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YOUR Cultural Food Traditions

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lola
  • Start date Start date
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Lola

I am working on a speech and am looking for some unique traditions that have something to do with a cultures food. Could be for any occasion/holiday or otherwise.

Could you please post if you have anything to share? I am looking for any and all, interesting or not with an explanation of why it happens.

 
Indians used to fry all of their food because that was the only way to get enough calories in a day to survive
 
Better edit quick before the grammar police throw a fit 😛

Chinese:

Ginger soup is used to cure colds and coughs.

Moon cake. I forget when we eat this though. I prefer Sun cake. Not really cake but my translator is broken atm.
 
I was brought up in the US but my roots are from Pakistan. There people sometimes eat on the floor rather than a dining table around a big spread. Forks are not used a lot. Nan's or rice with every meal is traditional.
 
Originally posted by: TecHNooB
Better edit quick before the grammar police throw a fit 😛

Chinese:

Ginger soup is used to cure colds and coughs.

Moon cake. I forget when we eat this though. I prefer Sun cake. Not really cake but my translator is broken atm.
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Quickness comes before grammar. 😉
 
Originally posted by: waffleironhead
Originally posted by: mizzou
Indians used to fry all of their food because that was the only way to get enough calories in a day to survive
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WAT?
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hehe, someone told me that once and I have yet to see a resource supporting it, but I will throw it out as it relates to the OP topic
 
Armenian Baharg (google has failed me on this one, found the spelling on one of the hand written pages in an Armenian Cookbook)

Pronounced: Ba garsh'

Legend has it as the Lord's Last Supper

It is usually the center-piece on a special occasion.

It is a loaf of bread made with white and graham flour. The loaf is about the size of a spare tire usually about 4" tall and 20" across. The crust is extremely thick. After baking the top is cut off about an inch in from the edge and the inside is turned into bread crumbs and scooped out. the top is cut up and put back and all the bread crumbs are put back in forming a mound about 10 inches tall, kinda like a mountain. Clarified butter is poured over the middle third and a mixture of the clarified butter and plain yogurt (the mixture is called ton <-- rimes with john) is poured around the outside of the mound. It is very good and when I say bread crumb it really doesn't convey the consistency. They are large and very solid, (kinda like steel cut oats) so there isn't any sogginess to it.

Tradition has it that Jesus made this because he had no utensils and the disciples could take pieces of the top that is cut away and use them for both scooping and as plates.
 
Vietnamese:

Mooncakes: Eaten during the Mid-Autumn Moon festival.
Mooncake
Mooncake2

Banh Tet: Eaten during tet, can be be found in two common varities.

Ban Tet With Banana and Red Bean

Banh Tet With Mung Bean Paste and Pork

Basically it's mung bean and pork or banana and red bean with glutinous rice wrapped around it, and then wrapped in banana leaves and steamed or boiled.
My favorite one being the red bean and banana.

These are two traditional vietnamese treats for two biggest holidays in vietnam.

 
Originally posted by: ICRS
Vietnamese:

Mooncakes: Eaten during the Mid-Autumn Moon festival.
Mooncake
Mooncake2

Banh Tet: Eaten during tet, can be be found in two common varities.

Ban Tet With Banana and Red Bean

Banh Tet With Mung Bean Paste and Pork

Basically it's mung bean and pork or banana and red bean with glutinous rice wrapped around it, and then wrapped in banana leaves and steamed or boiled.
My favorite one being the red bean and banana.

These are two traditional vietnamese treats for two biggest holidays in vietnam.
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I bet that Ban Tet is damn good!
 
Although I'm a whitey, I was adopted by a Native Alaskan family. While our diet primarily consisted of traditional "Anglo foods" (Steak, Chicken, Salmon, Halibut, etc.) we did eat some cultural relevant foods on occasion.

Such as:

Fish head stew

Muktuk (whale blubber, too salty and fishy-tasting for me)

"Squaw Candy" (smoked salmon strips. Delicious!)

Eskimo Ice Cream (called Akutaq. We ate a very mild version of it. Essential salmon-berries, sugar, condensed milk, and snow or crushed iced. The traditional version is- Berries, sugar, CRISCO, condensed milk, and either seal oil or salmon. Yes, I've had it, and yes, it's nasty.)
 
Originally posted by: Nutdotnet
Although I'm a whitey, I was adopted by a Native Alaskan family. While our diet primarily consisted of traditional "Anglo foods" (Steak, Chicken, Salmon, Halibut, etc.) we did eat some cultural relevant foods on occasion.

Such as:

Fish head stew

Muktuk (whale blubber, too salty and fishy-tasting for me)

"Squaw Candy" (smoked salmon strips. Delicious!)

Eskimo Ice Cream (called Akutaq. We ate a very mild version of it. Essential salmon-berries, sugar, condensed milk, and snow or crushed iced. The traditional version is- Berries, sugar, CRISCO, condensed milk, and either seal oil or salmon. Yes, I've had it, and yes, it's nasty.)
Click to expand...

That "Squaw Candy" sounds tasty, salmon is one of my favorite things.
 
My family roots are Mennonite. We're the source of that great mid-western tradition of topping mashed potatoes with noodles.
 
Most of my family is German, so as a kid we always had a lot of German specialties. It usually consisted of fresh bread, sausage of all kinds (e.g. blood sausage), head cheese, cabbage, sauerkraut, etc. On some occasions though, we'd make kohlrouladen, a delicious cabbage dish. We'd sometimes bread them, but I forget what they call this. I always called them "frogs", because as a kid I couldn't pronounce it and decided to call them frogs instead. We'd eat them when all of my family was in the area, which usually meant on some holiday. It was an all day affair that filled the house with spices, fresh bread and steamed cabbage.

My grandfather, a WWII veteran, assumed the use of Spam in his cooking after returning from the war. Growing up, we'd wake up to a huge German breakfast (and if you've ever seen a German breakfast, you know that the entire table is covered with food of some kind) with fresh meat, fruit, bread and Spam. Sometimes with eggs, sometimes by itself.

My dad, a Vietnam vet, would make "shit on the shingle" whenever it was just the men of the house. Not sure why that was, but for him it was a food that he ate among men in the war, so I guess he conveyed that to the home life as well. For those not familiar, it's beef and gravy on top of some kind of a muffin or biscuit. He'd spice up the meet real nice and we used to love it.

My wife is Indian, so in our home we've adopted a lot of different cuisines and used Indian as an influence. Whenever we have time, we'll create a fun dish that often takes a lot of time. We'll do everything from scratch. We'll make malai kofta, a vegetable "meatball" in a rich sauce or something like a mutter paneer (peas and cheese). We make the cheese from scratch and use whatever vegetables we have from our backyard, if possible.

Not sure if that's what you were looking for or not, but I gave a shot.
 
Originally posted by: Descartes
My dad, a Vietnam vet, would make "shit on the shingle" whenever it was just the men of the house. Not sure why that was, but for him it was a food that he ate among men in the war, so I guess he conveyed that to the home life as well. For those not familiar, it's beef and gravy on top of some kind of a muffin or biscuit. He'd spice up the meet real nice and we used to love it.
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My dad made the same thing...only on toast.

Our other tradition is oatcakes for breakfast. Roll them up with bacon & cheese or some scrambled eggs, or sausage...Yum. Oatcakes
 
Traditional Chinese News Year Include Jai (buddha's delight) as a form of self-purification. You can read more about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddha%27s_delight

Also, in my family before we start eating meals, the kids usually have to say the older relatives name and invite them to eat dinner. So my older brother usually saids all the adult names and not my name. And then I would have to repeat it, but I have to say my brother's name because he was the older brother. We also don't say the names more like mom, dad, older brother, grandma, grandpa , etc ....

I think it's to show respect for the elders.
 
It was a Norwegian family joke to see how many shades of white you could put on the plate because of cream sauces, mashed pots, white asparagus etc.
 
Biryani ...

We'd have a huge (4' high, 5' diameter) steel cauldron on our balcony and cook biryani (rice w/ meat, google it) in it over a slow fire. The process would take up the entire day with family & friends invited over for a long lunch/dinner event. Usually during any major occasion.
 
Matzah Brei (during Passover) - It is the only time matzah tastes really good. There are many ways of making it, but mine is the best 😉. Scramble eggs in big bowl, break matzah into eggs (about 1 inch square pieces), cook like scrambled eggs (it takes practice to figure out how much eggs and how much matzah you need per person - I cannot even tell you what it is, I just can tell). Best when eaten warm with syrup and/or powdered sugar.

My grandfather made it for my dad and my uncles. My dad made is for me and my siblings. I make it for my kids. For some reason, the women of the family never made/make it.

MotionMan
 
Lamb Roasts at the end of spring and Pig Roasts at the end of summer. I also remember going clamming and shellfish trapping and fishing and then having huge and I mean HUGE seafood barbecues with the entire family (50 people ish) but I suspect this is more of a New England thing.

Ever since I took up hunting we've started having annual events with deer, rabbit, duck, a pig or a lamb and then a huge portion of the haul from the various segments of the family's gardens. Good times.

Oh, and our family is mixed French/Welsh/Sicilian/Irish.
 
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