ENG 598: Folklore and Storytelling
A chill crisp in the air, holiday music on the television, and the smell of food coming from my nana’s small kitchen. Dancing around the kitchen, flowing effortlessly, creating the dinner spread all from a small booklet prompt up. Only six years old, I took a peek at the mysterious book she was reading from and saw how extensive it was. “Nana Ramoa made that mijia”, my Nana Toni stated. Folklore encompasses generational stories, songs, customs, and rituals in a community. It emphasizes the cultural expression passed down through oral traditions and facilitated through artifacts passed down in this case. In understanding folklore, we must delve into the makings of these oral traditions through the artifacts passed along. Artifacts in Folklore commonly hold special cultural significance that gives purpose to the story itself. The facilitator of the story works as the “conservator of the memories of primary oral cultures, as they come to us in both oral and printed form” (pg.43 ). An artifact in particular I chose to study was that of my family’s cookbook originated from recipes by my great grandmother Ramona Garcia.
Nana Ramona was born in 1909 in Zacatecas, Mexico. One of nine children, Ramona had adopted familial practices to support her family being the middle child. By the age of 16, she made the move from Juarez to El Paso with her siblings in hand. Eventually making their way to Mesa where they planted roots. Taking with her the practices and teaching from her mother. Setting roots here in Arizona, Ramona began starting her family from the ground up. She loved her family and wanted to bring these traditions with her even leaving some family behind in Mexico.
The matriarch of a massive family, Ramona made sure no one forgot their family history. Thus creating the family reunion. In the late 80s, the Garcia/Sezate Family Reunion began turning into a tradition every four years. Each of Ramona’s siblings had a selective color to represent their family branch, which grew exponentially over the years. These reunions were integral to the recipe-sharing process as we discuss food as much as we breathe. Sharing variations to traditional recipes, how we made them, and bringing food of our own to the reunion. The most recent 3-day event took place June 6th, 2024. Though there was not an exact number of guests in attendance, it was somewhere north of 500. Having never met Nana Ramona as she passed away in 1999, her stories pass through and continue to grow with each of her recipes being made.
Leaving in her legacy was the family cookbook we know and love today. My mother, Rachelle, was in her mid-30s when the cookbook first came to her. It started as her cousin Melissa grew up close with Nana Ramona. This proximity garners a close bond that would forge this artifact passed down through generations. Ramona watched and nurtured the little ones in their early days and immersed them in authentic Mexican cuisine with her recipes. She not only watched her little ones but the ones of the community. Establishing a connection with the city of Mesa Arizona in the early years. Rachelle recalls a moment when she was younger when she wondered why “millions of people were entering my nana’s home… but it wasn’t until later that I saw how important it was”. Ramona would make her family recipes to feed enough for her children, grandchildren, and friends of friends. Food being a common denominator not only unified our family but those around us. Anyone and everyone. It was these recipes that became fan favorites and struck the values in our family to take home these important traditions.
Nana Ramona never used any measuring spoon, cup, or any measurements for that matter. Yet, her meals tasted delicious each time. Cousin Melissa saw the importance of this and wanted to idolize it, thus creating this artifact. Others have tried replicating her way of cooking but did not see the same outcome. To cook like her you had to be in the same room with her.
Melissa sat down with Ramona and urged her to create this piece with her. They went to the kitchen and as Ramona was cooking, using her hands as measuring cups, Melissa would have her pause and dump her “hand measurements” onto a wax-lined scale to find the accurate measurements. They did this for every recipe in the book. But why did she make the cookbook? In between her semester in college, Melissa would come back home and spend the majority of her time with Nana Ramona. Her mother being the youngest of Ramona’s kids, and Melissa being an only child, spent a lot of time at Nana’s. She missed her cooking when she went away. Salsa, beans, chili colorado. It was then she decided she was going to sit her down and learn the recipes. In creating the cookbook, she added each recipe’s nutritional facts at the bottom and a bio for each family member who added a recipe. This personalized the book leaving it so that each family member will be remembered for each generation to come. Melissa invited Nana Ramona and her children to Arizona for her birthday. Nana Toni remembers Melissa passing each of them a personalized copy of the cookbook to have and share. All the cousins in attendance saw the importance of this and created their copies. My mother scanned them and sent them to her five sisters who later passed them down to their children. After that, a digital copy was made for the extended family.
There was nothing inherently special with Ramona’s ingredients. All simple: Fresh garlic, onion, chilis, etc. It was how she made each dish that made an impact. All fresh ingredients and made from scratch. This became the conception of the first book. The book is sectioned by appetizers, main dishes, side dishes, ramona traditional, and desserts. Once the book spread, many family members began adding their recipes into the mix and it was shared once more. It was passed down to my Nana Antonia, my mother, and once more to me.
One of the most infamous recipes to be passed down was Nana Ramona’s tamale recipe. In Hispanic culture, tamales are an intricate and integral part of us. In our family, it takes a village to create enough to fulfill each family member’s quota. Tamales are a symbol of tradition and celebration most commonly made around Christmas or Dia de los Muertos. Ramona used to conquer this mission alone until the family started to grow. Enlisting the help of the inlaws and new children, a majority of the men were part of the tamale-making process.
With the addition of a four-foot Nana Ramona leading the charge. A tradition arose where when young men become 13, they get a cutting board. Signifying your advancement in the tamale-making process: cutting the pork. The women were in charge of preparing hojas (corn husks), making masa, filling, wrapping, and steaming. Each step is just as crucial as the last. This tradition was passed down from generation to generation. Each new generation of children had the role of holding the olive bowl where they were in charge of placing one olive in each tamale. It was later that I learned the significance of this. Around Christmas time, the olive would represent the Christ child with the tamale representing Mary. Younger I assumed this was unique to our family, but a Mexican tradition after speaking to my Nana Toni. This role was later given to the teenagers since the little ones kept keeping the olives. Using sandwich wraps/ parchment paper, to wrap the tamales. Something we later learned was not a common technique for making tamales, but we adapted from Nana Ramona as we were making tons at a time to stack them. At a given time during the tamale-making process, there would be around 150 people assembling at Nana’s house. Each great-aunt would take around three dozen home to be eaten again into the new year. My mother Rachelle recalls the tamale-making experience with Nana Ramona:
“What ended up happening was, the table started getting bigger and bigger. And all the sons-in-law, nephews, nephews-in-law, and all these people joined. And then the next day, the women would come. …Hair back, bandanas, aprons, and we are just ready to do our jobs. … Tata Candidio would be out there [on the ranch] in the big aluminum water containers for the horses, but we would use them for the hojas. He would move them with a stick the night before. The little ones would dry the hojas on a cookie sheet. … It would move inside on a big round table and everyone would sit around the giant bowl of masa…. On average, a good seven to eight-hour day. There’d be sections and it would be in every room of the house, outside too. We were a well-oiled machine”
Nana Ramona did not speak English, yet she was able to train each generation on the tamale-making process. Motioning her hands for the perfect smear on the hoja. “Oh” and “Ums” indicated if you were on the right track. The rule is: If you participated in making the tamales, you can take some home. Hearing stories about her at every event but especially through her food. “Nana Ramona’s family loved her great big family. She wanted to continue what she bought from Mexico. Her traditions, going to this day…”, my mother recalls, “…I didn’t know how special it was when we had it. I thought every family was just like us”. This cookbook remains an artifact in my family as it shares the folklore about the wonderful woman who started it all. Sharing recipes from grandparents is necessarily unique, but we differ in our traditions being passed down and the book is the facilitator of Nana Ramona’s legacy.
Works Cited
Livo, Norma J., and Sandra A. Rietz. Storytelling Folklore Sourcebook. Libraries Unlimited, 1991.
Maya Young 