Volume 11, No. 6                                                                    December 18, 2013
Special Edition
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Introduction: Healing and Nourishment through Traditional Foodways
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By Amy Kitchener, Executive Director 
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"There is a genre within folklore called 'foodways' that involves all the customs around the preparation, consumption, and display--the whole system--of traditional food practice.  In this special issue of The New Moon, we explore the mental and physical health benefits of cultural and traditional food practices and what happens when we draw on our cultures to practice the most basic elements of preparing a meal. Whether we talk about small businesses and the original pop-up restaurant, street vendors, and the farmer's marketplace, or about family, or about healing and prevention, the values around traditional food helps bring meaning and sustainability to our food practices."
                                                                                                       ...Read More
 
 


Essential Ingredients: Food Making Community
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By Dr. Khampha Thephavong
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"These dishes are well-known to the Northern Lao people, but only a handful of people in the United States have the recipes or know how to cook them.  After migrating away from the North in the late 1940s, many people have lost the knowledge and skills to cook these traditional foods.  Living in different places with exposure to new ingredients and cuisines forces most people to adapt and they begin eating food that is more accessible to them.  [My mom has] worked to maintain and keep her rare knowledge and skills with her all these years, so that her children and family can enjoy the food from her childhood village." 

                                                                                                       ...Read More
  


Who Wants to Grate the Ginger?: Food as Intervention
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By Saengthip Keosaeng & Nkauj Iab Yang 
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"Nowadays, Southeast Asian immigrant families in California rarely have the opportunity to eat with each other.  SAUCE provides a safe and warm space where young Southeast Asian women and their mothers or elders are able to slow down from everyday life.  Southeast Asian matriarchal elders are invited to demonstrate and prepare traditional recipes such as Ka Soy (Iu-Mien noodle soup), Banh Xeo (Vietnamese savory fried pancakes), Chicken Larb (Lao minced meat salad), and many other culinary dishes from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam." 
 
                                                                                                                                 ...Read More
 
  
This is Street Food at its Best: Food as Policy
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By Abel Salas 
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"The local campaign to support Los Angeles' independent food vendors, who not only provide alternatives to fast-food outlets but whose physical presence on the streets contribute towards a richer, more vibrant neighborhood, has been tough.  'The current climate criminalizes micro-entrepreneurs, who simply want to earn an honest living,' says East Los Angeles Community Corporation (ELACC) President Maria Cabildo.  'They create jobs, build healthier communities, and cultivate safer streets.'" 
 
                                                                                                                                 ...Read More
 
  
ACTA's Roundtable Series: Food is Good for You
 
This video features excerpts from Food is Good for You: Foodways from a Cultural Perspective, a recent session of ACTA's Roundtable in which we examined how food is a vestige of great cultural knowledge. We visited Urban Adamah, a sustainable farm whose agricultural principles are derived from Jewish practices.  In this setting, we explored how food is inextricably tied to ideas of cultural memory, connectedness with family and others, provides comfort, can be a pathway to health, and reflects sacredness and order. 
 
                                                                                                                                 ...Read More
 


Following ACTA
      


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The Alliance for California Traditional Arts is the California Arts Council's official partner in serving the state's folk and traditional arts field.