Folktales and Tradition

We don't grow up much on traditional tales anymore.

The old standbys, Goldilocks, Snow-White, Sleeping Beauty, we know them better from cartoons than from the actual, original stories. A lot is lost in the translation from Traditional Storytelling to modern rendition. The folklorist in me, who favors the old tales and ancient epics, laments the loss.

The folklorist in me also looks at the "new versions" and realizes that a new Tradition is being created for a new era, where reading, and especially reading for leisure, is taken for granted; where one doesn't need to travel miles and miles to see a show, but can call it up on one's TV at the press of a button.

It is bad or good? Better or worse? A folklorist doesn't pass judgment. It's for politicians and social activists. A folklorist observes: this is how it is. A folklorist may comment on the changes and the rise of new traditions, but a folklorist doesn't pass judgment.

How about the person who is also a folklorist? That person cannot be fully objective. Writers know that the emotional response will determine the choice of words, of rhythm, of other writing strategies that are mostly unconscious, even in non-fiction and in the spoken word.

Me, I prefer traditional tales. I teach about them, I share them whenever I can. It's my thing. However, I don't see the modernized versions as the product of evil manipulation. Like the old tales, the modern, televised, comic-ized, cartoonized tales based on old stories, are a Tradition in that is it shared by a group of people, and the sharing creates a bond of familiarity. It's not the village square anymore, where the Minstrel stops to sing about Saint George and the dragon.

It's TV, and then Social Media, and the function of the tale remains: to define a group, a community, those who are in the know and those who are not.

Consider this: an immigrant into the United States today will not feel truly at home in the larger American society until he becomes familiar with icons of pop culture. Not a fan, just familiar.

Everybody knows Bugs Bunny. And Disney. And if you're completely unaware of these two (as an example), then you will miss out on a lot of hints, references, and especially humor.

And that is Tradition: things that define a group and unifies it.

A New Design Collection

I discovered the Power of Cute....

Well, actually, I discovered the right cuties. I already knew that Cute had The Power.

So now I can't stop trying to create more and more images of cute Folktale illustrations in Cute Style.

What is it? Something like this:

This is just a fragment of the whole image. It is from "Teremok: The Animals' Palace", a design that's coming soon to my store at Zazzle. A few others are already up, cards and a mug, and accessories.

With Zazzle, you can use most of my designs on products I don't showcase. There's a lot of leeway in how you can personalize a product to your needs and taste -- and I don't get slighted in the process!

If you want something you don't see, please ask! I'm always looking for ideas.

Russian Christmas

January 7th, in case you didn't look at today's date.

Christmas Day according to the Julian calendar. In our hybrid household, we celebrated the day as we have since the beginning.

Many Eastern Orthodox countries have switched entirely to the Gregorian calendar and celebrate religious holidays at the same time as Western Christians, but a few, like the Russian Orthodox Church, hold fast to old traditions (or maybe habits) and continue to mark the feasts according to the Julian calendar, 13 days later.

I'm not going to try and explain who is right and who is wrong, and what the mathematical underpinnings of either calendar are -- for one thing, anyone who knows me also knows that I have issues with numbers. It's good enough that I remember there's a +13 conversion from Gregorian to Julian. Besides, it's easy to find out more on the subject.

Now Easter is another story altogether, and another one I'm not going to talk about now.

Anyway, we put up our Christmas tree around Thanksgiving, like most people, but we keep it at least through January 7th, usually through the 10th, because according to Russian tradition, all major (religious) holidays are celebrated 3 days.

С Рождеством Христовым!

Another Borshch marathon

I made Borshch again and I made my family happy.

Over the years, I've translated our family Borshch recipe. I've posted it. I've used it to illustrate lectures in my folklore course. I've ranted about it. And of course, I've cooked it innumerable times.

My own recipe has at least 4 variations.

It's the quintessential recipe of the Russian cook. However faithfully you follow your teacher's instructions (whoever your teacher may be -- grandmother, mother, aunt, cousin, friend, even cookbook) it will never taste the same as the original. It's one of those country recipes that take on the spirit of the cook and reflect the cook's qualities in the flavor and the body.

Don't ask me what it means. Taste someone's Borshch and learn from them, and then try to duplicate it. Right away, it will be Borshch (not borsht), but it will be yours, not the original.

Why? I don't know.

Maybe because chopping the onions into 3mm chunks instead of 4mm chunks makes a difference. Or not. Because I've substituted potatoes for beans and back again, depending on my mood and what was in the pantry -- and it was still MY Borshch (not borsht), unmistakably, and I choose the meat according to what looks best in the meat department, not by name or price. It's usually a roast, though.

This is the magic of traditional recipes.

They're fluid, none any more right than others, but some are still "righter" than others.

No, I'm not posting the recipe here. Maybe, once I finally (SIGH) solve my site issues the recipe will appear there once again (shortly, so be on the lookout), but I won't leave it on my blog.

It's MINE. MINE, I'm telling you.

I'd rather feed you than tell you. I'd rather teach you and show you, than tell you and leave it to languish in the archives of a blog.

A traditional recipe is a living thing.

Cooking Day

I don't do this so much anymore. Maybe I have too much time to sit and think and I don't have to be on my feet running around after a small child bent on mischief. Maybe it's just that others have taken over the kitchen. Or maybe I'm just old(er).

Or maybe I just lost the habit of long, complex dinner in the years I worked a full-time, 8-5 job with a long commute.

Anyway, yesterday, I went all out on traditional Russian cooking. Of course, it was at the request of my kids, and they did promise to help.

Well, help is as help does, but I must admit that they did a lot. Because making pirozhki ([pee-rohzh-KEE], singular pirozhok [pee-roh-ZHOHK]) one by one by hand (take small amount of yeast dough, add spoonfull of meat filling, wrap and seal) is time consuming. But they did it. While I did the other stuff.

So we had pel'meni last night (pehl-MEH-nee, the Russian answer to ravioli: meat-filled pasta served with sour cream and a vinaigrette dressing) which we ate with a side of cucumber-and-sour cream salad.

One thing you have to understand about Russian cooking: it comes with sour cream. Everything is better with sour cream. Sour cream gets added pretty much to everything, and then served on the side.

As salad dressing, with salt. As flavoring in pastries, cookies, and bread. In your soup. On the side with almost every dish. As a dip. On bread (why not? on a nice, thick slice of rich, dark bread -- and it's a spoonful of thick, creamy sour cream, not the runny "light" stuff -- you have to eat right!). A little sour cream in your shortbread heightens the flavor. You say buttermilk pancakes, I say sour cream olad'i (oh-LAH-d'yi).

And today? Today we will have BORSHCH.

Not Borsht. Not the dark pink canned beet product you find in stores. Nope. That's not the traditional Russian dish. No more than sweet-and-sour chicken is a traditional Chinese delicacy.

No. Borschch. Don't-call-it-soup Borshch. It's LIKE soup, but not soup. It's LIKE stew, but not stew. It's Borshch, and that's what Russians call it.

It's cabbage-based, with other root vegetables, including beets, carrots, turnips, leeks, and/or onions, potatoes and/or beans. It can be beef-stock based and contain beef chunks, or it can be a Lenten dish and be strictly vegetarian. It's tasty, filling, versatile, it has a million variants, and even though I use my mother's recipe, mine does not taste like hers. Close, very close, but not quite. Anyone would recognize the flavor and aroma of Borshch but each cook, each household has its own variant.

The magic of true Russian Borshch.

That's what we're having tonight. And while the kids don't particularly like soup, they've been asking for Borshch. Because, and it bears repeating, Borshch is not soup. It's just Borshch.

It can be served with thick slices of hearty bread slathered with butter, or, like we're going to do tonight, with pirozhki.

Because we were in a cooking frenzy, we only have meat pastries (meat-filled pirozhki), but you could have some cabbage filling, some mushroom filling, even sweet fillings like farmer's cheese or sour cherries.

And because we're only having an ordinary family night, we're just having borshch and pirozhki. If, however, I was serving up a proper feast, borshch would be a first course, followed by some kind of roast (meat or fish), with a vegetable, and a salad. Followed by a dessert.

Okay. That's enough. I'm hungry now.
But you know what? Ethnic cooking is pretty healthy. Look at all the good ingredients that go into borshch. And just ask the kids (and all the students of Russian who tried it over the years): it's tasty. Especially with pirozhki.