Foodways

My family enjoys eating and will truly claim anything is tradition to bake delicious fatty foods. For instance, a common tradition that my family subscribed to was baking cookies for Santa. However, long after my brother and I learned No, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus, we still made cookies for this nonentity. They are always basic sugar cookies with vanilla frosting, but we must always put dye in the frosting because white frosting is boring. There is always red (which comes out pink), green, and blue. That is it. No others. Apparently as a child my dad claimed Santa disliked yellow and orange cookies among all the other colors. In reality, my father disliked these colors. He associates them with foods he dislikes, so while the cookies will taste the same regardless he enjoys them more when they are in the colors of his favorite foods (spaghetti-red, blueberry poptarts-blue).

For my extended family there are no real food traditions other than make as much food as possible. If there is less food this year than there was last year the children and parents will gripe throughout every subsequent visit until the offending holiday comes around again and the food quantity rectified. This problem usually occurs with the macaroni. And is mostly my fault as I consume more macaroni than is generally advisable.