
M.P.S.: So it’s kind of shaped like a Christmas tree, and it’s really tall. So like from the top it looks like a star which is really nice and Christmas-y and it’s made it’s pretty simple. The ingredients, I’m pretty sure just butter, sugar, flour, eggs, or I’m not even sure I don’t think there’s eggs actually. Um, and it’s originally like bread. So it’s Pandoro, which means like bread, gold bread, right, “pan” is bread, and “d’oro” is gold. So it’s like meant to be very like yellow, yellowy. So that’s kind of what makes it stand out. There’s another Christmas cake called Panettone which is similar and maybe more commonly found, like in America, or I’ve seen it more often like, in places like Starbucks and things, and this has got fruits and stuff in it. But Pandora is typically like plain, and you’re just eating it with sugar. Some people like prepare it different ways. I like to dip it in milk. I think it’s really delicious.
Informant’s Comments:
If you haven’t tried Pandoro before, I highly recommend you try it. It’s so good. It doesn’t seem like it should be that good because it’s just bready sponge cake. But it is. There is something about it and the flavor. That makes it my favorite thing about Christmas time. It’s so delicious. And if you try it, you shouldn’t put whipped cream or ice cream or chocolate on top. Just eat it like is meant to be eaten, at least for the first time, so you get the proper experience because I feel like it’s got such a delicate flavor.
Collector’s Comments:
Fortunately, I was able to try Pandoro in my freshman year of college. It tastes absolutely amazing, and the experience was one of the highlights of my winter term. I really enjoyed learning about the informant’s lovely family tradition on Christmas morning where they prepare the Pandoro together. I didn’t know food preparation could be so fun!
