Tag Archives: Customary Lore

Sinterklaas (Dylan Lawler)

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General Information about Item:

  • Customary Lore, Town Festival
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: S.A. Age 50
  • Date Collected: 11-01-2021

Informant Data:

  • S.A. is an elementary school teacher, teaching reading and writing comprehension. She is from Brooklyn, New York and is currently pursuing her phd at Columbia University. She is a habitual reader, mother of two, and loves to travel.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Sinterklaas is the Dutch version of Santa Claus and is a piece of folklore believed to have followed Dutch immigrants to the United States three centuries ago. Over these past generations, Sinterklass has thus begun to leak into American literature and celebration.
  • Social Context: This specific festival was mentioned when asked about traditional Christmas events. Though hosted in the town of Rhinebeck, thousands of people attend Sinterklass each year because of the joy and spirit it brings along with the sense of community.

Item:

  • Sinterklass is the celebration where children are transformed into Kings and Queens and honored as the bringers of the light at the darkest time of year. It honors Dutch heritage by re-creating a celebration that the Dutch settlers brought to Rhinebeck by having a parade filled with elaborate creatures, characters, and performers that mirror the folk story of Sinterklass. The story goes as such:
  • Mounted on a white steed, a town resident dressed up as Sinterklaas (elegantly garbed in a bishop’s tall hat, red cape, shiny ring, and jeweled staff) rode through town knocking on doors late at night. He was accompanied the Grumpus, a wild looking half-man, half-beast. To good children — Sinterklaas and the Grumpus delivered a bag of goodies. To the naughtiest children, the Grumpus rattled chains and threatened to steal them away in his big black bag. And for those “less bad” he had switches for exacting lesser punishments.

Transcript:

  • “I had lived in Rhinebeck for most of my adult life and I had no idea what Sinterklass was until it happened my first December 6th there. The streets filled up immediately and I was so confused so I had to go check it out. I loved it immediately. I don’t think anything has ever felt more like Christmas, it epitomizes togetherness and joy. I’m not sure how this relates to the story of Sinterklaas but the festival has an animal that is the center of the theme each year. Finding out what the animal is like opening a christmas gift in it of itself. My favorite was the butterfly.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • “Seeing all of the cultural Dutch clothing is so fascinating, though I always have to hide my kids when the scary ones come because they get scared.”

Collector’s Comments:

  • This festival was especially interesting because it almost directly addresses our initial pondering question of American folklore. There are items and traditions that everyone knows about and others that no one knows about, yet it doesn’t appear to matter because everyone is so willing to celebrate in the name of just being together and happy in a typically mundane time of year.

Collected By:

Dylan Lawler

Dover Plains, NY

Hanover, NH

Dartmouth College

RUSS013

Fall 2021

Brown Superstitions

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Title: Brown Superstitions – Megan Forrest

General Information about Item: 

  • Customary Lore, Magic Superstition 
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States 
  • Informant: Megan Forest 
  • Date Collected: 11/08/21

Informant Data: 

  • Megan Forrest is 22 years old and was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, however, she lived in Dubai, UAE from age 5-11 which is when she started playing ice hockey. She finished her undergrad in May 2021 and is pursuing a Masters degree at Brown while continuing to play on the women’s ice hockey team.  

Contextual Data: 

  • Cultural Context: The cultural context is being on a team where other teammates sit in specific seats before their games. This team also does the same cheers before every game and announce their starting line-up which are traditions that have been passed down through many years. All of these superstitions are common among individual hockey players and hockey teams. 
  • Social Context: The social context is that Megan didn’t sit in her red #13 seat one game and she played poorly, so she vowed to never sit in another seat again. In regards to the team superstitions, the same idea is present; in the past there had been games where these superstitions were not performed and the team ended up losing, so they stuck with what worked (doing their team cheers and announcing their lineup in a certain way). 

Item: This is a customary type of folklore that is categorized under the magic superstition genre. Megan performs these specific rituals before every home game and has to adjust them slightly for away games. 

Transcript: 

  • “Before the game to get a caramel swirl iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts. Then I head to the rink. I sit in the stands in seat 13 in the top row of the red chairs and walk through our systems in my head while listening to a pump up playlist I have. At this point I’ll be finishing my coffee so I head downstairs and throw it out in a specific trash can by the stairs.” 
  • “As a team, we always do the same cheer after off ice warm up and a different one in the locker room before going on the ice for the first period. We also have one girl announce our starting lineup in a fun and creative way”

Informant’s Comments: 

  • Although 13 is usually considered an unlucky and “cursed” number, Megan told me that she has been number 13 since she started playing hockey because her mom suggested it as she is the 13th child in her family. This number has always been special to her mom and therefore to Megan as well so it serves as a lucky number rather than a cursed one.

Collector’s Comments: 

  • Before Megan told me the reasoning behind her superstition with the number 13 I thought it was a bit odd as well, but as we learned, a lot of folklore can be passed down by family members so it makes sense why Megan believes this number brings her good luck. 

Princeton Superstitions

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Title: Princeton Superstitions – Emma Kee

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Lore, Magic Superstition
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Emma Kee 
  • Date Collected: 11/16/21

Informant Data:

  • Emma Kee is a female Princeton student in the class of 2023. She is from Cincinnati, Ohio but left home to go to boarding school in Faribault, MN in 8th grade. She is currently living in Princeton, NJ. Emma is on the ice hockey team and recently completed an internship in Washington, DC, which she hopes to return to full-time next year. Emma performs a superstition on game days that has been passed down throughout her family and is very meaningful to her.  

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: The cultural context is that putting gear on in a specific order is very common amongst hockey players in any league. 
  • Social Context: The social context is that Emma performs this superstition with her sister after following their brothers’ lead.

Item:

  • This item is a customary type of folklore under the genre of magic superstition. Emma performs these before each home game. 

Transcript:

  • “My older brother used to tie his skates before he put on his shin pads after seeing one of his teammates do it, and I always looked up to him growing up. Now I do as well, and my sister and I both follow his lead before our games, creating our own family superstition  in order to play well.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • Emma recommended others who have siblings to create their own family superstitions that can be passed down for generations to create meaning to each time they play the game that they love. 

Collector’s Comments:

  • I found this superstition to be very interesting. Emma told me her father performed the superstition, as well as her uncle, and knows her relatives did before them. This small way for her family to stay connected is very enlightening to me about how folklore is prevalent in our everyday lives. 

Collector’s Name: Currie Putrah 

Princeton Superstitions

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Title: Princeton Superstitions – Annie Kuehl 

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Lore, Sign Superstition, Magic Superstition
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Annie Kuehl 
  • Date Collected: 11/10/21

Informant Data:

  • Annie Kuehl is a female Princeton student in the class of 2024. She is from Edina, Minnesota and lived there her whole life. She is currently living in Princeton, NJ. At school Annie is on the Women’s Ice Hockey team and plans to pursue a career in business. She has 2 superstitions that she follows strictly before games. 

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: The cultural context is being part of a team where other girls use white stick tape as well, which is a superstition passed down from team to team. 
  • Social Context: The social context is interacting with people who also tape their back-up sticks before games, along with getting caffeine. 
  • The magic substance in the superstition about taping her sticks is the white tape. 

Item:

  • This item is a customary type of folklore under the genre of magic superstition. Annie performs these before each home game. 

Transcript:

  • “If CVS is out of Celcius Green Tea Lemonade then I will go to Starbucks and get a Venti Iced Vanilla latte. I tape all 3 of my sticks with white tape before our team warm ups.  ‘I once broke my stick and had to use my backup, which had the worst tape job of my life, so ever since then I’ve starting taping all 3,’”

Informant’s Comments:

  • Annie mentioned that if she did not do these two things or if she only taped two sticks then she would play badly and not be able to communicate with the women she plays with. She also said she now tapes her backup sticks with her linemates in order to play well. 

Collector’s Comments:

  • I was very intrigued by Annie’s superstitions because she was the first person who mentioned a sign superstition. It was also interesting to hear about the reason she tapes all three of her sticks based on something that happened to her, but that how she started using white tape initially was because her idol on the team did before her. 

Collector’s Name: Currie Putrah 

Bonfire (Homecoming Weekend)

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General Information:
Title: Homecoming Bonfire
Form of Folklore: Customary, bonfire festival
Language: English
Place of Origin: Hanover, NH, United States
Informant: M.S.
Date Collected: October 30th, 2021

Informant Data: 
M.S. is a 19-year-old member of the Dartmouth class of 2025, the most recent class at Dartmouth. She is currently undecided on her major but wants to potentially study economics. She is from New York City and very excited to have moved to the more slow environment of New Hampshire. She enjoys to ski and is part of the apprenti class that is trying out for the Dartmouth Ski Patrol.

Contextual Data: 
– Social Context: Every term Dartmouth has a ‘big weekend’ of celebrations, and in the fall this is ‘Homecoming Weekend’. While many instantiations of traditions are aimed at the freshmen during this weekend, the whole weekend stands as a yearly tradition for all students and a lot of alumni who will come back and visit for the weekend. The weekend features Dartmouth’s football team playing the ‘homecoming game’, and the school organizes parades, speeches, and a large bonfire that all alumni and students gather around. The bonfire is used as part of a freshman-specific tradition every year. It is the first ‘big weekend’ that freshmen get to experience, and because they typically hear a lot about it from upperclassmen they often look very forward to it.
– Cultural Context: The bonfire, specifically, features a freshman specific tradition where the whole class walks a lap around the bonfire. Typically, they are heckled by upperclassmen who are watching the bonfire lap, and these upperclassmen were again heckled by their seniors when they were freshmen. The bonfire lap is a once-in-a-Dartmouth-career experience, and because all students have participated once it stands as a well cemented and anticipated tradition every year. 

Item: 
The homecoming bonfire is organized by the College, and it is built in the middle of the Dartmouth Green. The wooden panels are decorated by various student organizations, who send their freshmen members to paint a panel. The top of the wooden structure is decorated by wooden numerals of the graduating year of the freshmen. Surrounding the bonfire is a large audience of current students and alumni. While the fire burns on the Friday of homecoming, the freshman walk a lap around the fire and are heckled by upperclassmen. Various traditional heckles are yelled, like “you are the worst class ever” and “touch the fire”. The latter emerged a few years ago, when the school took strict action to ensure that students didn’t run close to the fire. 

Associated File:

Image courtesy of Dartmouth, the Dartmouth Review

Transcript: 
Collector: “Why did you take part in traditions such as the Homecoming Bonfire?” 

Informant: “I think it just makes me feel more part of the community. Also it’s very fun. Like the bonfire, a lot of my friends were joking that it’s like an initiation into the Dartmouth cult. And it kind of felt like that, it was fun. It’s like, I did it now. I’m part of that community that walks around the bonfire. Also, growing up in the city I didn’t have a football team or any homecoming big experience like a lot of my friends here did. I was just super excited to go to a football game for a school, my school, and it was just a cool way to show school pride. And the bonfire added to that, making the whole homecoming weekend into a big and special event.”

Collector Comment:
Reflecting on my own homecoming bonfire experience, I felt very similar to M.S. I felt that I had participated in an event that all students before me had as well, welcoming me into the community. Like M.S., I had never attended a school with a football team or any homecoming traditions, and the bonfire made the whole weekend feel even more special and community-oriented, beyond just school spirit for the football team. 

Collected By:
Una Westvold
Oslo, Norway
Hanover, NH
Dartmouth College
RUSS 013
Fall 2021

Advent Calendars (Dylan Lawler)

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General Information About Item:

  • Material Lore, Item
  • Customary Lore, yearly practice
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: A.T. Age 18
  • Date Collected: 11-06-2021

Informant Data:

  • A.T. is a male senior high school student. He is from a non religious family and lives in Wingdale, New York. When not studying and going to school, A.T. enjoys being in the band and performing as an actor of the theater department.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: An advent calendar is a German originated item and practice dated back at least a century. It’s a calendar numbered 1-24 for each day of December up to Christmas. With each day, the recipient is given a piece of chocolate that they pop out of the calendar itself.
  • Social Context: This practice was brought up when asked about notable traditions or events he has during Christmas time. The calendar is often bought as a gift for another person. It’s a way to show kindness and care, but it also keeps the Christmas spirit by having a small consolation to look forward to each day.

Item:

  • An advent calendar is a December calendar numbered 1-24 for each day before Christmas. With each day, there is a piece of chocolate that the recipient pops out to eat on that given date. A.T. was taught this tradition from his mother, who was also taught by her mother, making the practice a passed down family tradition. For the Tracey family, the advent calendar is not only a way for the parent to connect their child to their lineage, but it also excites the kid with a treat they may not otherwise be allowed to have. It’s the epitome of Christmas Spirit as it shows care and affection while practicing small scale traditional gift giving.

Transcript:

  • “Every December first, our mother gives my brother, sister, and I and advent calendar. It’s just a a calendar for December with a piece of chocolate we can eat each day before Christmas. When I was a kid I always got so excited just because I got to eat chocolate in the morning but when we got older she told us our grandma did the same for her, and her mother before her. The chocolate part was cool and all, but this added such a nice sentiment to it and it always is amazing to think about my mom being a kid just like me getting excited for chocolate in the same exact way. I always hear stories from my mom and grandma and it’s always nice to learn about my family, but this makes me always feel so connected with with my ancestors, even the ones I didn’t even know”

Informant’s Comments:

  • “Before I learned about the heritage of the calendar, it was always just a way to embrace the Christmas spirit. The little shapes of the chocolates as stockings or Christmas trees or whatever are always so cute to me and make me so happy.”

Collector’s Comments:

  • Much like the idea of Santa and even Christmas as a whole, advent calendars have fallen victim to American commercialization. However, the roots of the folk item still linger throughout society as families and small cultures continue to follow decade long traditions that continue to hold sentimental value to them regardless of the increased westernization.

Collected By:

Dylan Lawler

Dover Plains, NY

Hanover, NH

Dartmouth College

RUSS013

Fall 2021

Twilight Ceremony (Other Freshman Fall Traditions)

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General Information:
Title: Twilight Ceremony
Form of Folklore: Customary, ceremony
Language: English
Place of Origin: Hanover, NH, United States
Informant: L.A.
Date Collected: October 29th, 2021

Informant Data: 
L.A. is a 21-year-old member of the Dartmouth class of 2022. She is a student-athlete on the rugby team, and is a double-major in geography and anthropology. At Dartmouth she is a tour guide, a snowboard instructor, and works for the Sustainability Office. She is from Colorado Springs, CO and enjoys the outdoors, and is very grateful for Dartmouth’s engagement with the surrounding nature. She does not come from a tradition-heavy background, and has thus really enjoyed partaking in the Dartmouth traditions. The second tradition she experienced at Dartmouth was the Twilight Ceremony, after participating in the DOC Trips.

Contextual Data: 
– Social Context: The first thing L.A. did upon arriving at Dartmouth was participating in Dartmouth’s Freshman ‘Orientation-Week’. This program is aimed at introducing the freshman to the various aspects and operations of Dartmouth College. On the Sunday before the first day of fall-term classes, the last day of Orientation-Week, she participated in the ‘Twilight Ceremony’. The ceremony is organized by the Tucker Center in collaboration with the Collis Student Center, and all incoming freshmen participate. This was Lannan’s first experience with an organized Dartmouth tradition, and she really enjoyed participating alongside her whole class. 
– Cultural Context: The Dartmouth experience is heavily influenced by many traditions, whereof some are organized and some occur naturally, and some are repeated every year by members of all classes and some are aimed specifically at freshman. Particularly, Dartmouth places heavy emphasis on freshman-only organized traditions as part of an initiation rite to make the freshman feel introduced as part of the collective Dartmouth community. The Twilight Ceremony incorporates the use of candles and two socially-significant locations on campus (the Green and BEMA), making it very Dartmouth specific rather than a general ‘you are now a college student’ initiation rite. 

Item: 
The Twilight Ceremony is organized and hosted by the Tucker Center and the Collis Center, and it marks the end of the ‘Orientation Week’ program the evening before fall term classes begin. All freshmen are gathered on the Dartmouth Green and provided with an unlit candle. A selected member of the recently graduated class will literally pass the flame from their candle to members of the incoming class, from candle to candle. All the freshmen walk in the dark to BEMA, only illuminated by the wave of flickering flames. At BEMA, a senior student offers a personal reflection on their experience transitioning from a freshman to a senior. The ceremony concludes with the singing of the Alma Mater and the extinguishing of the candles, to mark that students have now formally begun their Dartmouth journey. 

Associated File:

Image courtesy of Dartmouth, the William Jewett Tucker Center

Transcript: 
Collector: “Are there any other traditions we haven’t discussed that you think are important to freshman fall at Dartmouth?” 

Informant: “The candlelight ceremony was the first tradition I experienced after Trips, and because it was a one-time event it almost felt as the most ‘proper’ tradition. It felt very culty seeing all the freshmen walk into the woods with candles and singing the Alma Matter made me feel initiated into a Dartmouth cult. But it was also very fun, as it kind of cemented our class together and gave me the feeling of ‘whatever happens, we are all in this together’. Because none of my friends at other schools did anything like this with their whole class, it made me feel part of a very tight-knit and special community regardless of who there I would end up being friends with or not.” 

Collector Comment:
I had a very similar experience when I participated in the Twilight Ceremony. Although I did not know any of the students around me, I felt as part of a collective group that was embarking on a college journey together in the woods. The Twilight Ceremony is a very formal execution of an initiation rite, including all the stages in a rite of passage. 

Collected By:
Una Westvold
Oslo, Norway
Hanover, NH
Dartmouth College
RUSS 013
Fall 2021

Gingerbread House Making (Dylan Lawler)

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  • Material Lore, food crafting
  • Customary Lore, yearly event
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: K.M., Age 50
  • Date Collected: 11-05-2021

Informant Data:

  • K.M. (using initials out of request for anonymity) is a fifty year old mother of three.  She was born in New York and raised in the same.  She runs a cleaning service as a career when she isn’t maintaining her own house and children. On her spare time, K.M. spends every minute she can camping and spending time with close friends and family. This time with those she loves is the most prevalent source of her folklore.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Gingerbread houses are traced back to German culture possibly around the nineteenth century. Since then, the famous christmas confectionary has immigrated America, among many other countries, to become another symbol of the joy the winter season brings.
  • Social Context: This specific yearly event was brought up when asked about traditions and parties around Christmas. Gingerbread house making and decorating is often an activity meant to bring families and friends closer during the holiday season. This particular event was combined with both secret santa and competition aspects to add a twist to this cultural tradition.

Item:

  • The event hosted by K.M. begins with blank gingerbread houses designated for each person. Prior to the event itself though, the participants are expected to bring a random and arbitrary gift that will be added to a collective pile. After dinner, the family members then begin to decorate their houses with candy. There is no time limit, though the last person to finish is often pressured to just stop decorating if they take too long. Once everyone has declared their house to be complete, K.M.’s mother (the designated judge every year) decides whose house is the best. This person gets to choose the present they want from the collective pile. K.M.’s mother then chooses the next best house, and they do the same. This process continues until the ultimate loser has no choice but to take the only remaining gift.

Transcript:

  • “The gingerbread houses were at first an efficient way to just distract the kids. But then my siblings and I immediately drew connections back to when our mom would have us decorate a house each year as kids to put in the kitchen as decoration. This with the fact that us adults are way more competitive than the kids caused the gingerbread houses to become a tradition of itself. The planning every year is stressful but I honestly am so happy each time because it’s not only a good way to spend time with family, but it was an exciting way to connect back to my childhood traditions that my mother brought from Germany herself.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • The best way to treat an event like this is to act like it’s a party for preschoolers because that’s how it eventually appears when competition is involved.

Collector’s Comments:

  • This was folklore that I personally drew from as the informant is a family member of mine. I was so excited to share this because it really shows how certain activities such as gingerbread house making are universally associated and practiced with Christmas. In this case the folk are American citizens. However, folk “sub groups” can easily develop as particular families turn these universal festivities into personal traditions, but while also maintaining their folkloric and cultural roots.

Collected By:

Dylan Lawler

Dover Plains, NY

Hanover, NH

Dartmouth College

RUSS013

Fall 2021

Dancing

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General Information

Informant: LH

Place: Dartmouth College

Date: October 13th, 2021

Form of folklore: Customary, dance

Title: Dances at Dartmouth

Collector: Maria Angelino

Informant Data

The informant is a Dartmouth student in the class of 2025. She wishes to remain anonymous.

Contextual Data

Cultural Data: The “The Salty Dog Rag”, among many others, are dance routines taught to freshmen during their First-Year DOC trips. Upperclassman trip leaders and H-Croo leaders tell the freshman they must learn and memorize the dance for future purposes. They often learn it upon first arriving at Dartmouth and on the last day of trips at Moosilauke Lodge. The freshmen barely know each other, but the dances are intended to bypass the awkwardness and help them embrace the unusual customs that Dartmouth students love. 

Social Data: The folklore was collected 2 months after the informant went on their first-year trips. She was interviewed and asked about her experience. 

Transcript: 

Collector: “How did DOC trips make you feel as a freshman coming into a new environment?”

Informant: “The trip was super important to making me feel more at home. I remember we learned the “Salty Dog Rag” and the one where you are singing in the shower, and there was other fun ones too. It felt very inclusive because nobody knew what they were doing so we were all doing it together. It was a lot of fun trying to come up with how to actually do the dances. I think everyone was super uncomfortable learning the dances, but it really brought us together as a community.”

Collector Comments:

The customary lore of dancing can be very impactful to a culture. In this case, the upperclassmen used dancing as a way to make the freshman feel more connected to the Dartmouth traditions and collective history that the college has. 

Entrée/Dessert: Glutinous Rice Cake

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General Information about Item:

  • Genre: Material Lore – dish; Customary Lore – celebration, superstition, family tradition; Verbal Lore – saying
  • Language: English with some Chinese (Mandarin)
  • Country of Origin: China
  • Informant: W.W.
  • Date Collected: November 15, 2020

Informant Data:

  • W.W. is a 22-year-old senior studying Mathematics and Computer Science at Dartmouth. He was born in Boulder, Colorado, but his family moved to Shanghai, China when he was 9 years old. Every summer vacation and Chinese New Year while in China, W.W. would visit his maternal relatives in Beijing with his parents and little sister. To celebrate the reunion of the extended family, his grandma would host a large dinner celebration at home with all the relatives invited, including all the uncles, aunts, cousins, and even the family pets.

Contextual Data:

Cultural Context

  • “Nián gāo” (年糕) refers to Glutinous Rice Cake, but it can also be translated literally as “New Year Cake.” The name is auspicious because it sounds similar to the popular Chinese New Year’s saying “nián nián gāo” (年年高), which means “higher every year.” It is often used as a toast at the dinner table to wish good health for elders, successful careers for working adults, and stellar grades for children.

Social Context

  • Glutinous Rice Cake is always served for the traditional feast on Chinese New Year’s Eve. The extended family reunites to celebrate this special occasion. After the feast, the family watches fireworks and a special show on TV called “chūn wǎn” (春晚), which features singing, dancing, and traditional performances.

Item:

  • “Nián gāo” (年糕), or Glutinous Rice Cake, comes in two varieties: savory and sweet. The preparation process is straightforward but time consuming. First, boiled sticky rice is pounded into a paste and molded into dough. The dough is then cooked again, usually by steaming. Savory Glutinous Rice Cake dishes are usually served as entrées. The rice dough is cooked plain, typically in the shape of cylinders or flat slices, and subsequently stir fried with other ingredients or used in hotpot. For example, in Shanghai, Glutinous Rice Cake is often stir fried with cabbage and shredded pork. Sweet Glutinous Rice Cake dishes, on the other hand, are served as desserts. Sugar, assorted nuts, and dried fruits are added to the dough before cooking or mixed in afterwards. When purchased at the store, sweet Glutinous Rice Cake dishes are often packed in more elaborate shapes such as fish, which symbolizes surplus and unity.

Image Files:

Sweet Glutinous Rice Cake in elaborate packaging (Photo was taken by W.W.’s family members on November 7, 2020; it was ordered online.)

Sweet Glutinous Rice Cake being steamed (Photo was taken by W.W.’s family members on November 7, 2020; unfortunately the end product is not as beautiful as the packaging.)

Transcript of Interview Clip:

W.W. (collector and informant): When I was a child, um, I remember that my favorite dessert for Chinese New Year was sweet Glutinous Rice Cake shaped like koi. Since I was allergic to tree nuts, my parents and grandparents always bought it plain. The packaging was super elaborate, so I was always, um, a little, very disappointed actually, to discover that the rice cake itself was plain white. My family would steam the plain rice cake and serve it with nuts and other toppings placed separately on the side. I always struggled to eat it because it was very sticky. Apparently, the right technique is to stick your chopsticks into the rice cake and swirl them around until a decent sized blob forms. After eating the rice cake, we would cast lots to see who would clean the dishes because it was always a tedious chore to clean off the sticky remains.

Collector’s Comments:

  • Talking about Glutinous Rice Cake brings back happy childhood memories and evokes a strong feeling of nostalgia. I always preferred the sweet type instead of the savory type. My parents did not have the time to make rice dough themselves, so they bought it pre-packaged from the store, usually weeks in advance. I would always beg them to let me eat it before Chinese New Year, but my efforts were never successful.

Collector’s Name: Winston Wang

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