Interview with Heather Boecker - Transcription
Interview Location: Old Main Conference Room, 3rd Floor | Length of Interview: 8:12C: OK, interviewing Heather Boecker (B O E C K E R) on October 14th, at 12:30 in the Old Main conference room. Ok, so Heather what is your heritage?
H: I am Swedish, and actually I have some German, and some Polish. And on my grandpa’s side they say it’s a “Heinz 57” because it’s a little bit of everything, but mostly Swedish.
C: And what recipe did you proved today for this project?
H: I provided the dish “rice pudding”
C: Why did you select this recipe?
H: because this is a recipe that we have in our family every year, so it’s kind of the “heritage recipe” that’s passed down.
C: OK, do you know where the dish started from, like, where it originated from?
H: Um…my mom said that her grandmother had made it, so my great grandmother (? Ajax ?). We’re not sure if she brought it over from Sweden or if her mother had brought it over, or if she had lived with an elder lady, who was from Sweden, um, and took care of her and they called her grandma (? Westerburg ?), and so then we’re not sure if it was grandma Westerburg’s. Which would have originally came right over from Sweden. So we know it came right over, but we’re not sure exactly who brought it.
C: What makes the dish Swedish or Norwegian to you [remainder of question inaudible]?
H: Um, I think just [be]cause it’s so different, our rice pudding is so different, it’s not something you can go out in a store and buy or something you can just, you know, find anywhere you go in a restaurant they don’t serve it so to me that kind of brings that to it.
C: OK and we kind of answered number 6 there, uh, so when do you typically serve the rice pudding?
H: Um, my mom said that we normally serve it Christmas Eve, and my mom has been doing that for 42 years…
C: Wow
H: …And before that she said, I asked if her grandma or anybody, and she said “no my mom had started that” but she said her grandma would just make it very often. So it was more often, but it our family it’s more of a special Christmas treat.
C: Who usually prepared the dish?
H: My mom, my mom does.
C: So when did you take over the trade of making it or…
H: I haven’t taken over the trade yet!
C: OHHHH, OK!
H: So, no, it’s still in my mom’s hands (laughter). So I haven’t even attempted it yet, so one of these days I’m probably gonna have to watch it cause it’ll be put on my shoulders.
C: Hopefully I don’t screw up when I make it (laughter)
H: Exactly!
C: So what are some of the ingredients that are in the recipe?
H: Um, it’s eggs and milk and light cream, um butter, well you could be the light cream or you can use like, butter kind of like a homemade buttermilk, um, and then like your cinnamon and your nutmeg and then raisins. And my mom said she wasn’t sure if everybody added raisins to theirs, she wasn’t quite positive, but she does. So, and that’s the way it came.
C: From, there was an article we had to read and the one that I found talked about, there were raisins in it, but there’s one about how it had to have the milk of the calf right after it was born
H: Oh my gosh
C: So it was first calves milk (laughter) so that one I think might be close to the area of mine, but I’m not 100% sure. And the ingredients easy to get, you can go to a grocery store?
H: Yup
C: Has the recipe changed over time?
H: Nope, this is the original, same recipe it has not changed
C: So is there a strategy on how to make the dish?
H: the one strategy is that…
C: Because this will help me (laughter)
H: Yes…the one strategy my mom has said is when you do the buttermilk, she usually instead of like, cream, she usually does the butter and the milk and she said just to make sure you scald it, but do not burn it! She said that’s the trickiest part of the whole recipe! (laughter) I said, well I’ll probably burn it, because I’d like to do other things at the same time.
C: Ok, how is the dish received by other family members?
H: Well, the funny story about our Swedish rice pudding is that it’s served on Christmas Eve, after we have supper, and my mom always asks everybody, you know, oh do you want some Swedish rice or whatever. Me and my brothers, my brothers and I, um always look at each other and kind of giggle and when she leaves the room we all say, “We don’t like Swedish pudding!” (laughter) “Why is she making this every year?”
C: Oh, no! (More laughter)
H: I like it, but it’s just not, I mean I do, I like it. I probably like it more now as I became an adult because I know the story behind it and I know it’s with our heritage. But um, but in retrospect we all kind of like are like “ugh, that’s not our favorite” you know not really realizing why she made it you know when we were younger as we get older. So just every year we all do that even though we all eat it, we just make that same joke every single Christmas
C: That is funny
H: Yeah, Mom why’d you make that, we don’t like that. And then I know it usually doesn’t get gone, so there’s always leftover, so I know my mom and my dad like to eat it in the morning for breakfast on Christmas day, they’ll eat it.
C: So you said this was for dessert, but it there anything that is served alongside with it?
H: Pretty much normally our dinner at Christmas Eve is like baked ham, scalloped potatoes, um corn, and then the Swedish rice pudding for dessert.
C: Ok, so nothing, like, extra is added in to like, jam or anything like that’s not added into it?
H: No, um, well the only think is milk, she’ll like bring it and then, some people like it hot and some people in our family like it cold so, but we always add milk to it when you serve it
C: So what is your favorite memory that you have either making the dish, eating the dish?
H: Um, I think eating the dish and I think the whole little inside joke between my brothers and I is the favorite part of it. So, cause yeah, cause I have a brother who’s deceased and he, you know him and I always would look at each other cause we were closest in age and it’s like “really, we’re having this again” and he’s always, when I got married he’d always tease me, “can’t you bake something and bring it for dessert instead?” (Laughter)
C: So does that like, thinking between the, you and your siblings like, trickle down to the younger generations, their like, “why does grandma make this” or
H: Yeah I think so, and I think like um, because I have three grandchildren and I think this past year was probably the first year that they actually tasted it because they were so young. And now that Gavin ‘s seven, you know I think this coming Christmas will be more fun to explain to him why we eat it and what it is. Cause they’re all like, turn up their nose and are like, rice pudding that just doesn’t go together. Cause they’re expecting it to be like, you know, like regular pudding and it’s not. It’s more of a thicker consistency with the rice, you know like a thicker tapioca.
C: those are the questions I have, that I wrote down, but is there anything else that I didn’t ask or that you thought of when you were looking at the questions that you would like to say or explain maybe a little bit deeper?
H: Um, nope I don’t think so. I don’t remember, like I said my mom made this for the last 42 years, I don’t remember my grandma making it. But like I said, she said her grandmother made it. So I’m not sure if my grandma ever really made it, or when she did or maybe I just don’t remember her making it. But I know, like I said my great grandmother made it so.
C: Well perfect! Well, that was nice and easy, hopefully this worked.