Food Traditions!!

Tradition! Tradition!! Tradition!!! Is a specific value in my family that has to be observed? It falls mostly on Christmas through the New Year’s. People from all over the world have their own traditions and customs. Some of them are related to celebrating important events in country's history, and others are associated with family's customs. I have a favorite tradition in my family, which originates from the middle of last century. We come together in the New Year celebrating and make presents to each other. I like our tradition due to few reasons. Having a large family is a stress cake but the fun to it is cooking through the celebration festival, it brings out the skill, drama and fun in our family. It is a great opportunity to gather all family members together. We have relatives across the country, and we need a great effort to meet. Every year during the festival our families come together at my parents’ house. There is no cooking done until all the families are at the house on the 23rd of December.

On the 24th is when the girls and women come together in the kitchen and my grandmother shares what everyone should cook. We have a special food called Atama, or native soup and it is done by the oldest woman, but it doesn’t stay that way. I take the share of making the simplest dish (fried rice and chicken), since am the only girl in my family. The preparation of this celebration is done in shares and steps, my mum cooks Afang, or vegetable soup, one of my favorite soup. My aunties pound yams like mashed potatoes but really solid not fluffy. The special dish is cooked last by my grandmother. While the ladies are in the kitchen, the guys are playing games “family scrabble”.

New Year's is not that of a force to my family since is the most celebrated festival, but we still try to make it fancy. The men or boys in the family are not lazy but we tend to put them aside because the food preparation for that festival is meant for the ladies to do, But they help with the tasting of the food to see if it taste good or is well prepared before the big celebration where we put the food on the table; At least they do that is so to help but they try to. Every food must be made in steps, we prepare as many dishes as possible as we can, but the main dishes has to be prepared last because that is the most wanted dish and it has a gray delicacy to it. I prepare my dish first which is fried rice and chicken, my aunties take care of turkeys because we have a lot of turkeys during New Year's, my mom makes the other complicated dish which is Afang soup; then we make whatever kind of dish people request before my grandmother prepares the native soup. Once it's time for the native soup to be done my grandmother gathers all of us so we can see and watch what she's doing because it is done by every woman but in different stages of life like when we grew up to be matured [my mom is going be taking over soon].

There is no history to my family's special dish cause it's not observed by my country, it is just a family tradition by my fifth ancestors before my grandmother, she created this because she saw how her life was, it was just passed by New Year's celebration and she did not want that so she created a special dish for our families to always observe because it brings out the love and share of the family. Lately it has been really hard to observe family tradition because most us are scattered around, the children studying or have a family there still is really hard to get a family together and it has been like this for about five years now but we try to still find a meeting ground for families. Like this last New Year’s, we were able to together, I was really happy and so grateful that we could find some time to gather that we lost, it was wonderful and peaceful this time I guess no drama to talk about.

The native soup takes about an hour and a half to prepare, the steps are too long so I'm not going to bore you to reading it but I'm just going to brief you about it. When I perceived the food my appetite was trendy, my grandmother called me for a taste, it looks like a white fabric, it feels watery but think and it has a distinctive Sharp aroma.

Before we gather as a family on the table with the dishes, we have a family tradition of a New Year's reflection of the past year, that way whatever unresolved issues and be settled before a new year began. After that, we ate.

That is how my wonderful families celebrate New Year’s.