EATING UP TRADITION: AN AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF EVOLVING TRADITIONAL FOOD By EMILY WEISKOPF-BALL Integrated Studies Project submitted to Dr. Carolyn Redl in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts – Integrated Studies Athabasca, Alberta February 2012 Weiskopf-Ball 1 Abstract In the introduction to Food and Culture: A Reader, Carole Counihan elaborates on the growing academic interest in writing about food. From psychology to ethnography and cookbooks to photography, food has infiltrated almost every academic discipline. While one may wonder what could possibly be left to say on the topic, the truth is that few studies have focused exclusively on the ways in which traditional foods have changed over the past three generations. This project analyzes the ways in which the expectations of traditional foods and their preparation have been adapted over the past three generations. Although primarily an autoethnographic study, this projects interviews a sample of male and female family members to understand the ways in which shifting generational attitudes and behaviours have changed the traditional foods that are expected, chosen, and prepared for a given family gathering. Through a second interview that filmed that participants making a chosen food, my data is analysed using the study of material objects and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). These methodologies allow me to study the ways in which modern conveniences influence the ways in which the food is made and to determine if certain foods are beginning to be left out of the culinary repertoire. Keywords: autoethnography, food studies, material objects, Critical Discourse Analysis, tradition, interview Weiskopf-Ball 2 Table of Contents Background and Methodology........... 3 Analysis..............................................18 Conclusion..........................................36 Appendix A........................................29 Appendix B........................................40 Works Cited.......................................41 Weiskopf-Ball 3 Background and Methodology For human beings, eating is not only vital to our survival but it is also a way to make others feel welcome, to satisfy needs, and to distinguish ourselves from others both economically and culturally. Yet, few people take the time to critically analyse what they ingest. According to Roland Barthes, “we do not see our own food, or, worse, we assume that it is insignificant” (28) when, in fact, food “sums up and transmits a situation; it constitutes an information; it signifies” (29). Indeed, it was not until after the sudden and tragic death of my husband's parents, Doug and Karen Ball, in August of 2009, as well as having both my grandfathers undergo open-heart surgery in 2010, that I realized certain of my family’s most treasured recipes would disappear if they were not written down. In an effort to ensure that the foods I cherish would not die with their makers, I began working on a family cookbook. Since then, I have observed a number of different family members planning and preparing food in both similar and dissimilar ways. I have watched my Oma, Tante Ingrid, and Tante Susie bustle in Oma’s small kitchen; each lady to a counter, dancing around each other in near perfect unison to prepare the anticipated turkey and side dishes. Contrarily, I have often wondered why my mother picks and prepares new and fancy meals to celebrate a special visit or occasion when she could make easier, more familiar dishes that would give her more freedom and allow her to spend more time with her guests. I have also seen meals at my Grand-maman and Grand-papa's shift to simpler fare and/or potluck suppers. They now make bigger dishes, for example, cipaille, that can be prepared ahead of time and reheated. Weiskopf-Ball 4 Since her birth in February 2010, I purposely let my daughter play with cooking tools and ingredients in the hope that she will someday be able to make these same meals herself. At just under two years of age, she is already able to break open an egg and pour ingredients into a bowl. I have taught my husband how to make some of the traditional dishes my family loves and have learnt to make some of the ones his mother used to prepare. The foods that I have made, watched being made, served, and eaten over the course of the past year have led me to question our traditions: Why are we the only people I know who eat Lebkuchen at Christmas time and why is it that we call the syrup- based cookies Big Hearts instead of their proper name? Why does my brother-in-law’s family put potato in its cipaille and cheese in its meat pie when we do not? Why do my German cakes turn out dry and crumbly when no one else’s seem to? It was not until I began reflecting on our traditional foods that I realized just how embedded they are in my understanding of myself. In fact, the foods I will talk about in this essay form a reoccurring thread that not only binds my family together, but whose colours, tastes and textures define who we are. When I began my research, I was surprised at just how far the field of food studies reaches. In the introduction to Food and Culture: A Reader, Carole Counihan elaborates on the growing academic interest in writing about food. From psychology to ethnography and cookbooks to photography, food has infiltrated almost every academic discipline. While one may wonder what could possibly be left to say on the topic, the truth is that few studies have focused exclusively on the ways in which traditional foods have changed over the past three generations. Rather, many works are interested in daily food habits. For example, Diane Tye's Baking as Biography analyses daily foods from a folklorist perspective to "supplement [her mother's] Weiskopf-Ball 5 incomplete life history" (15). She delineates the development of folklore's interest in food studies by drawing on a number of works, for example, Don Yoder, Jay Anderson, Shortridge and Shortridge, and Margaret Bennett, to show that daily food habits tell an important personal story. Barthes' "Toward a Psychology of Contemporary Food Consumption" looks at everyday items, for example, sugar and cheese, to show that foods are ultimately institutions that "necessarily imply a set of images, dreams, tastes, choices, and values" (28). Other studies look specifically at a woman’s place in the kitchen. Charles and Kerr's Women, Food and Families determines that "practices within the family [such as food practices] which are totally taken for granted are... constantly reproducing social divisions and ideologies" (2). Since "women are generally the ones responsible for feeding themselves, their partners and their children" (8) all meals, including those special meals (for example, Christmas and/or Sunday dinner) prove that "food is important to the social reproduction of the family in both its nuclear and extended forms, and that food practices help to maintain and reinforce a coherent ideology of the family throughout the social structure" (17). Although more in line with the aims of this paper, Berkley's At Grandmother's Table Women Write about Food, Life, and the Enduring Bond between Grandmothers and Granddaughters ultimately exemplifies the role of women as not only food makers but also teachers of values and ideologies. A fair number of studies focus exclusively on the specific food habits of a particular ethnic or religious group. Mary Douglas' essay, "Deciphering a Meal," looks at the classification of animals and the rules that "govern the common meal as prescribed by Jewish religion" (45). Edna Staebler's Food that Really Schmecks is not only a collection of recipes from Canada's Waterloo County but also a semi-ethnographic study of its inhabitants based on food practices. Finally, David Sutton's Remembrance of Repast is a study "of the relationship between food and memory on the island of Kalymnos, Greece" (ix). Though these are but a few examples of the many studies that have been done on the subject of food, the categories nevertheless illustrate the missing link to traditional food as a generational construct. Weiskopf-Ball 6 There are a number of essential texts to consider when biting into food studies. Claude Lévi-Strauss' "The Culinary Triangle" cannot be ignored. His theory that a group can be analysed by the way it views the relationship between raw, cooked, and rotten foods as well as the myths and rites the group ascribes to the roasting and/or cooking of its cuisine, lies at the heart of most studies about food. Similarly, Roland Barthes’ "Toward a Psychology of Contemporary Food Consumption" and many other works on food as signifier as well as Margaret Visser's books Much Depends on Dinner and The Rituals of Dinner have changed the way the academic world thinks about food and food practices. The notion that food is unimportant is no longer possible. In fact, "what is chosen from the possibilities available... how it is eaten, with whom and when, and how much time is allotted to cooking and eating it – is one of the means by which a society creates itself and acts out its aims and fantasies. Changing (or unchanging) food choices and presentations are part of every society’s tradition and character" (Visser Much Depends on Dinner 12). It is precisely the issues of food choice and preparation with which I am concerned. It is not while eating my morning toast or cereal that I think of Doug and Karen or worry about losing the family I still have. Rather, it is at Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving that the reality sets in. When we change a component of our traditional meals, I am reminded of making pasta instead of turkey for Christmas dinner one year and watching Doug, a person who put a lot of importance on traditional fare, pout.