Tag Archives: Material Lore

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

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

How Jewish Families Celebrate Christmas Dinner (Evan Fu)

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General Information About Item:

  • Material Lore, Christmas Dinner Description
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Jonah Kershen
  • Date Collected: 10-21-2021

Informant Data:

  • Jonah Kershen is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2022. Jonah hails from a Jewish family and lives in Hartford, Connecticut. Jonah is an Economics/Computer Science double major at Dartmouth and plays for the Club Soccer team on campus. He plans to work as a trader upon graduation.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Jonah’s family is traditionally Jewish – Jonah celebrates all Jewish holidays and consumes a fully kosher diet himself. While the family primarily celebrates Hannukah during late December, the family still observes the gift-giving and family-time-oriented nature of Christian Christmas. Like Chinese people, Jewish people tend not to celebrate Christmas in a traditional, Christian American sense.
  • Social Context: This description was mentioned when the interviewee was asked about their Christmas traditions. While Jonah was clear that his family chose not to practice many traditionally American Christmas rituals, he did emphasize that his family (and other Jewish families) tended to repeat certain activities on Christmas, including a Christmas dinner.

Item:

  • Jonah’s family’s Christmas dinner almost always features takeout Chinese food. Like Jewish people, Chinese people tend not to celebrate Christmas extravagantly, and most Chinese restaurants are open on Christmas Eve. Jonah’s family typically orders food from the vegan/vegetarian (kosher-certified) menu at a local Chinese restaurant called Black Bamboo. After finishing their Chinese food, they usually eat a homemade, Jewish dessert such as chocolate babka. Jonah emphasized that his family simply considers the Christmas holiday as a period of rest, and they appreciate that Chinese restaurants remain open on the holiday. He mentioned that most of his Jewish family and friends alike will order Chinese takeout on Christmas and have a quiet, filling meal with just their immediate family.

Transcript:

  • “In terms of dinner, we usually just order takeout from this Chinese restaurant called Black Bamboo which is open on Christmas Eve. They have a pretty awesome vegan/vegetarian menu that we order from, and my mom will usually make a chocolate babka or some other Jewish dessert to cap off the dinner. It’s hilarious – literally all my Jewish friends and their families order Chinese takeout on Christmas. I think Jewish people just consider the holiday as a day of rest where the parents can just get away from work and have a nice dinner with the family.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • “We owe a lot to the Chinese people, to be honest. Can’t imagine how many Jewish families they feed on Christmas.”

Collector’s Comments:

  • Like the Chinese food recipe that I collected from my mother, I wanted to interview members of other minority folk groups in America and investigate their Christmas food traditions. I thought that interviewing a Jewish person would be particularly informing due to the religious conflict of interest. Obviously, Jewish people would celebrate Hannukah a few days after Christmas and care less about the Christian holiday. I found Jonah’s responses to be very interesting – he mentioned that many Jewish families in his immediate network simply considered the Christmas holiday as a period of rest and would also order Chinese takeout for Christmas dinner. This tradition appears to be folkloric in nature among the Jewish-American folk group. Jewish families appreciate the day of rest and choose not to cook a large, effortful dinner for many mouths, opting instead for the convenience of Chinese takeout. This practice appears to be shared among many Jewish families and is an incredibly interesting discovery in my collection process.

Collected By:

Evan Fu, 21

Palo Alto, CA

Hanover, NH

Dartmouth College

RUSS013

Fall 2021

Cold Noodles for Christmas Dinner (Evan Fu)

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General Information About Item:

  • Material Lore, Christmas Food Recipe
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Bing Hai
  • Date Collected: 10-24-2021

Informant Data:

  • Bing Hai is a 50-year old woman of Chinese descent living in Palo Alto, California. She is also the mother of the collector. Bing was born in Shenyang, China and immigrated to the United States upon finishing college in Beijing. She works on the patent counsel for Bristol Myers Squibb and has two college-aged children.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Bing learned to cook Chinese food at a very young age – she has a large repertoire of Chinese recipes that she can make at a moment’s notice. However, having lived in the United States for three decades, she has become skilled at cooking various American foods as well. Bing has celebrated most popular American holidays, including Christmas. Moreover, in Chinese culture, simple noodle dishes are considered a staple. Historically, many areas of China are relatively poor and live off of grains and rice. Throughout thousands of years, generations of Chinese people have depended on and passed down simple food recipes such as the cold noodle dish outlined here.
  • Social Context: This food recipe was shared when the interviewee was asked about the specific foods she makes for Christmas dinner. As the primary chef in the household, Bing has a lot of experience preparing large amounts of food for various family dinners.

Item:

  • Cold noodles (and other simple noodle dishes) are a notoriously easy dish to prepare in Chinese culture. For this recipe, you boil noodles until cooked and immediately place them in ice water to cool them down. Then, you prepare a sauce mixture with soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, and scallions. Simply toss the cold noodles with the sauce mixture, and finish with sliced cucumbers and more scallions. The noodles are filling, easy to make, and can be prepared quickly in large quantities.

Transcript:

  • “The dish I most enjoy making on Christmas is 凉面 (cold noodles). They are so easy to make, and I can make an enormous amount for the 10+ people who we invite on Christmas. You boil the noodles in water, take them out, and rest them in ice water. Your sauce is simply soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, and scallions. Then you just mix the noodles and sauce, and slice some cucumbers and more scallions to put on top.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • “The kids especially love this dish since it’s so pleasing to the palette, and the noodles really serve as the main carbs for the dinner.”

Collector’s Comments:

  • I chose to ask my own mother about her Christmas food preparations, given that we come from a Chinese background and our Christmas dinner tends not to include traditionally American foods. As America becomes a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities, I found it useful to examine how minorities celebrate Christmas from the perspective of food. My mother echoed the overarching theme from my interviews – families tend to invite a lot of folks to Christmas dinner and choose to prepare whatever dishes are easiest to make in large quantities. This cold noodles recipe is many Chinese families’ go-to dish for large family dinners and therefore for Christmas dinner – it is folkloric in nature as many in the Chinese-American folk group will create this dish for large meals.

Collected By:

Evan Fu, 21

Palo Alto, CA

Hanover, NH

Dartmouth College

RUSS013

Fall 2021

Thanksgiving Foods for Christmas Dinner (2) (Evan Fu)

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General Information About Item:

  • Material Lore, Christmas Dinner Description
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Alexander Bakos
  • Date Collected: 10-20-2021

Informant Data:

  • Alexander (Alex) Bakos is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2022. Alex’s family is culturally American and lives in New York City, New York. Alex is a Mathematics major at Dartmouth and plays for the Club Soccer team on campus, and he plans to work as a quantitative trader upon graduation.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Alex’s family celebrates Christmas in a more traditional sense. They purchase a tree and decorate it in their New York City apartment, and their close family stay over on Christmas Eve. They watch Christmas movies that night, put the kids to bed early, and engage in gift-giving in the morning. The family typically hosts a dinner for close and extended family on Christmas in their New York apartment. The family spends a few days preparing food for the dinner.
  • Social Context: This description was mentioned when the interviewee was asked about their Christmas dinner traditions. Alex’s family has made the same Christmas dinner for as long as Alex can remember.

Item:

  • Alex’s family’s Christmas dinner is essentially the same as their Thanksgiving dinner. They prepare a turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pigs in blankets, and roasted vegetables. The family spends the day before Christmas Eve brining the turkey, and everyone gathers on Christmas Eve to prepare the rest of the meal. For dessert, the family typically buys a few pies and various other delicacies from local bakeries.

Transcript:

  • “We literally have Thanksgiving dinner over again on Christmas. My mom buys and brines a turkey on the 23rd, and the entire family comes together on Christmas Eve to prep the other dishes. We have the turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pigs in blankets, and do some roasted veggies on the side. My mom buys some pies and other desserts from local shops on the Upper West, and we have our close family over for dinner, like 10-15 people.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • “I think Thanksgiving foods are just easiest for the family to make. Thanksgiving and Christmas are really the only times we have massive dinners, and the Thankgiving foods are just my mom’s go-to’s for this kind of meal.”

Collector’s Comments:

  • I found it incredibly interesting that Alex was my second interviewee whose family prepares Thanksgiving foods for Christmas. After reviewing all my interviews, I’ve learned that many American families consider Thanksgiving foods as a “go-to” meal when having to prepare food for large quantities of family members. Indeed, mashed potatoes and turkey are the #2 and #3 most popular Christmas foods according to a 2020 survey conducted by YouGov. Additionally, Christmas does appear to be more formal and focused on satisfaction (supported by – many families during my collection process have purchased or prepared extravagant combinations of desserts to finalize the Christmas meal. My collection process has implied to me that Thanksgiving foods and sweets are certainly folkloric in American Christmas culture, recipes of which are repeatedly used and passed down through families.

Collected By:

Evan Fu, 21

Palo Alto, CA

Hanover, NH

Dartmouth College

RUSS013

Fall 2021

Thanksgiving Foods for Christmas Dinner (1) (Evan Fu)

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General Information About Item:

  • Material Lore, Christmas Dinner Description
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Christopher Sykes
  • Date Collected: 10-15-2021

Informant Data:

  • Christopher (Chris) Sykes is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2022. He has a rather diverse background – his father is Caucasian American and his mother is Korean. They now live on the island of Oahu. Chris formerly played the Wide Receiver role on the Dartmouth Football Team and is a Computer Science major. He plans to enter the workforce as a software engineer next year.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Chris’ family has historically celebrated American cultural holidays, and their family’s food influences draw lightly from Chris’ mother’s Korean background. During Christmas, Chris’ family typically hosts a dinner for close and extended family, inviting upwards of 20 people for this dinner. The family spends a full day preparing large amounts of food for the group.
  • Social Context: This description was mentioned when the interviewee was asked about their Christmas dinner traditions. Chris’ family has made this dinner for several years with limited alterations.

Item:

  • Chris’ Christmas family dinner features a number of Thanksgiving foods, including mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. The hallmark feature of their dinner is a roasted prime rib, and the dinner ends with a plethora of desserts. This dinner is easy for Chris’ family to prepare in large quantities – they have many materials left over from Thanksgiving, and everyone in the family enjoys the foods.

Transcript:

  • “It’s funny. Our Christmas dinner has a bunch of Thanksgiving foods like mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. But our dinner is more formal and dessert-themed. We do a roasted prime rib, and we finish the dinner with a chocolate cake, ice cream layer cake, brownies, and regular ice cream. We don’t really have a food specific to Christmas. We do prime rib only because we don’t want another turkey.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • “We love the Christmas dinner. The foods we make are agreeable to everyone, and we really have no complaints from anyone.”

Collector’s Comments:

  • Through my collection process, I’ve noticed that many families seem to prepare whatever foods are easiest to make in large quantities. For a lot of American families, Thanksgiving foods appear to fit this description well. Some families may have specific dishes they make on Christmas based on family-specific traditions, but it appears that Thanksgiving foods appear to be folkloric in American culture. I’ve learned that Christmas dinner is merely a formal meal to be enjoyed by all members of the family – however, certain foods are definitely folkloric in nature.

Collected By:

Evan Fu, 21

Palo Alto, CA

Hanover, NH

Dartmouth College

RUSS013

Fall 2021

Football Commitment Cards

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Informant Data:

Michael Gabriel Flores is a twenty-year-old male from Arlington, Texas. He currently attends Dartmouth College, where he plays as an Offensive Lineman on the varsity football team. Prior to his entrance into collegiate sports, he captained his football team at All Saints Episcopal School in Fort Worth, TX.

Contextual Data:

Mr. Flores plays football for the Dartmouth Big Green, a program which has a storied legacy in and of itself. However, even before his induction into a Division I program, Michael was exposed to traditions within his own high school football program at All Saints Episcopal. As an Episcopal educational institution, All Saints promotes the Anglican-Christian tradition of worship and seeks to foster holistic student-athletes with an emphasis on religion.

Item:

In the locker room, every individual on Michael’s football team would have to create a “commitment card” and speak in front of everyone else about their commitment to the game and each other. This commitment card would then be passed to another player on the team, whose job it was to keep the originator accountable for their actions, both on and off the field. These cards embodied the school’s values of righteous action and positive reinforcement, and were intended to guide players in becoming great athletes and pillars of their respective communities.

Jonathan Hu

204 Winesap Rd

Stamford, Connecticut 06903

Dartmouth College

Russian 13 Fall 2021

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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Entrée: Braised Pork and Gold Ingot Egg

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General Information about Item:

  • Genre: Material Lore – dish, recipe; Customary Lore – celebration, family tradition, superstition, historical story
  • Language: Chinese (Mandarin)
  • Country of Origin: China
  • Informant: Y.Z.
  • Date Collected: November 7, 2020

Informant Data:

  • Y.Z. is about ~50 years old, and she currently resides in Shanghai, China. She was born in Beijing, China during the Cultural Revolution and grew up in relative poverty, as was the case with most Chinese families back then. After attending university in Beijing, she pursued her graduate studies in the US. She learned many traditional Chinese dishes from her mother and enjoys cooking for her family.

Contextual Data:

Historical & Cultural Context

  • During the Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368) in China, the main currency was gold and silver ingots shaped like tiny boats called “yuán bǎo” (元宝). Many traditional Chinese New Year dishes such as dumplings are prepared in the shape of these ingots as a symbol for wealth and prosperity.
  • In the 1960s and 1970s, China’s economy was in a terrible state. Meat, eggs, and sugar were heavily rationed. As a result, most families could not prepare meat dishes and desserts for their daily meals. During Chinese New Year, the rations were temporarily increased, so families would celebrate by making large meat dishes and fancy desserts.

Social Context

  • Chinese New Year meals are always eaten as family. Most of the dishes have auspicious names, colors, or shapes that symbolize longevity, wealth, or good fortune. By eating these dishes, families express their hope for more prosperity and blessings in the coming year.

Item:

  • Braised Pork and Gold Ingot Egg, or “hóng shāo ròu yuán bǎo dàn” (红烧肉元宝蛋) in Chinese, is a popular meat dish eaten for Chinese New Year, both in the northern and southern provinces. Diced pork belly is braised in a broth consisting of soy sauce, sugar, star anise, ginger, and garlic. Boiled eggs are then flavored using the remaining meat stock. Afterwards, the top half of the egg whites are removed to give the eggs a distinctive “yuán bǎo” (元宝) shape. Finally, the eggs are plated on top of the pork belly, and the family shares the dish together to express their wishes for the new year. There are several variations of this dish according to regional preferences. For example, in Shanghai, families tend to add much more sugar to the dish to give it a sweeter taste.

Image File:

image file

The completed dish (Photo was taken by Y.Z. on November 7, 2020; she prepared the dish using a recipe from her mother.)

Translation of Interview Clip:

Y.Z. (informant): The dish I’m introducing is called “hóng shāo ròu yuán bǎo dàn” (红烧肉元宝蛋). Um, this dish, we always had it for Chinese New Year when I was a child. So, when I grew up in the 60s and 70s, China’s economy was pretty behind. Ingredients like pork and eggs were scarce resources, rationed every month by the government. For each person, every month, um, there was about one pound of meat and eggs in total. So, usually, we rarely had a chance to eat meat. That’s why during Chinese New Year, when the rations are slightly increased, we would use, um, pork and eggs to make the dish. One reason why this dish is so popular is because the meat is braised in soy sauce and other condiments, including star anise, scallion, ginger, and garlic… uh, the remaining meat stock is used to flavor the eggs and can also be saved for other dishes. The reason why the eggs are called ” yuán bǎo dàn ” (元宝蛋), is like this. “Yuán bǎo” (元宝), they are Chinese ingots, the shape is like a boat. During the Yuan Dynasty, gold and silver were used as currency, and they were molded into such a shape. ” Yuán” (元) refers to the Yuan Dynasty, and ” bǎo” (宝) means treasure. So in this dish, you can make the eggs resemble “yuán bǎo” (元宝) by removing part of the egg white. I guess this is a nice wish, the hope that, next year, life will be bountiful, the family income will increase, so people make this dish “hóng shāo ròu yuán bǎo dàn” (红烧肉元宝蛋). That’s about it. Are there any parts that you are not clear about?

W.W. (collector): Great, thanks for sharing. So I wanted to ask, is this dish a Beijing specialty or eaten widely across China?

Y.Z.: Uh, this is great question. This dish, I think it is eaten in many places, by many people. For Chinese New Year, both in the north and in the south, it is one of the most common dishes on the dinner table, suitable for young and old alike. Everyone likes it very much and eats the dish to show their wishes. Even though, the standards of living are higher now, and the dish can be made any time of the year, but as a tradition, many families still prepare it as a festival dish for Chinese New Year.

Collector’s Comments:

  • I remember eating “hóng shāo ròu” (红烧肉), or braised pork, as a child, but this is my first time hearing about “yuán bǎo dàn” (元宝蛋). I am impressed by the level of creativity in the preparation of the eggs.
  • Homeopathic magic is present in the superstitions related to the informant’s dish: eating the ingot-shaped eggs brings wealth and good fortune.

Collector’s Name: Winston Wang

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Topping: Osmanthus Honey

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General Information about Item:

  • 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.

Collector’s Name: Winston Wang

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