{"id":1076,"date":"2019-08-06T11:50:11","date_gmt":"2019-08-06T11:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/noodlenarratives\/?p=1076"},"modified":"2019-08-06T12:46:15","modified_gmt":"2019-08-06T12:46:15","slug":"pasta-motorcycles-pizza-and-soccer-madison-rousseaus-final-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/noodlenarratives\/2019\/08\/06\/pasta-motorcycles-pizza-and-soccer-madison-rousseaus-final-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Pasta, Motorcycles, Pizza, and Soccer — Madison Rousseau’s final project"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0 The questions I ask Silvana are meant to be more open-ended rather than simple \u201cyes\/no\u201d questions, so as to encourage deeper discussion. The questions go as follows\u2014<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

1) Name, age, where you live, occupation?<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>2)\u00a0 What role does the noodle play in your family? (How often do you eat noodles? In what setting? Family traditions?\u00a0 Do you make your own noodles or do you buy them?) <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>3)\u00a0 Do you have any stories or myths you recall associated with noodles?\u00a0 <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>4)\u00a0 What does the noodle mean to you? <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>5)\u00a0 What is your favorite local noodle?\u00a0 What makes it unique? How do you cook them?\u00a0 <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>6)\u00a0 Do you have a favorite noodle restaurant?\u00a0 Tell me about that restaurant. <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>7)\u00a0 Are there any cultural rituals and symbolism associated with noodles?\u00a0 <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>8)\u00a0 How do noodles and eating noodles affect your health and wellness?\u00a0 Your thoughts on instant noodles? <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>9)\u00a0 Has your habit of eating noodles changed over time?\u00a0 <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>10)\u00a0 Do you associate noodles with any kind of emotion?\u00a0 <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>11)\u00a0 Do you associate different kinds of noodles with different levels of education and class structures?\u00a0 <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>12)\u00a0 How important do you think the noodle is in defining Italian or Chinese culture? Is it possible to separate your culture from the noodle? <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>13)\u00a0 Could you share a favorite recipe and the stories around that recipe? <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 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\u2019s life, this one person being Silvana Sulejmani.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Video interview can be seen here–<\/strong>\u00a0https:\/\/youtu.be\/9w0ryAZ3RIE<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 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 <\/span>Italian authenticity is captured when she instinctively starts speaking in Italian at the start of the interview and accidentally mixing italian with english throughout. <\/span>She was born and raised in Emilia-Romagna, home of her favorite noodle restaurant Alla Doro and what she calls \u201cthe country of field pasta,\u201d 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 \u201cone of the most fertile and productive regions of Italy\u201d due to its close proximity to the Adriatic Sea (Discover-Italy). Silvana\u2019s eyes light up as she recalls the fame of Emilia-Romagna being \u201cthe country of field pasta,\u201d 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\u2014her 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 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\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The questions may be varied, but two themes appear that remain constant throughout the interview\u2014happiness and home. As evident from the interview, only one word can capture the emotion Silvana feels when she thinks of pasta\u2014happiness. 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.\u00a0 <\/span>Though preceding the interview, Silvana only mentions four things that she claims to be Italians\u2019 favorite things, being \u201cpasta, motorcycles, pizza, and soccer,\u201d something else captured her and her husband\u2019s eyes when making the monumental decision to move to America\u2014hope 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 <\/span>maccheroni <\/span>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.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 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\u2019s 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 \u201cHow to Make Handmade Pasta Like a Badass Italian Nonna.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0As 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 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\u2019s health. Despite popular beliefs to the contrary, Silvana believes that pasta is a healthy food–as long as it is cooked <\/span>al dente<\/span><\/i>, she says. This belief in pasta as a healthy and core part of one\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n<\/span> \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Works Cited\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

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

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The questions I ask Silvana are meant to be more open-ended rather than simple \u201cyes\/no\u201d questions, so as to encourage deeper discussion. The questions go as follows\u2014 1) Name, age, where you live, occupation? 2)\u00a0 What role does the noodle play in your family? (How often do you eat … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Pasta, Motorcycles, Pizza, and Soccer — Madison Rousseau’s final project”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview-project"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/noodlenarratives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/noodlenarratives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/noodlenarratives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/noodlenarratives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/noodlenarratives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1076"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/noodlenarratives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1096,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/noodlenarratives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076\/revisions\/1096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/noodlenarratives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/noodlenarratives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/noodlenarratives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}