(This kind of collaborative, reflexive fieldwork ensures the accuracy of conclusions drawn by the researcher and is common practice in folkloristics.) Observations on a Dish They affirmed that the interpretations made explicit the implicit meanings of the tradition. I then took my observations on GBC as a tradition back to members of this regional culture to see if they agreed with my interpretations. In order to gain that understanding, I conducted formal and informal interviews with students and residents in the region and did ethnographic research. That means that we need to understand how a practice functions and what it means within the culture using it, rather than judge it according to our own standards. Folklore shares many theoretical perspectives and methods with anthropology, and Franz Boas’ concept of cultural relativism is foundational. In contrast, GBC is made by opening cans of green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and fried onions, mixing the contents together, and baking the mixture in the oven, none of which is too demanding.Īs a folklorist, however, I wanted to understand how this tradition came about. GBC did not fit those expectations, nor did it fit the food ethos and aesthetics of my southern upbringing where holiday foods were made from scratch and required culinary skill and finesse. I had been living on the urban east coast where there was a high value given to fresh, nutritious, and innovative foods. That I was surprised by the popularity of the dish is a reflection of my own cultural background. Many of the students felt that the dish held a special place in their own lives, and, even if they didn’t like it, it carried meaningful memories for them. At that time, most of the undergraduate students came from the region, which was primarily rural with heavily industrial agriculture, but also included several major cities-Toledo and Cleveland, Ohio. I frequently included assignments about food traditions, and the dish kept coming up as a standard part of Thanksgiving dinner menus and other meals. I first became aware of green bean casserole (GBC) when I began teaching folklore classes at a university in northwest Ohio in the mid 1990s. It also helps us understand how things that start out as commercial inventions and are distributed nation-wide can come to be meaningful to specific groups in specific places. Understanding the logic of a food tradition helps us understand why people eat the things they do. This is particularly important to recognize with foods that are frequently made fun of or dismissed as not being ‘serious cooking’, as often happens with green bean casserole. There is a logic behind it, in the same way there is a logic to every tradition. It is not simply a matter of people liking it or finding it convenient to make. To understand why the dish has been embraced by so many residents, we need to look at that history. Traditions are resources for individuals to creatively act upon those connections, expressing-and negotiating-who they are, what they value, and what tastes they prefer.Īs a food tradition, green bean casserole represents the identity, ethos, and aesthetics of the culture of the eastern Midwest, all of which are shaped by the history of the region. From this perspective, traditions are things, behaviors, and attitudes that connect an individual to their past, place, and other people. While it seems odd that a mass-produced, commercial food product could be considered a tradition, folklore studies (folkloristics) sees tradition as more than just old-fashioned ways from the past. It has been embraced in this region, more so than others, as an expected customary tradition. Marketed across the United States for Thanksgiving, it has since become popular among many families in the eastern Midwest, eaten not only on holidays, but also for everyday meals, potlucks, and community gatherings. Green bean casserole, a baked dish of green beans, canned cream of mushroom soup, and canned fried onions, was invented by the Campbell Soup Company in their New Jersey test kitchen in 1955. Recognize and reflect on the relationship between commercial foods and local cultures.Explain folkloristic concepts of tradition using foods that are familiar to them.Describe how the environment and history of a region shapes its food traditions.After reading and discussing this text, students should be able to:
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