Author: Madison Rousseau

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The New Noodle

              It is difficult to find an exact date when the veggie noodle first came into being, but the veggie noodle seems to have peaked in popularity after 2010. There is growing reference to “veggie pasta” on Twitter only after 2010 and “spiralizer” and “zoodle” only begin to appear on Twitter in 2010, all of which is suggestive of a peak year in popularity. Veggie Pasta and Spiralizer only started to have accounts on Facebook in 2014 and 2017, respectively. On Facebook the veggie noodles that are the focus of this research paper first appeared in late 2015. “Zoodle” however, a type of veggie noodle that is short for zucchini noodle, first appeared in 2012 and 2013 on Facebook. When searching for a definition of “veggie noodle,” I came across the dilemma Corrado Barberis warned of in his “Encyclopedia of Pasta” when he talked of the uselessness of searching for a definition of pasta—no scholastic dictionary had a definition of “veggie noodle” (Vita 14). The veggie noodle, being unrecognized on Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster, is defined on HuffPost as a “standard vegetable” sliced into “noodle-like spaghetti shapes.” It has been a growing trend that is used as an alternative for what people think of as carb-loaded pasta. Traditional pasta has many different shapes, thousands even, and veggie pasta is trying to mimic these shapes, having one called “veggiccine” now as a clear reference to “fettuccine” (Cece’s Veggie Co). The advent of the veggie noodle interests me because due to its youth, it is a topic that has not yet been broached in research, so hopefully my study will pave the way for future studies on this subject. Noodles are taken for granted so often in what they can tell people about human interactions and various cultures, making them underappreciated edible cultural artifacts, and veggie noodles get even less attention than the average noodle. Veggie noodles are even newer than radiatori as a noodle, which only became invented sometime between World War I and World War II (Hildebrand and Kenedy 206). Past studies of food have shown that nationality affects peoples’ tastes and perceptions of different types of food (Dean et al 2007). Sociologically, the cuisine of some countries is unthinkable to eat, much less serve, in other countries, such as the taboo of insects as a form of cuisine in most European countries and the U.S. In this study, I seek to find if Americans and Italians react differently to the idea of veggie noodles in place of traditional noodles, thus exploring food choices through a cross-cultural comparative study. I hypothesize that there will be a smaller proportion of Italians than Americans willing to replace their typical noodles with veggie noodles in dishes.

              The reasoning behind my hypothesis goes as follows: Italy and the U.S. have different prioritizations of food and tradition and differing degrees of obesity. Italian culture is heavily food-centered, more so than American culture in that life seems to revolve around food in Italy. Italians typically have long familial meals while Americans have embraced the fast-life in that convenience is prioritized over connecting socially and bonding with others. Italy is even the home of the proud founder of the Slow Food movement, Folco Portinari. The Slow Food movement quickly became an international movement after its inception and is meant to combat the growing spread of fast food, spreading but not deviating from its original purpose which was to reject the fast food practice that Portinari saw as taking away from years of Italian tradition. The Slow Food movement’s manifesto, written by Folco Portinari, views fast food, which is the embodiment of “Fast Life,” as an “insidious virus” that “disrupts our habits, pervades the privacy of our homes and forces us to eat Fast Foods” (SlowFood USA). Different countries’ branches of the Slow Food movement all share the same manifesto it was built upon. Not only is Italy the birth place of the Slow Food movement, but it also has a stronger attachment to tradition than the U.S. and most European countries today, hence saints’ days and harvest festivals that harken back to Italy’s peasant tradition, the continued honoring of the ritual of family gatherings around a meal at the kitchen/dining room table, the strong emphasis placed on fresh high-quality local produce, and the visiting of small family-owned businesses and local shops based on time-honored artisan traditions (Dunnage 3). Italy has also been shown to be the European country that displays the least amount of interest in veganism and one of the main selling points of veggie noodles is that they act as a vegan-friendly substitute to traditional pasta. Dairy and eggs are also staples of Italian food, serving as the main ingredient in many dishes including traditional pastas, so Italians with their stronger attachment to tradition may be even less likely to give a positive response to veggie noodles because it could appear as if it is trying to supersede the traditional Italian diet (Vegconomist, 2019). The U.S. is constantly progressing and evolving, and though change can be a good thing, change also inherently means a departure from the status quo, or in other words, tradition, so the U.S. appears as if it is less attached to tradition than Italy. The U.S. has also been around for a much shorter period of time and so its traditions are less strong and sturdily in place because it has not had as much time to strengthen them as Italy has. Another reason I hypothesize that the United States will have a larger percentage of positive responses toward veggie pasta than Italians is because the United States has a much bigger problem with obesity than Italy does. Italy is ranked as having one of the lowest obesity rates out of the OECD countries, which consists of some European countries, Korea, Canada, and the U.S, whereas the U.S. has the highest obesity rate out of all of these countries (OECD). Since veggie pasta is a trending health fad and there is such a strong focus on obesity in America, Americans may be more likely to jump on the bandwagon and try veggie pasta because of the urge to not become obese. This study I am conducting could test the strength and resiliency of tradition in Italy today because veggie noodles are a relatively new development that differ from the traditional noodles made of flour that typically go into Italian cooking.

              In order to conduct this study of cross-cultural comparison, I employed the survey technique and textual analysis. The reason I chose the survey as my method of study is because surveys tend to give larger sample sizes due to the ability to widely disperse them. Respondents in this survey were made anonymous, so as to avoid response bias. I only made the survey two questions because people are more incentivized to take a short survey than a long survey, but I also gave the respondents the option of elaborating on their answers with a comment at the end of the survey. I chose very carefully how I would phrase the questions I was choosing to ask them so as for the answers to go toward answering my underlying research question of whether there were differences that could be shown in Italian and American cultures through responses to the veggie noodle. The two questions were verbatim, “Did you grow up in the United States or Italy?” and “Are you ok with replacing pasta with veggie noodles in dishes?” The possible answers one could give to these questions were either “United States” or “Italy” and “Yes,” “No,” or “It depends.” I phrased the first question the way I did because I wanted to ensure that the person grew up in one of the countries and if I was to say “born” instead of “grew up” the person might not have been in the country during the most formative identity-shaping years of his/her life and would not necessarily have been immersed in the culture. The second question I used “replacing pasta” instead of “replacing noodles” because the sample of people I am studying either grew up in Italy or the United States, both of which are in the Western hemisphere, and people in the Western Hemisphere tend to call noodles “pasta.” I used two of the most popular active social media sites, Facebook and Instagram, to reach out to people on completing this survey. I managed to find many Facebook groups consisting of people in Italy in an effort to gather as many Italians as I could for the survey, however I had to be approved to join these closed groups first by the administrators of the groups. Upon approval of my requests to join, I shared the survey on “ITALIA! TU SEI LA MIA PATRIA!” meaning “ITALY! YOU ARE MY NATION!” and the group page “Italian Food & Recipes,” sending it individually over Facebook Messenger and Instagram to many Italians that I found in these groups and in my social media feed, as well. The standard message I would put on group pages was “Ciao a tutti!!! I’m doing a research project and would really appreciate your answers. It’s just 2 questions that are 2 quick clicks. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/358CWM6. Thank you so much/molte grazie!!!” The message I would send privately is similar in dialect but more personable, being “Ciao! Possi prendere il questo sguardo, per favore? È per la mia classe e è solo due domande https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/L9P6MY2?.” I opened the survey to the public on August 6thand closed it on August 9th. I used textual analysis to find reasoning behind my survey results.

                 My survey results showed that thirty people in all completed the survey. 70% of the respondents, 21 people, were from the United States and 30%, 9 people, were from Italy, despite efforts to get more Italians to take the survey. Six people, approximately 20% of respondents in total, responded positively to replacing traditional noodles with veggie noodles. Eleven people, approximately 37% of respondents in total, responded negatively to replacing traditional noodles with veggie noodles. Thirteen people, approximately 43% of respondents in total, responded neutrally to replacing pasta with veggie noodles. Approximately 44.4% of Italians responded neutrally to replacing pasta with veggie noodles. Approximately 33.3% of Italians responded positively to replacing pasta with veggie noodles. Approximately 22.2% of Italians responded negatively to replacing pasta with veggie noodles. There was a different trend for American respondents, though. Approximately 42.85% of Americans responded neutrally to replacing pasta with veggie noodles. Approximately 14.28% of Americans responded positively to replacing pasta with veggie noodles. Approximately 42.85% of Americans responded negatively to replacing pasta with veggie noodles. The Americans and Italians did not differ so much in the neutral department, but they seem to differ dramatically in the positive and negative departments. One respondent from Italy commented that “Italy is a more simple life” with his/her answer of “It depends,” which I interpret to mean that Italians will do as they do, meaning they may do it and they may not depending on what happens in life. Another person from Italy commented with his/her answer of “It depends” that he/she would “replace pasta with veggie noodles only if cooking for a weekday meal or on any normal day,” but that he/she would “use normal pasta if wanting to invite friends at home for dinner or for special occasions” or “festivities” or “if wanting to prepare traditional foods,” which I found to be the most interesting of answers because of what it could show culturally behind these neutral answers, which were the majority of answers. The comment seems to show that the Italian would not use veggie noodles if trying to impress, but would if not trying to impress. I find it ironic that he/she will replace pasta with veggie noodles to likely impress with his/her figure when company is not around and if company is around he/she will use just normal noodles to impress his/her guests, so the two different forms of pasta would be used for two different forms of impressing. Another aspect underlying this comment could be that the Italian would use “normal pasta” with friends because he or she perceives those around them to not like veggie noodles and thus, to have social acceptance, does not cook them. The respondent claims that he/she would not replace noodles in traditional dishes with veggie noodles, showing an importance the respondent places on tradition, since the person is willing to replace noodles with veggie noodles in certain cases for non-traditional dishes.

 

Figure 1.                                        

                              Figure 2.

 

              Though I was surprised by the results of this particular study, I am content with what the finding reveals about Italian and American culture. All of my reasoning led me to believe that more Italians would respond negatively to veggie noodles than Americans proportionately, but my findings show the inverse of this. Proportionately, more Americans respond negatively to veggie noodles than Italians. Only a small minority of Italians respond negatively to veggie noodles replacing their typical noodles in dishes. However, a large percentage of Italians respond indifferently or neutrally to the replacement of noodles with veggie noodles. This rather large percentage of Italians could be an indicator that many Italians are willing to let go of tradition in certain contexts. The use of machines when making pasta in Italy shows a shift away from the traditional making of pasta such as illustrated in “Learn to Make Pasta from a Nonna in Italy” and “How to Make Pasta Like a Badass Italian Nonna,” but using vegetables instead of flour to make pasta changes the main component of most pastas in Italy, acting as a much larger and obvious form of deviation from tradition. Only a minority of Americans respond positively to replacing noodles with veggie noodles. This percentage could lead to a few possible conclusions. One possibility is that Americans have not gotten any better at cooking vegetables properly than Lin Yutang remembers them to be and this calamity of cooking is why many Americans do not want to venture into replacing typical noodles with veggie noodles (Yutang 253). Or perhaps, more likely, a large percentage of Americans respond negatively towards replacing noodles with veggie noodles because despite many advertisements and encouragements to combat obesity in America, there also is a large influx of commercials, posters, and promotional speakers advocating for people to accept all body shapes and sizes—obese and skinny alike—thus possibly canceling out the effect ads on battling obesity would have otherwise. Non-response was probably the largest complication I experienced when conducting this study. Despite my best efforts in needling my way into the online Italian community in order to get more Italian responses to my survey, relatively few Italians partook in the survey. This complication could have been due to a number of factors, one of which could be news of a possible online scam spreading around in Italy, in turn making the Italians believe that I was a bot trying to hack their accounts or steal their information, leading to them not even opening up the survey link. Although, I cannot discount the possibility that I faced this complication with Italian strangers and not with American strangers because of a cultural difference, as well. Italians have long been documented to distrust others and my own recent experience could possibly attest to that, thus this pervasive cultural distrust could have led many Italians to not click the survey link out of suspicion of what it might be. In an effort to have a larger pool of Italians in my survey, I lost eleven Italian friends on Instagram simply because of my request in Italian for them to take the survey. This did not happen with American respondents, on the other hand. If my study were ever to be replicated by another researcher, a different result may appear with a larger sample size of Italians taking the survey. Future research could also explore the possible differences in responses towards veggie noodles, or other phenomena if the researcher so chooses that deviate from tradition, between different generations of Italians. In hindsight, I would have liked to add an age-range question in the survey to see if age could have played a factor at all, or if other factors were at work, with the overall results.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Bratskeir, Kate. 2017. How Zoodles And Spirals Will Change The Way You Eat Veggies. HuffPost. HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/vegetable-noodles-are-going-to-change-everything_n_5112928?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALLQ5-SzEPfP4zxAFKeIZvoGHdh_57ieELDl9LN3Ugw3Z-KaCeLJJGUw28Ssmbj3ax9-ymiSmQUhtJlRfXaTEWQblAvQOt6aJbTDI4MYMdxEgjCNvM7AaJxDo3XEnD546BglB9zJkLNxUNfuhUek2pyB9IkZrlc3Edi40OSpvjyK, accessed August 6, 2019.

 

Cavalli, Alessandro. 2001. Reflections on Political Culture and the “Italian National Character”. Daedalus 130: 119–137. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20027709, accessed August 9, 2019.

 

  1. Italy—Language, Culture, Customs and Etiquette. Commisceo Global Consulting Ltd. https://www.commisceo-global.com/resources/country-guides/italy-guide, accessed August 9, 2019.

Dean, M., R. Shepherd, A. Arvola, et al. 2007. Consumer Perceptions of Healthy Cereal Products and Production Methods. Journal of Cereal Science. Academic Press. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0733521007001269, accessed August 4, 2019.

 

 

Dunnage, Jonathan. 2002. Introduction: Between Tradition and Modernity. Essay. In Twentieth Century Italy: A Social History. 1st edition Pp. 3–33. London: Routledge.

 

European Countries Most Informed About Veganism Ranked in Order. 2019. Vegconomist – the Vegan Business Magazine. https://vegconomist.com/studies-and-numbers/european-countries-most-informed-about-veganism-ranked-in-order/, accessed August 7, 2019.

 

Heath, Elizabeth. 2018. How To Make Pasta, According To Three Real Italian Nonnas. HuffPost. HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/make-pasta-like-italian-nonnas_n_5b9bf0f8e4b013b0977a7d01, accessed August 9, 2019.

 

Hildebrand, Caz, and Jacob Kenedy. 2011. The Geometry of Pasta. London: Boxtree.

 

Lever, Charles James. Italian Distrust. Dickens Journals Online. http://www.djo.org.uk/indexes/articles/italian-distrust.html, accessed August 9, 2019.

 

OECD. Obesity and the Economics of Prevention: Fit Not Fat–Italy Key Facts. OECD: Better Policies for Better Lives. https://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/obesityandtheeconomicsofpreventionfitnotfat-italykeyfacts.htm, accessed August 7, 2019.

 

Slow Food USA. Manifesto. Slowfood USA. https://www.slowfoodusa.org/manifesto, accessed August 7, 2019.

 

The Skinny on Veggiccine®. 2017. Ceces Veggie Co. https://cecesveggieco.com/2017/12/20/the-skinny-on-veggiccine/, accessed August 6, 2019.

 

Vita, Oretta Zanini De. 2009. Encyclopedia of Pasta. University of California Press.

 

White, Annette. 2018. Learn to Make Pasta From a Nonna in Italy. Bucket List Journey | Travel Lifestyle Blog. https://bucketlistjourney.net/learn-make-pasta-nonna-northern-italy/, accessed August 9, 2019.

 

Yutang, Lin. 1937. The Importance of Living: a John Day Book. New York: Reynal and Hitchcock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Pasta, Motorcycles, Pizza, and Soccer — Madison Rousseau’s final project

            The questions I ask Silvana are meant to be more open-ended rather than simple “yes/no” questions, so as to encourage deeper discussion. The questions go as follows—

1) Name, age, where you live, occupation?

2)  What role does the noodle play in your family? (How often do you eat noodles? In what setting? Family traditions?  Do you make your own noodles or do you buy them?)

3)  Do you have any stories or myths you recall associated with noodles? 

4)  What does the noodle mean to you?

5)  What is your favorite local noodle?  What makes it unique? How do you cook them? 

6)  Do you have a favorite noodle restaurant?  Tell me about that restaurant.

7)  Are there any cultural rituals and symbolism associated with noodles? 

8)  How do noodles and eating noodles affect your health and wellness?  Your thoughts on instant noodles?

9)  Has your habit of eating noodles changed over time? 

10)  Do you associate noodles with any kind of emotion? 

11)  Do you associate different kinds of noodles with different levels of education and class structures? 

12)  How important do you think the noodle is in defining Italian or Chinese culture? Is it possible to separate your culture from the noodle?

13)  Could you share a favorite recipe and the stories around that recipe?

 

            Recently, I have been given the opportunity to interview Signora Silvana Sulejmani, a fifty-four year old Italian immigrant. Between an ethnographic study of a restaurant and an interview, I ultimately chose to do an interview because I wanted a more personalized and in-depth look at the influence of noodles in one person’s life, this one person being Silvana Sulejmani. 

                                   Video interview can be seen here– https://youtu.be/9w0ryAZ3RIE

            Similar to the transportation of crops and foods from different countries, as is quite common with globalization, Silvana was raised in Italy and found her way over to North America. Her Italian authenticity is captured when she instinctively starts speaking in Italian at the start of the interview and accidentally mixing italian with english throughout. She was born and raised in Emilia-Romagna, home of her favorite noodle restaurant Alla Doro and what she calls “the country of field pasta,” painting a picture of farm-to-table dining with the phrase. She explained to me that Alla Doro means the Golden Wing, perhaps named this because it takes customers onto its golden wing and flies their taste buds up to heaven. Emilia-Romagna lies in the northern region of Italy and is known to be “one of the most fertile and productive regions of Italy” due to its close proximity to the Adriatic Sea (Discover-Italy). Silvana’s eyes light up as she recalls the fame of Emilia-Romagna being “the country of field pasta,” as if it is a source of pride for her to say that this, the country of field pasta, is her home. As well as this should be a source of pride for her—her homeland has been producing the same agriculture it does now since antiquity, feeding generations and generations of people and keeping people happy on full stomachs. Pasta has been an affordable food that comes in mass quantities for a long time and this affordability and quantity was part of the reason Emilia-Romagna was such a wealthy and productive hub of Italy throughout history. 

 

            Though my interview only allows an estimated eight minutes with the company of Silvana, her warm nature is still captured in this short period of time. Silvana is a talkative and very warm-natured person, making me wonder if her personality could at all be explained with Thomas Talhem’s Rice Theory, within which he finds that agriculture affects regional cultures and thus the personalities of those living in the regions. Rice farming is primarily done in northern Italy where Emilia-Romana is and, according to Talhelm, fosters a cooperative personality and Silvana was more than cooperative in our interview, answering questions I did not even ask yet, such as her belief in where noodles come from. She said that noodles come from the Middle East, but that Italians give pasta their name, being why she believes pasta cannot be separate from Italian culture as it is an essential part of the Italian culture. 

 

            The questions may be varied, but two themes appear that remain constant throughout the interview—happiness and home. As evident from the interview, only one word can capture the emotion Silvana feels when she thinks of pasta—happiness. The answer to this question of which emotion she associated with pasta required little to no thought and she even looks at peace when sounding out her answer to this, in a temporary state of bliss as if caused by memory of pasta alone.  Though preceding the interview, Silvana only mentions four things that she claims to be Italians’ favorite things, being “pasta, motorcycles, pizza, and soccer,” something else captured her and her husband’s eyes when making the monumental decision to move to America—hope and happiness. Silvana was thirty-two when she and her husband moved to America to start a family, her husband all the while carrying the idea of the American Dream in his mind. They wanted the children they brought into this world to have a good education and many opportunities available to them and felt like America possessed a very strong multicultural presence that would serve to make their children more open-minded and comfortable with people belonging to different cultures than their own, and thus more ready for the world. Though, one can only hope that this embracement of other cultures does not lead to them losing their own culture along the way. As a safeguard against losing their own culture, Silvana utilizes noodles, bringing a piece of home with her to America, similar to Ponzio Bastone declaring a chest full of maccheroni when he arrived in Genova in 1297. Perhaps if her children eat their culture in the form of pasta, as pasta is an edible cultural artifact, it will become part of them and will never leave them. 

 

            The interview reflects a gradual shift away from tradition in Italian culture. Though Silvana does not take the easy way out by buying her pasta precooked and rolls out the dough herself, she also does not let tradition keep her from making a hard job easy when it comes to making various shapes of pasta. She claims that she does not use machines for shaping tortellini, probably due to this being her favorite pasta and wanting it to taste it’s absolute best, but says she does use machines for pasta that are not similar in shape to tortellini or lasagna. The use of machines turns away from the tradition of shaping pasta by hand, without machines, as illustrated with the anger of the two nonne, Elide and Graziella, towards Franca for proposing the use of machines to help make the pasta because it is faster in “How to Make Handmade Pasta Like a Badass Italian Nonna.”    As travel becomes easier, this may parallel the shift away from tradition as Silvana did confide that she felt her eating of pasta has been affected by moving to America from Italy. 

 

            Comfort foods typically bring the image of fattening food to mind, many associating any carbs with the dietary devil. Comfort foods do not have to be unhealthy, though, and many people automatically associate pasta as a tried and true comfort food being deleterious towards one’s health. Despite popular beliefs to the contrary, Silvana believes that pasta is a healthy food–as long as it is cooked al dente, she says. This belief in pasta as a healthy and core part of one’s diet is reflected in her own diet where pasta is a staple at her kitchen table as it is at many an Italian’s kitchen table. She has pasta for every meal along with something else. 

 


                                       Works Cited 

Doucleff, Michaeleen. 2014 Rice Theory: Why Eastern Cultures Are More Cooperative. NPR. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/05/08/310477497/rice-theory-why-eastern-cultures-are-more-cooperative, accessed August 4, 2019.

Emilia Romagna. 2017. Italian Tourism Official Website. http://www.italia.it/en/discover-italy/emilia-romagna.html, accessed August 4, 2019.

Heath, Elizabeth. 2018. How to Make Handmade Pasta Like a Badass Italian Nonna. HuffPost. HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/make-pasta-like-italian-nonnas_n_5b9bf0f8e4b013b0977a7d01, accessed August 4, 2019.

Hodgson, Moira. 1981. REDISCOVERING ITALY’S FAMOUS RICE DISH. The New York Times. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/01/garden/rediscovering-italy-s-famous-rice-dish.html, accessed August 4, 2019.

 

 

 

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“Date? No; Put Pasta on my Plate” — Madison Rousseau’s Journal 4

“Date? No; Put Pasta on my Plate”

I twirl the slender noodles around my fork
Deep red marinara
mixed with spicy herbs
My date talks on
I see his lips moving
but it’s the pasta that I focus on

My fork pierces my plump meatballs
into little chunks
Perfect bite-sized brownish chunks
They are
juicy
as I cut
My date asks me what I’m thinking
I mean to say, “nothing”
but “noodles” comes out

He grows upset that I hadn’t listened
He stands and prepares to leave
I panic and spout
“I skipped lunch for you
I exercised for you
I’ve been waiting for you
I’ve dreamt of you”
And just like a dream,
the date fades away
and I can let the words
meant for my pasta
sink into the gravy

I should
run and lie to him
that I listened
all along

But I can’t risk the waiter whisking my pasta away
The urge is strong but my hunger is stronger

I stay and twirl
I eat and think
I think I messed up a date
Just to satiate my palate

I chose pasta over a guy
easily ranking a number
eight

I should have said “Here, have my pasta as a symbol
of my love”
But I reason, that’s
only something
a married couple does

But instead I eat and sip my drink
As I ponder my priorities
The date left me
with a growing cold pasta plate
My hunger subsides
I finished my plate
And then I think,
“It was worth
the date”
And think of my missed lunch,
“And the wait”

The particular poem of Jennifer Barone’s that is my favorite is “You’ve Ruined My Pasta” from her collection of poems in Saporoso. This poem is about a man/woman that grows angry at a person close to them for not cooking his/her dinner al dente, as Italians like to say. The narrator is angry with the loved one and yet, as the poem draws to a close, the narrator slowly realizes that he/she should not have lashed out at his/her loved one and feels regret for not having him/her there because despite the pasta being bad, his/her company would have made it better. Jennifer Barone’s poem is the muse for my own. In my poem, “Date? No; Put Pasta on my Plate,” I try to borrow a bit of the tone from Barone’s poem and add a twist at the end.

Poetry has the power to draw tears, thoughts, and laughs from people. The laughs Barone’s poem drew from me and the kinship to her that I felt are what ultimately drew me to her poem. Her piece does more than just make me laugh; it makes me relate. I share her passion and zest for noodles/pasta. I am so passionate about pasta that I often tell my friends, “The day I choose a guy over pasta is the day I’ll know I love him” because that means my passion for him rivals my passion for pasta, which says a lot. A list of my priorities should illustrate my love for pasta just perfectly: first would be family, and second would be either food/pasta or friends, but those two really war for second place if I’m being honest. I am like a child with ice-cream when I have a plate or bowl of pasta, especially if its lemon alfredo, pesto, cacio pepe, or spaghetti and meatballs—the quadruple threat to my heart. My overwhelming love for pasta is similar to Jennifer Barone’s narrator in that I sometimes make rash decisions based on food. Just as the narrator of her poem makes a fuss over messed up pasta, I too have fallen prey to my blinding love for pasta, forgetting how much more important maintaining relationships is to pasta. That poorly made pasta dish I am frustrated over will pass from my life just as it will pass through my digestive system, but family and friends however are not a fleeting matter. I sometimes think more with my stomach than I do my mind though, so at times I forget that. In my interpretation of Barone’s poem, the narrator lets his/her love for pasta overcome his/her love for the friend or partner. I, sadly and humorously, felt like I was reliving a memory with this poem—that anger and that passion all for pasta, and then that regret on how I behaved. Both Italians and French are widely known for their passion and quick tempers and though I am proud of my ancestry and culture, I unfortunately have both the Italian and French’s quick temper.An Italian and French person’s temper is like a hot flash on a stove—it burns, it sears, and as fast as it appears, it is gone. Combine an Italian and French person’s quick temper with a great love for food and you got a messy situation when a dish doesn’t come out right. Just as the narrator makes the mistake of prizing pasta over people, just as she/he does with his/her friend or partner, I have also made the same mistake. The narrator of Barone’s poem regrets seething at his/her friend or partner by the end of the poem, realizing an epiphany that his/her loved ones matter more than a messed-up pasta dish and they could have made it better by just being there as company. While Barone opted for her narrator to have this grand epiphany, I decided to end my poem on a twist. Rather than my narrator reaching this ultimate enlightenment, she continues to love her pasta and ultimately chooses food over a good-looking guy, ranking an eight on the zero-to-ten scale. Needless to say, my narrator shows some regret as evident with her constant “should have” statements, but she ultimately does not regret finishing her pasta and continues to be happy with the dish, not truly realizing her lesson—that people matter more than food. This twist was not just for comedic value. Another reason was because it was to show that, realistically, people don’t always realize their mistakes. Also, the spaghetti is just so good that she cannot bear to leave it—this really shows the strong pull food can have over people. It is no coincidence that people say food is the way to a man’s heart—it’s also the way to a woman’s heart, and can sometimes captivate it so much that the woman may realize she loves the food better than the man! Ironically, throughout the semester we have learned that pasta serves a social purpose by bringing people together, but in my poem, it tore the woman and the man apart.

Jennifer Barone is an Italian-American that grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Italians might have left Italy for hopes of a better life, as illustrated in Angelina Porcarelli’s Immigrant Story, but one thing they brought with them was pasta. It is hard to get settled and find a job in a foreign country, but pasta provides affordable food in a large quantity, making it the more economical choice as well as giving an Italian some comfort in reminding them of home when in a foreign land. This pasta was then passed down through generations often, hence the creation of Barone’s book which completely revolves around pasta.

Perhaps, partly, why I felt such a kinship with Jennifer Barone is that I, too, am an Italian-American and my family practically lives for pasta. We have a spaghetti and meatball recipe that has traveled through our family for generations since my ancestors moved to the United States, though they did not bring this recipe from Italy, needless to say.

Though DNA is microscopic and invisible to the human eye, some cultural DNA shows itself in Barone’s and my own poems. In stanza six of “You’ve Ruined My Pasta,” for instance, Barone writes, “What would my ancestors say? A tradition of pasta; Cooked with pride; Savored with loved ones; Ignored.” She illustrates how pasta is part of her heritage, being a long carried on tradition and the pride that Italians put into making pasta, just as Chef Locatelli remarked on how Italians put pride in something as routine as cooking in The Art of The Feast: Italy Unpacked. At the end of stanza one in my own poem, “Date? No; Put Pasta on my Plate,” I write “but it’s the pasta I focus on” when talking about the date—my veins are practically noodles because pasta is such a large part of my Italian DNA, making it terribly hard for myself to focus on anything else if pasta’s on the table. The main topic of DNA mainly revolves around genes, but I do think there is such a thing as cultural DNA–culture transferring from generation to generation in a family. Mine and Jennifer Barone’s carry some strong Italian cultural DNA it would seem, despite not being immersed in Italy.

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 Works Cited

Barone, Jennifer, and Lam Khong. 2017. Saporoso: Poems of Italian Food & Love. Place of publication not identified: Feather Press.

KakaTonyLa. 2013. BBC – Italy Unpacked: The Art of the Feast. YouTube. YouTube. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BW9-b3J3-DY, accessed July 30, 2019.

Poets.org. Academy of American Poets. https://poets.org/text/great-anthologies-food-poems, accessed July 29, 2019.

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The Many Reflections of the Noodle–Madison Rousseau, Journal 3

The Many Reflections of the Noodle

A 2002 archaeological study in the Qinghai Province left people stunned when archaeologists stumbled upon a 4,000-year-old bowl of noodles on the Chinese archeological site. Many would think that this finding would be conclusive in determining that China was where the noodle originated because it is said to be the earliest noodles ever found, yet there is still debate as to which country really founded this edible cultural artifact. This continued debate shows how the noodle is a source of cultural pride, something that would give whatever country or region of the world it came from bragging rights essentially. Some think the noodle came from Italy, others believe it came from China, and there are some that believe it came from the Middle East. Regardless of whichever country invented noodles however, both China and Italy should be extremely proud of the noodle dishes they have maintained over many hundreds of years, or as people from the Western Hemisphere like to call “pasta” dishes. The noodle reflects the culture, regions, cities, and people that cook them in these countries and plays a very integral role in the food culture of both China and Italy. With the cultural and regional importance attached to noodles, it is understandable as to why the birthplace of noodles is still so hotly contested.

 

Culture consists of many aspects such as language, religion, fashion, customs, and as the basis of this paper—food. Both Chinese and Italians are very food-centered people, so food happens to be a very large part that makes up their cultures, and is also a primary source of enjoyment and pleasure in life. The noodle is continuously referred to as a culture bearer, conveying information about cultures and being the rare cultural artifact that we actually put into us. Variability of food, such as varying shapes and compositions of noodles, is not necessary for human survival, but humans partake in such variability anyways, and there is variability amongst these variabilities in food around the globe at least partly due to cultural differences (https://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/food-chinese-culture). What Chinese see as “human nature” or cultural traditions and “worldly common sense” or customs are reflected through noodles (Zhang and Ma 209). In China, a common greeting is “Have you eaten today?” and a compliment is “You look fat,” both comments probably being seen as odd in Western culture but normal in Chinese culture. Though there is a strong focus on food in China, overindulgence in food is frowned upon, according to Chang’s Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives. Food is greatly valued for its medicinal properties in China, thus food acts as a substitute for medicine oftentimes, showing a cultural preference for natural products rather than pharmaceutical products. With this focus on the medicinal properties of food, there is a large focus on health in China. This focus on health can be seen with the longevity noodle in China—on a birthday, Chinese will customarily take the longest noodle from their bowls and place it in the bowl belonging to the person celebrating their birthday in order to give them a long, healthy life due to the longest noodles being in his or her bowl. In Italy, if continuing tradition, daughters and granddaughters will help make the spaghetti gravy for a big Sunday lunch starting on Friday to give the gravy time to cook and will help in the process of making the pasta at home also. There is a big emphasis on family in the Italian culture and the time-consuming process of making pasta at home gives an opportunity for more familial time between the generations of women in a family and the big Sunday lunch in which the pasta is being made for allows the family, males and females, to all gather together at the table and eat while discussing recent events in their lives and taking the time to reconnect in a way.

The noodle also reflects the region in which it is cooked. There is a wide variety of regional food, noodle dishes included, in China and Italy due to the regions of both countries having a history of invasions, foreign influences, and geographical factors that affect agriculture. Region is one component that goes into how noodles are categorized. All twenty regions of Italy have different types of pasta from each other. In China, the Eastern region has a different set of noodles from the other Chinese regions including “Shanghai noodles in superior soup (上海阳春面), Nanjing small boiled noodles (南京小煮面), Hangzhou Pian Er Chuan noodles (noodles with preserved vegetable, sliced Pork, and bamboo shoots in soup) (杭州片儿川面), Wenzhou vegetable raw noodles (温州素面), Zhenjiang pot noodles (镇江锅盖),” and “Shandong Fushan hand-pulled noodles (山东福山拉面),” while Northern China has a different variety of noodle dishes such as “Beijing fried bean sauce noodles” and “Shanxi shaved noodles (山西刀削面)” (Zhang and Ma 211). Wheat noodles are more commonly eaten in northern China while rice noodles are more commonly eaten in southern China due to agricultural differences. Rice is primarily grown in the southern part of China and wheat is grown in the northern part of China, both of which are used to make noodles, and this difference in agriculture led to a difference in behaviors. The southern Chinese are much more interdependent and cooperative than northern Chinese because of how labor-intensive growing rice is according to Thomas Talhelm’s Rice Theory. The flat plains of northern China are conducive for growing wheat and the many rivers and lakes in southern China are conducive to growing rice. There are different types of pasta and sauce pairings depending on region, too. Penne can either be smooth or have ridges depending on the region it is cooked in and what sauce is being paired with it. Italy has such diversification in regions due to being separate for a large part of the country’s development and thus developing different dialects that the same noodle or pasta dish can go by different names depending on the region, such as lombricelli with its 28 different names.

Noodles reflect cities because “[m]any noodles have local characteristics” (Zhang and Ma). Each city has its own cuisine partly because each city has different fresh local products because of geographical factors like landscape and location on the globe. Each of Italy’s cities is unique, consisting of their own food, community, and ways of doing things due to Italy not being a unified country for a long time, so there is still an essence of campanilismoin Italy, meaning local patriotism, each believing that they make the best noodle dishes and each with one they are known for.

The noodle reflects the perseverance of people that cook them due to the hard work that goes into making noodles, as illustrated by the old couple in China waking at 3 in the morning to start making them and only finishing at 9 in the evening (A Bite of China). As noodles are a source of pride for both Italy and China, the cooking of noodles provides a sense of dignity to those that cook them. Noodles are very versatile and adaptable, so they can be changed very easily when cooking, affecting tastes and feel and reflecting the preferences of those cooking them (Slippery noodles)

Noodles, being as versatile as they are, can mean different things for different people. Though noodles are often eaten in China, noodles seem to mean “celebration” and “honor” for Chinese. Noodles are a source of nourishment and nutrition, while also being used as a means of celebration in China, such as with the Lantern Festival and the Dragon Boat festival. Noodles are also used to honor gods, spiritual beings, and both living and dead loved ones. For example, seafood noodles are also known as dutiful son noodles. Giaza, a type of noodle, literally means “the end and the beginning,” but figuratively means family reunion for many Chinese. Much like each character means something different in China, each noodle dish has a different meaning behind it. The heat of the fine egg noodle dish supposedly keeps bad spirts away in the story, “Crossing the Bridge” (Durack 183). Noodles seem to also mean honor in Italy and love. A key theme in the Italian dish, Strega Nona, is that the elderly are seen as authority figures, thus honoring the elderly with this key theme. Noodles seem to also mean love in Italy because food is a way of dialogue between people, being how they display love for one another by joint eating of food and/or cooking of food for someone. Food and drink are a way for Italian people to spend time together, allowing them to have a vocal dialogue but also a silent dialogue of love through noodles.

 

Noodles play an integral role in both China and Italy’s dietary patterns. As Zhang and Ma said, “noodles are a kind of cereal food,” being “the main body of the traditional Chinese diet” and “the main source of energy for Chinese people and the most economical energy food” (Zhang and Ma 209). Noodles are meant to avoid the disadvantages that come with a low carbohydrate, high energy, and high fat diet and thus promote health, according to Zhang and Ma (209). Noodles hold a high status in the dietary structures of both China and Italy. In the Mediterranean diet, hard grains are held on a high pedestal and many Italians thus try to make pasta from hard grains, making pasta an essential part of the Mediterranean diet. Chef Gurelli says that “It’s beautiful. They (Italy) tamed the sea and land to grow what they want” but sometimes you’re limited to the land and geographical region you’re in which leads to the development of certain foods fitting for your region due to the growth of crops—more so, it’s beautiful they created beauty out of simplicity; “Highlighting the importance of this traditional dietary pattern, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognizes the Mediterranean Diet as an element of intangible cultural heritage. Health experts affirm the role of pasta in nutritious, Mediterranean-inspired eating patterns” (p. 6, The Truth About Pasta).

 

Noodles are defined as a basic global staple food made from durum wheat semolina or other flours “mixed with water and/or eggs to make a dough” in The International Pasta Organization’s book of pasta (p. 5, The Truth About Pasta). Though, I would define noodles as being more than their components and instead as a bridge—they act as a bridge covering gaps between people by allowing them to bond and also as a bridge to the past, one that connects people to their ancestors and history.

 

I designed a DNA strand consisting of 15 different types of Chinese and Italian noodles—the pulled noodle; rigatoni noodle; dandan noodle; campanelle noodle; rice noodle; macaroni noodle; penne noodle; udon noodle; linguine noodle; longevity noodle; reginette noodle; Henan stewed noodle; Kunshan Ao Zao noodle; hot dry noodle; and trofie noodle. The DNA strand made of noodles represents how noodles are an integral part of one’s cultural DNA. The noodles, which are supposed to look like they are intertwining in the DNA strand, are also meant to show the link between China and Italy in terms of noodles due to China being the likely originator of noodles and their subsequent travel to Italy. The different noodles meet together in the DNA strand to show the similarities of a deep love for noodles and having food-centered cultures in both China and Italy.

 

 

Noodle (click here to see PDF image)

 

 

Culture is reflected in the noodles of both China and Italy, but with globalization and commercialization, the noodles have managed to wrap themselves around the globe and the traditional noodle dishes begin to slowly lose their cultural authenticity. People eat them and may recognize them as Italian or Chinese, but many do not understand the culture of those countries that is imbued in the noodles, thus not understanding the significance of the dishes.

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

(2014) A Bite of China 02 The Story of Staple Food（HD）. In: YouTube. https://youtu.be/B8lTWruUaQc. Accessed 25 Jul 2019.

(2013) BBC – Italy Unpacked: The Art of the Feast. In: YouTube. https://youtu.be/BW9-b3J3-DY. Accessed 24 Jul 2019.

Canadian Journal of History. In: Canadian Journal of History. https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/cjh.13.1.103?journalCode=cjh. Accessed 27 Jul 2019.

 

(2018) Chicken Stir Fry with Rice Noodles. In: Salt & Lavender. https://www.saltandlavender.com/chicken-stir-fry-rice-noodles/. Accessed 27 Jul 2019

 

Corn, Bacon, and Egg Pasta – Video Recipe. In: FineCooking. https://www.finecooking.com/recipe/corn-bacon-and-egg-pasta. Accessed 27 Jul 2019

Dan Dan Noodles. In: Spice Mountain. https://www.spicemountain.co.uk/recipe/dan-dan-noodles/. Accessed 27 Jul 2019

Dried linguine and rigatoni pasta on a wooden surface. In: 123RF. https://www.123rf.com/photo_22829361_dried-linguine-and-rigatoni-pasta-on-a-wooden-surface.html. Accessed 27 Jul 2019

Durack T (2001) Noodle. Pavilion, London.

Eat North (2019) Parcheggio’s Rigatoni Alla Carbone. In: Eat North. https://eatnorth.com/eat-north/parcheggios-rigatoni-alla-carbone. Accessed 27 Jul 2019

Food in Chinese Culture. In: Asia Society. https://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/food-chinese-culture. Accessed 26 Jul 2019

Staff LVB (2011) Witness the Art of the Hand-Pulled Chinese Noodle. In: Las Vegas Blog. http://blog.caesars.com/las-vegas/las-vegas-hotels/caesars-palace/witness-the-art-of-the-hand-pulled-chinese-noodle/amp/. Accessed 27 Jul 2019.

Limited A Stock Photo – Famous noodles in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China, have many flavors. In: Alamy. https://www.alamy.com/stock-image-famous-noodles-in-suzhou-jiangsu-province-china-have-many-flavors-166196904.html. Accessed 27 Jul 2019

The Stone’s Hot Dry Noodles, Wuhan – Restaurant Reviews & Photos. In: TripAdvisor. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g297437-d3480710-Reviews-The_Stone_s_Hot_Dry_Noodles-Wuhan_Hubei.html. Accessed 26 Jul 2019

Wine Dharma. In: Basil pesto pasta: how to make the authentic italian recipe | Wine Dharma. https://winedharma.com/en/dharmag/may-2016/basil-pesto-pasta-how-make-authentic-italian-recipe. Accessed 27 Jul 2019

Thongchaipeun Italian pasta (macaroni) stock photo. Image of food, macro – 34958744. In: Dreamstime. https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-italian-pasta-macaroni-isolated-white-background-image34958744. Accessed 27 Jul 2019

Penne With Vodka Sauce. In: Food Network. https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchen/penne-with-vodka-sauce-recipe-1973607. Accessed 27 Jul 2019

Savita Easy Stir Fry with Udon Noodles – Stir Fry Noodles Recipe. In: ChefDeHome.com. https://www.chefdehome.com/recipes/123/stir-fry-udon-noodles. Accessed 27 Jul 2019

Sippitysup, David, Paulina, et al (2019) Chinese Longevity Noodles Recipe. In: Cooking On The Weekends. https://cookingontheweekends.com/chile-spiced-chinese-noodles-recipe/. Accessed 27 Jul 2019

Reginette con pesto rosso *** Reginette pasta with red pesto sauce. In: Home Italian Recipes. http://homeitalianrecipes.com/reginette-con-pesto-rosso/. Accessed 27 Jul 2019

Zhang N, Ma G (2016) Noodles, Traditionally and Today. Journal of Ethnic Foods 209–212.

Lin HJ (2015) Slippery noodles: a culinary history of China. Prospect Books, London

The Truth About Pasta: One Food, One Love. In: International Pasta Organization. https://oldwayspt.org/system/files/atoms/files/TruthAboutPasta16.pdf.

 

 

 

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Madison Rousseau’s Blog #2: Serving Food, Conversation, and Grace

 

Serving Food, Conversation, and Grace

          My name is Madison Rousseau and I am an undergraduate student at Emory University. I am conducting this anthropological study because food is an integral part of people’s lives and the act of eating food takes place primarily at a table, though this may differ in various cultures. The simplest objects can render significance for people. I seek to insert myself as the proverbial fly on the wall of a family’s dining room so as to observe what can be associated with a kitchen table. I hope to find what cultural associations underlie this table within a particular family. A kitchen table can be a microcosm of a family’s life, not speaking at all and yet telling the routines and interactions of a family’s daily life. It is a cultural artifact much like food itself. I will observe the culture created by daily habits surrounding this artifact in order to find what activities take place around this table and what parts of a family’s culture can be gathered through dissecting the characteristics of the table. The particular table I chose to focus on has begun to creak with age, which makes it an interesting focal point for the purposes of this study. With time comes memories and activities that happen at the table. For instance, a table someone has owned for a few months may have no more significance to the person other than its price tag, but a table that has been owned for years may bring about more memories for the owner and thus possesses a greater significance. To put it simply, it is the age and the memories that make this kitchen table of particular interest to me. The table belongs to an elderly couple who live in Georgia and have been close friends to my family since I was young. Their children have long left this house to raise families of their own, so the purpose of this table has evolved from the central focus of serving meals to a young family while serving up advice, listening to the day’s activities, and acting as a place for doing homework and school projects to a spot for drinking the morning coffee, reading the paper, sorting bills, putting together jigsaw puzzles, writing short stories, as well as having meals. I could not help but smile when Mr. Warren reached out to shake my hand at the door, thinking humorously of us engaging in what Lin Yutang would call a curious western custom (Yutang 257). Mrs. Warren skipped the handshake and went right for the hug, characteristic of Southerners.

 

                                        In image above: kitchen table covered in bills and notebooks

          The anthropological methods I have employed to study this kitchen table consist of participant observation and interviewing as a complement. This method of participant observation was chosen because engaging in activities surrounding the table allows me to record both the emic and the etic, which is the inside and outside perspective as I learned in my Introduction to Sociology class. The questions I asked in the interview are open-ended so as to encourage the couple to give a greater influx of information or data. If only asked what happens at the table during a meal, I fear that only a partial picture of the cultural significance that this table holds would be revealed. However, by expanding the scope of the questions to what happens before, during, and after meals at the table, a better overall picture of the culture surrounding the table and a greater understanding as to why certain characteristics exist with the table emerges. Expanding the search from just one time of the day to the majority of the day extended the breadth of time in which elements of one’s culture arise more frequently.

          The table not only displayed the food, but also highlighted elements of Mr. and Mrs. Warren’s culture including Southern hospitality, reflection, and Christianity. I partook in a newspaper crossword puzzle at the table early in the morning with Mrs. Warren, witnessed the fine art of paying bills by Mr. Warren, and helped put a jigsaw puzzle to rest. I enjoyed some pork chops, warm biscuits with white gravy, and fresh cut cucumbers and tomatoes from the garden at the table during lunch and then witnessed a book of short stories unfolding before me as the elderly man spoke of some of his memories he had written down. Every now and then while we were conversing, he would have a new memory come to mind and quickly scribble it on another page of his notebook before he would forget. As dinner time came, Mrs. Warren asked me if I could please help set the table, and I searched through her drawer of utensils to find the right-sized forks and serving pieces. Mrs. Warren had prepared a delicious roast stuffed with garlic, gravy made thick from the fat of the roast and flour, many warm bread rolls buttered in which to sop up the gravy, creamy mashed potatoes, and black-eyed peas. We ate family-style, engaging in the practice of shared dining as Liu Junru described being distinctively characteristic of modern-day Chinese in the section of “Food and Drink” in Chinese Food (Junru 35). Upon reflection, it seems that many elderly people like to engage in this practice of shared dining. Before engaging in this practice though, we participated in another practice—praying. My observations reaffirmed the view I had going into the couple’s house—just as Lin Yutang recognized that a broader view of food should be utilized, I recognized that there should be a broader view of a kitchen table, one that captures the cultural significance of a table (Yutang 248). It encourages socialization. As previously discussed in class, the seats of the table can represent the hierarchy of the family members sitting in them. Despite the table having plenty of chairs around it, the woman sat at one head of the oval table and the man sat at the other end, typical of where parents would sit at a table in some families. I was sitting at the center of the table, possibly representing how the two thought of me as a granddaughter or showing that I was their guest of honor. 

          Concluding this study has given me the ability to reflect on how central a piece of furniture can be in one’s everyday life. I came to the conclusion that a kitchen table is more than just a basic piece of furniture serving a single purpose—acting as a serving place for food. It is also where games are played, stories are told, and sharing happens. The kitchen table is similar to the Italian food market, Porta Polazzo, in that it also acts as “a place to gather and spend time with compatriots” (Black 101). Tables function as bonding agents among people. According to Mrs. Warren and Mr. Warren, the kitchen table is where meals are eaten, conversations are had, and grace or prayer is made. Through observation, I saw that it served even more functions than these, functions of which I elaborate on when noting my observations in the prior paragraph. 

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Works Cited

 

Black, Rachel E. 2012. Porta Palazzo: The Anthropology of an Italian Market.               Philadelphia, PN: University of Pennsylvania Press.

 

Junru, Liu. 2011. Chinese Food. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

Yutang, Lin. 1938. The Importance of Living. Reynal & Hitchcock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Madison Rousseau’s Blog #1–Gumbo

          Gillian Crowther discusses how eating is a significant part of people’s cultures in Eating Culture: An Anthropological Guide to Food, but I would go even further to say that as a member of a French and Italian family, eating practically isour culture. One meal in Italy can last hours because Italians typically want you to truly savor the flavor of each bite and connect with others at the table. Food is a big part of both Italian and French cultures. One dish that has been a big part of my life is a soup called gumbo. My grandparents, mom, and dad grew up in Southern Louisiana where gumbo is a staple dish. We eat gumbo anytime of the year, but especially in the cooler months. Although gumbo is made year-round, anytime the smell of the roux and vegetables simmering waft up the stairs to my room, I know it is going to be a great day filled with family, talking, and soul-warming food. Mom usually begins making the roux (equal parts of flour and oil constantly stirred until it is a rich brown color) in the morning. As the roux cooks, my sister and I go down and help cut up all the vegetables and prepare the stock. The aroma is the best wakeup call. We have a great time talking all the while learning about our families’ culture. We often sing and laugh together while working on the meal. Gumbo is often said to represent the people of Louisiana and is actually the official state dish. Much like New York is described as the melting pot of America, gumbo is the melting pot representing the many cultures of South Louisiana. There is a mishmash of ingredients in gumbo, similar to how there is a mishmash of different people in the region. Louisiana has always been a second home to me. Something about the culture of Southern Louisiana makes people feel like they belong. In fact, celebrities often move there because they feel as if they are treated no differently than anyone else because just about everyone is treated the same there.

 

         As a child, I overlooked the value and significance of gumbo in my family. Like many children, I saw it as just another food on the table. I did not see the role it played in my grandparents’ and parents’ lives before me. My grandma grew up impoverished, but gumbo was one hot meal that she could look forward to eating on some days. It was one of the first dishes my mom made my dad when they were newlyweds first living in the unfamiliar cold of Wisconsin. Gumbo was also one of the first dishes my mom showed my siblings and I how to make, wanting us to have a piece of Louisiana culture while growing up in Atlanta away from our extended family. One day we will carry on the tradition of making gumbo and teaching our children how to make this familial comfort food. I think one reason I did not have the same appreciation for gumbo as I do now is because as I have gotten older, I have more memories associated with it which makes the dish fonder to me.I like the depth of flavor that comes with a good gumbo, and a good gumbo is often dependent on a good roux.Roux is the basis of several Cajun foods. Similar to the depth of a gumbo’s roux (if it is made well and is a roux-based gumbo, at least) is the depth of meaning that this dish holds for me. The ingredients and characteristic flavors of gumbo are only a small part of why this dish is so good to me. It is the memories I tie to this dish—the contextual associations—that make it that much better to me. Every Thanksgiving, my family ships in some smoked turkey from Texas and uses the leftover pieces of the turkey to put into a rich gumbo for dinner the next two days. I remember my mom cooking gumbo over the years and giving my sister, brother, and I tips as she went about cooking it, sharing memories and advice on what to do and what not to do when cooking it. We have always laughed about the peculiar name of the Louisiana-brand spice we put into our gumbo, known as Slap Ya Mama. We have joked about the name of the brand in the kitchen while my mom has been cooking since I was little. My mom calls the roux of the gumbo “kitchen napalm” because it burns people when it gets on them, which often happens when cooking the roux. Water alone will not stop the burning, but soap and water together will do the trick. My mom has told me that she could not even begin to count the scars that have formed by making gumbo throughout her life.

 

From top to bottom below: the roux of gumbo; the finished product of gumbo; my family

 

 

 

          Gumbo is a traditional soup served over a small amount of rice. Its origins can be traced back to the various peoples that inhabited Louisiana over the centuries. Gumbo is most often made with what Louisianans call “the holy trinity”—onions, celery, and bell peppers. The influence of rice in the dish comes from Spain, and the influence of okra in the dish comes from Africa. In fact, “gumbo” actually means “okra,” and the name originates from Western Africa, which indicates that gumbo was originally meant to be made with okra. Today, people use either okra or filé powder a thickener for the dish, and sometimes both. Filé powder is crushed sassafras leaves which is an indigenous plant found in many Southern and Mid-Atlantic states. If someone wants the gumbo a little thicker, he or she can always sprinkle some more filé in the soup at the table. Gumbo is likely to have found its way into Louisiana in the 1700s, but the first references to it occurred in the early 1800s. Gumbo is traditionally prepared in a seasoned iron pot, which tends to be passed down through a family’s generations. It is the iron pot and the roux that gives gumbo its distinctive flavor. There are two main types of gumbo. There is seafood gumbo which is often made with the local seafood of Louisiana caught that day, and then there is chicken and andouille sausage gumbo, which is my personal favorite. Winter is colloquially known as “gumbo season” by people in Louisiana with people from all over the state posting pictures on social media of their gumbos on the stovetops with the caption, “It’s gumbo time!” But for my family and I, it is always gumbo time. Everyone makes gumbo a little bit differently, but I know that even seeing the word gumbo on a menu or having the slightest taste of okra mixed into a nice deep roux will remind me of home—it will not be as good as my Mom’s, though.

 

         My mom likes to say that no self-respecting Cajun needs a written recipe for gumbo and it is just something that is thrown together in the kitchen, but the following recipe is from Commander’s Palace in New Orleans, a restaurant often frequented by my family and me during the Christmas holidays. Each gumbo is as different as the individual making it. There is no definitive recipe, but for an authentic gumbo it should have a dark roux, filé powder, the “holy trinity”, okra, a meat, and what Mom says are the most important ingredients: patience and love.

 

INGREDIENTS

3 cups diced onions

2 cups diced green bell peppers

1 28-oz can diced tomatoes

1 cup tomato sauce

1½ tsp thyme, dried

1½ tbsp minced garlic

4 bay leaves

½ tsp salt

½ tsp freshly ground pepper

1½ lbs frozen cut okra, defrosted (or fresh, if you can find it)

2 quarts seafood stock*

2 lbs shrimp, peeled and deveined

2 dozen oysters, shucked

1 lb lump crabmeat

2 tbsp filé powder (ground dried sasafras leaves; available at specialty food stores.)

PREPARATION

Combine onions, peppers, tomatoes with juice and tomato sauce in a heavy, 8-quart pot. Cook on medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add thyme, garlic, bay leaves, salt and pepper; blend well and simmer for 10 minutes.

Add okra. When okra is bright in colour and is cooked but still crisp, add stock. Bring to a rapid, rolling boil, then lower heat. Add shrimp, oysters and crab meat and simmer for 15 minutes longer.

Combine filé powder with 1 cup of the soup liquid. Remove gumbo from heat and stir in the filé-soup mixture. Correct seasoning to taste. Serve over cooked rice and season to taste with Tabasco sauce.

*Fish or seafood stock can be found at most specialty food stores, including Whole Foods. You can also make your own by boiling shrimp shells and/or fish bones, carrots, celery, salt, pepper and onions in a large pot filled with water to cover. Simmer until the broth is flavourful; strain and use. You may also substitute chicken stock.

 

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Works Cited

 

Dry, Stanley. 2013. A Short History of Gumbo. Southern Foodways Alliance.                   https://www.southernfoodways.org/interview/a-short-history-of-gumbo/,               accessed July 6, 2019.

 

McPhail, Tony. 2015. Commander’s Palace Seafood Gumbo. Western Living                      Recipe Finder. http://westernliving.ca/recipes/2011/11/01/commanders                  palace-seafood-gumbo/, accessed July 5, 2019.

 

 

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