Keepers of Tradition

The 24th Lowell Folk Festival will feature cooking demonstrations in the Folk Craft and Foodways area of Lucy Larcom Park and a chance to buy a variety of ethnic cuisine at three performance stage areas.

This year “Foodways” looks at how beans are prepared in several cultures. Often called the “poor man’s meat,” beans are rich in protein and have long been the traditional Saturday night supper in New England. Native Americans introduced slowly cooked beans to early settlers, and like many foodways, recipes were adopted and transformed by immigrants who added their own traditions and ingredients. Folklorists Millie Rahn and Maggie Holtzberg have connected with five cultural representatives, who will share their insights with the audience. Festival visitors are invited to sit down and watch how this simple legume can take on such different flavors. Ask questions. And be sure to sample the beans made by our various cooks –

 12:00  Faith Izevbijie, Nigerian beans

1:00    Guida Ponte, Portuguese beans

2:00    Sellou Diaite, Senegalese bean fritters

3:00    Jeanette Rodriquez-Cumpiano, Puerto Rican beans

4:00    Kurt Levasseur, Franco-American beans

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Sometimes, a concert’s setting can make all the difference. When Lowell National Historical Park first thought of partnering with the Franco-American Day Committee to help celebrate Franco-American Week in Lowell, we planned on presenting a Franco-American/Irish concert on Park grounds. But after much thought and discussion, we all realized that the better idea was to pair the Park-sponsored concert with a community event — the traditional ham and bean supper, which is typically held in a French Church Hall. This year, the supper was served in the Immaculate Conception School Hall. When we arrived around 4:45 p.m., the hall was full of people, many of whom had grown up in Lowell and the surrounding communities. Although there were some children about, the average age was about 75. French was being spoken and the aroma was heavenly. Home baked hams and plenty of Cote’s beans, both the light and the dark, were being served.

People socialized and ate from 4:30 to 6:30. Music was scheduled to start at 7:30. Several hours before members of the “Irish-French Connection” took the stage, they rehearsed in the Park’s Visitor Center conference room.

The leaders of this band - John Whelan and Donna Hébert –are icons in their Irish and Franco-American musical communities. Each brings 40 years of performing, teaching, and recording experience to the newly formed band.

The tunes and songs they performed during the evening concert were once commonly played and danced to in Irish and French-Canadian immigrant communities throughout the Northeast, where both groups migrated in the 1880s to work in the textile mills. Indeed, when we asked the 135 audience members how many had relatives who had worked in the Lowell textile mills, about half of the hands went up.

Seated at one of the many tables was Lowellian Raymond Breault, who throughout the evening played his wooden spoons and clogged his tap-soled shoes in time to the music. On more than one occasion, he made his way to the front of the hall to demonstrate his rhythmic feet. This delighted the musicians. As Donna remarked from the stage, “There is no better compliment to a fiddler than to have someone who is moved to  get up and dance.”

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The reason why we exist is because of pork scrap and Lowell’s famous baked beans. Pork pies. We have a little niche that has kept us in business since 1917.

Roger Levasseur, owner of Cote’s Market

“I’ve been doing beans since forever, almost. It seems forever. We started buying [beans] from Frankie Rochette and then he took in my father, who was like a son. Frankie Rochette, who pioneered the Lowellian type of bean, was known as ‘King of Beans.’”

So what makes Cote’s beans so special?

Perhaps it is the use of small Californian white beans, which have been aged for up to three years. Or the extremely fresh salt pork imported from Canada. Whatever it is, the beans made at this local corner market have found a way into local’s hearts for generations. Customers include elderly people who have been shopping at Cote’s for sixty or seventy years. Even people who have moved away will come back every Saturday to get their beans and their brown bread. Kurt Levasseur: “Recently, we had one woman who was moving to California, not out of choice. She was beside herself that she could not get Cote’s beans every Saturday.  It was something that she did as a child, something that’s ingrained in her French-Canadian roots, and she was literally in tears. . . she liked my grandfather’s homemade sauce. We sent her off with six quarts of sauce; I think she had more food than luggage.”

When Frankie Rochette handed the recipe over to Roger Levasseur of Cotes market, he told him, ”Don’t ever change the recipe. And always keep my secret.” Roger adds, “Of course, the secret is pretty obvious. The secret is use the best ingredients and you’ll be in business 30 years from now.”  Roger is now in in early 60s and his son, Kurt Levasseur, is helping to carry on the business. While big chain supermarkets have all but put small local grocers out of business, Cote’s is thriving. 

Some of Kurt’s earliest memories are of helping to make beans in the store. “I started when I was very, very small. [My father] would make the beans at night around seven, eight o’clock. Which would seem really late to us at night.” From helping his father scoop the dry navy beans, to pouring the beans in the pot, or stamping bags, Kurt has been in this store since he could walk. Below you see him holding the “special scooper” used in measuring out the beans. “Gosh, if I lose that scooper it would be World War III. That thing has to have a GPS on it. It’s like an heirloom.”

“My father is 62 years old. He’s worked really, really, really hard his whole life. I’ve watched him work, watched the sweat roll off his forehead,to give us a good childhood. He worked hard, so I want to give back now and take care of my mother and father, just like he does with his.”

Photos by Maggie Holtzberg

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It’s not every day that someone’s kitchen becomes a museum exhibit. But then again, Julia Child is not your every day cook.  When she relocated from Cambrdige to California, her kitchen - the cabinets, appliances, utensils, pots, and pans - found a new home at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. The exhibit remains popular with visitors since it opened in 2002.  

To explore the kitchen’s journey to the Smithsonian, join us on Friday April 30 for a talk by Dr. Rayna Green, folklorist and Smithsonian’s curator of Julia Child’s kitchen. She will also touch upon the French Chef’s impact on the home cook in the 1960s and 70s through her cookbooks and her legendary television show produced by Boston’s PBS station, WGBH. The program is free and will be offered in the auditorium of the Lowell National Historical Park Visitor Center, 246 Market Street,  at 7:30 pm.

In case you missed it, consider joining us on Tuesday, April 27 for Julie and Julia. The feature film (2009) is a comedy-drama written and directed by Nora Ephron. The film depicts events in the life of Julia Child in the early years in her culinary career, contrasting her life with Julie Powell who aspires to cook all 524 recipes from Child’s cookbook during a single year, a challenge she described on her popular blog that would make her a published author. Being screened in partnership with the Lowell Film Collaborative, the film will be shown at the Lowell National Historical Park Visitor Center,246 Market Street, at 6:30 pm. The film is free.

Native American Foodways in New England, May 1

On May 1, Dr. Rayna Green will give a presentation on Native American foodways of New England. She will provide a broad overview of Native foodways in New England (coastal cultures versus inland, seasonal food, agriculture, etc.) and talk about the impact of Native American foodways on what some would define as “traditional” New England cuisine. This free presentation will be offered at 1:30 pm in the Boott Event Center located on the second floor of the Boott Cotton Museum at Lowell National Historical Park, 115 John Street.

This trio of events inaugurates a new series of foodways programming at Lowell National Historical Park.

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As the Folk Arts and Heritage Program begins its 12^th year at the Massachusetts Cultural Council, we are excited to tell you about some changes. Through a unique partnership with Lowell National Historical Park (LNHP), state folklorist Maggie Holtzberg has been temporarily assigned to the Park to support the development and expansion of traditional arts programming serving the public. We will continue our work in running a vital state folk arts program – doing field research, maintaining an archive, database, and website, and providing grants to individual artists. This new endeavor is an exciting opportunity to explore cross-cultural understanding within in the context of a National Park based on ethnic heritage, occupational folklore, immigration, and industrial history.  

The goal is to engage visitors and more of the region’s immigrant and ethnic populations by offering a robust variety of culturally-relevant public programs at the Park year-round. Though the MCC Folk Arts and Heritage Program has worked with the Lowell Folk Festival for over a decade (providing potential crafts artists and musicians, emceeing on stages, etc.) we will be more actively involved in the planning and presentation of folk arts than ever before. This summer, look for ”Folk Craft and Foodways” in Lucy Larcom Park where we will showcase some of the extra-musical aspects of traditional folk culture.

The plan is to build on the energy of the festival — the high-quality, traditional arts performances that are the hallmark of the Lowell Folk Festival — and offer similar experiences throughout the year. Special exhibits and interactive presentations of craft, foodways, performing, and expressive traditions will be developed based on both previous and new folklife field research within the region’s many diverse communities. There is even the possibility of re-establishing a folklife center at the Park.

 Keep your eye on this blog for further postings from Lowell . . .

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Baby Sira was born just over one month ago. Her family invited friends and relatives for a celebration at their home in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Her father, Habib Saccoh recently befriended balafon player Balla Kouyaté, who in addition to performing with his band, World Vision, carries on his family’s tradition of performing for domestic ceremonies within the local Mandinka community. (The Mandinka are one of the largest ethnic groups found across much of West Africa.) “Even though Habib is from Sierra Leone,” Balla explains to me,  ”he is still of the Mandinka people.” For such a momentous occasion, Habib and his wife, who is American, wanted to celebrate like he would, were he home in Sierra Leone.

Dropping by the all-day party was an opportunity for me to witness the role of a djeli (a.k.a. griot) in the context of his own culture. Djelis are the oral historians, praise singers, and musicians who are born into the responsibility of keeping alive and celebrating the history of the Mandinka people. Balla Kouyaté’s family lineage goes back over 800 years to Balla Faséké, the first of an unbroken line of djelis in the Kouyaté clan. Indeed, his family is regarded as the original praise-singers of the Mandinka people. To have him present at a celebration such as this, is a way of bringing together a community far from home, reminding them where they came from, holding the culture together.

And what a party it was. Although I had parked my car several houses away, I could hear Balla’s music from the street.

Stepping inside the spacious Victorian foyer, I immediately spotted where the action was. A large parlor room off to the right was alive with colorfully dressed men and women dancing to the music.

The music was cranked up really loud and some little people were not pleased.

Servings of African cuisine, fresh fruit, nuts, and beverages were plentiful in the kitchen.

Occasionally, people would offer cash to the musicians, in appreciation of their dance music and praises being offered, which went on for over six hours.

No question, this is a rich cultural heritage in which to grow up.

All photos by Maggie Holtzberg

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For the bagel connoisseur, there is nothing like the crunchy outside and the dense, slightly moist, texture of a freshly baked bagel. But they are becoming harder and harder to find. What passes for a bagel in most food establishments is basically a roll with a hole in the middle. Big difference. To find out why, I ventured behind the counter of my local bagel shop.

Rosenfeld’s Bagels first opened in 1972. At the time, there were many more small, individually owned bakeries in the Boston area. “It was before all the chains,” recalls owner/bagel baker Mike Lombardo, who started working at Rosenfeld’s twenty-one years ago. He has been there ever since.

Rosenfeld’s is small. There is hardly any room for the customer to stand in line to buy bagels or pick up a quart of cream cheese. Unlike chain eateries, there is no room to sit and eat. Newton has a large Jewish population and Rosenfeld’s does a brisk business. “Friday is a more religious crowd,” Mike tells me. “The Kosher people come here all the time but because of the Sabbath you have people buying challahs. It’s a very community oriented place.”

Though he himself is not Jewish, Mike and his wife Jennifer run a kosher bagel shop, with oversight by an orthodox rabbi. The bagels do not come in contact with any meat or dairy products. On Fridays, a blue tarp is draped over areas separating the bagel making area from any utensils, mixing bowls involved in making cream cheese.

A place must really be set up to do bagels, which are a specialty item. “I learned how do make bagels from somebody who learned how to do it from people who learned how to do it in Eastern Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.” Here at Rosenfeld’s, the bagels are made the way they traditionally have been made for centuries: Bagel dough is boiled before being baked. No shortening is used (traditionally, bagels are made without any shortening). The only ingredients are high-gluten flour, water, salt, malt syrup, and yeast. Once the bagels are formed, they must “rest” for 24 hours. This allows them to rise slowly in a refrigerated environment.

A critical step is boiling the bagels before baking them.

The last step is baking the bagels in the oven. This being a kosher place, the oven has been lit by an orthodox rabbi.

“The beauty of bagels as a bakery item is once they are baked, they’re done.” No laborious icing or decoration need be done.

Mike makes the distinction that athough the entire process of producing bagels is simple, it is not easy to do. ”There are ample opportunities to screw things up at every step.”

So, next time you order a bagel at Dunkin Donuts or grab a bag of frozen bagels at the grocery store, keep in mind that they are mass-produced offsite, shortening has been added to the dough because it is so heavily machined, and they haven’t taken that obligatory dunk in boiling water before being baked. Ignorance is bliss. Once you’ve tasted a real bagel, there’s no going back.

All photos by Maggie Holtzberg. Rosenfeld’s Bagels is located at 1280 Centre Street, Newton Centre, MA. 617-527-8080

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Colleague and fellow folklorist Millie Rahn brings us this guest blog:

Steve Cole was introduced to cranberry growing through his great uncle, who spent a lifetime in agriculture in southeastern Massachusetts. There, Steve writes, he learned about the local crop “via an irrigation system that needed installation.” He adds, “For some, the cranberry has provided a comfortable living for five generations; for others, only enough money to make it through each winter. When something so dominates the lives of people, it is worth knowing about.”

Steve and his wife, photographer Lindy Gifford, are the authors of The Cranberry: Hard Work and Holiday Sauce, just published by Tilbury House Publishers in Maine. Steve and Lindy did much of their research in the early 1980s, while living in Wareham, near where Steve grew up. The book is based on interviews with cranberry growers in Plymouth County and Cape Cod, as well as extensive historical research. It is illustrated with contemporary and historical photographs and documents drawn, in many cases, from archival collections throughout Massachusetts.

Steve and Lindy recently held a launch party and book signing at the Ansel Gurney House in Marion, and also appeared in the book tent at the Working Waterfront Festival in New Bedford, which this year featured discussion of issues shared by fishermen and farmers.

Photo (l to r): Cranberry grower Wilho Harju, author Stephen Cole, Lillian Harju, and author Lindy Gifford at the book launch in Marion in late September. Wilho and Lillian Harju were among those interviewed about Finnish people’s contributions to cranberry growing. Photo by Phoebe Cole.

The authors will be signing their book throughout the fall, including the following dates and locations:

Saturday, October 10, 11 am

Cranberry Harvest Celebration at A.D. Makepeace Co. headquarters

Tihonet Village, Wareham

Saturday afternoon, November 7

Titcomb Books on Route 6A in East Sandwich

Sunday, November 8, Noon-2 pm

Where the Sidewalk Ends Bookstore on Main Street in Chatham.

More dates will follow at Plimoth Plantation, and in Boston and Concord.

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Great weather and great programming! We suggest heading down to New Bedford this weekend for the Working Waterfront Festival. If you haven’t guessed, this year’s theme is surf and turf. In promoting the festival, organizers point out that “Fishermen and farmers share a deep knowledge of, reverence for and dependence upon the natural world. Both groups pass traditional skills and knowledge from one generation to the next, often incorporating new technologies alongside traditional practices. And both communities face many of the same economic, environmental and political challenges.”

In addition to live maritime and ethnic music, there will be an open air market featuring local produce and fresh seafood and cooking demonstrations, occupational demonstrations of fishing and farming skills, tours of fishing boats, author readings, and kid’s activities.

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Brian O’Donovan, who hosts A Celtic Sojourn on WGBH, let us know about this wonderul new video by Boston based Kristin Andreassen, Crayola.

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