Food Traditions

What we eat says a great deal about who we are and where we came from.
Vendors invited to participate in the Great Lakes Folk Festival's "Taste of Traditions Food Court" offer traditional foods closely linked to their ethnicity or region. Below is a glimpse of some of the treats available at this year's festival.

Information for Food Vendors

Information for Traditional and Non Traditional Food Vendors


The Taste of Tradition Vendors 2008
Click on the name or scroll down to see more info about the vendors

 (updated 6/15/07)

Local and Other Food Vendors 2008
-Melting Moments-Locally produced Ice Cream Treats
-Blimpies/Smoothie Island- Classic American Subs ( Hoagies, or Heros)
-Somethin's Poppin'- Sweet and crunchy Kettle corn
-Cottage Inn- Pizza, a college classic! Lots of non students like it too!

-Tammy's Elephant Ears- A county fair tradition, sweet fried dough topped with
powdered sugar or apple pie filling.
-Peking Express- Chinese Cuisine
-Sweetie-licious Pie Pantry- Pies and desserts
-L and L Food Center- Brisket
-Neil's Doghouse- Hot dogs, sausage, onion rings and brats
-Tropical Drinks- Fruit cups and cool fruit drinks
-Amist Concessions- Fresh-squeezed Lemonade

Sidewalk Cafes
-Harper's Restaurant and Brewpub
-Crunchy's

A.J. Rib Experience
Lansing, Michigan
barbecue
Barbecuing ribs is an art and practitioners have their own discrete methods. Some marinate, some baste with vinegar, some boil, some bake, and some smoke the meat. Ribs can be cooked long and slow or hot and fast. Some like their ribs moist and tender; others argue that only firm and chewy will do. And what of the sauce or spices? Some use commercially bottled sauce that they adjust to their taste, while others make their sauce from scratch, often using a family recipe. Others rub the ribs with spices and may or may not use sauce. There is wide variation in the degree of spiciness and sweetness. In Michigan, ribs are a popular foodways, about which everyone has a strong opinion. Allen Jones's barbecued ribs are rubbed with a secret seasoning and smoked.

Allen Jones moved with his family from Chicago to Flint in 1969. As a child, he already had aspirations of being a chef and began cooking at the age of 5 under the direction of his mother, grandmother, and great great uncle. He attended prestigious culinary art schools in Arkansas and Boston and is now a certified chef. He applied his culinary skills at the Michigan School for the Blind until the school closed in 1994, when he turned to catering. Today his family's southern culinary heritage is but one part of his cooking repertoire. He did not begin to barbecue until the late 1990s, when he saw a fellow barbecuing and selling ribs on a street corner and he knew he wanted to do this. When not at the Great Lakes Folk Festival, Allen can be found selling ribs on the corner of Pleasant Grove and Hamilton.

Aloha Piilani's Catering Company
Lansing, Michigan
Hawaiian

Auntie Piilani Rupert brings to us the foods and flavors of Hawaii. She grew up in a household where her grandmother ruled the kitchen, discouraging anyone else from cooking. Consequently, Piilani, who wanted to learn to cook, pursued her passion for food by trial and error, practicing until she achieved perfection. Cooking is creative and "you are either born to it or not and you either get the flavor (right) or not." Piilani was born to it and gets the flavor of the food perfectly.

By the age of 37 she was a well-known caterer in Hawaii, having passed the ultimate test of culinary excellence. At this time she moved to the mainland where she continued to cater. She has been pleasing the palates of Michiganders for many years with foods and her special flavors that comprise Hawaiian cuisine.

Altu's Ethiopian Cuisine
East Lansing, Michigan
Ethiopian foods
Spices play an esential role in Ethiopian cuisine, which ranges from delicate and appealing to hot and and almost addictive. Berbere, a mixture of spices and fiery ethiopian red pepper, is used for everything from a rich man's delicacy to a poor man's chunk of bread. the national dish of Ethiopia, a stew called wat, is made with chicken fish and meats but the finest wats are made with lentils, beans or chickpeas. When served, food is placed atop injera, a thin, round bread made of finely ground teff, a high-quality millet, and eaten with the right hand by tearing off pieces of injera and dipping into or wrapping the piece around bite-sized food.

Altu Tadesse is from western Ethiopia. She was raised on her family's farm and by the age of twelve, she was cooking complete meals. Altu came to the United States with her husband in 1986. She opened her popular restaurant in East Lansing in 1996 and serves fine examples of Ethiopian food.

Anishnabe Meejim
Lansing, Michigan
Native American Foods

Native American cookery consists of the oldest foods and the oldest cooking methods in North America-a food and cooking tradition based on things gathered from the ground, plants, and fresh and salt waters. Like the Native Americans themselves, their food and cooking have changed greatly since first contact with Europeans. Nonetheless, the Native foods that were once associated with ceremonial life remain so today. Certain things are still eaten in certain seasons only by certain people. What is eaten is central to being Native, and nothing is eaten without a prayer.
Many New World foods have enriched the cuisines of other nations. What would Italian food be, for example, without the tomato? Native peoples grew and preserved a wide variety of corn, which European traders took to all corners of the world. Corn is still an important ingredient in the Native American diet and is eaten in a variety of ways.
Some foods closely identified today with Indians are the result of European and other Native American influences. Frybread, for example, evolved because of access to European wheat and lard, and today it is associated with all Indians. Through fairs, festivals, and pow wows, the southwestern version of frybread--the Indian or Navajo taco--has been adopted by Native Americans of the Great Lakes region and elsewhere.

Armenian Foods
Lansing, Michigan
Armenian foods

Armenian cuisine has its roots in antiquity, and it has been said food is one of the cornerstones of Armenian culture today. Influenced by the foods of Greek, Roman, Persian, Arab, Central Asian, and Turkish culture, Armenians have also influenced the food cultures of their neighbors and people passing through their territory. Pride in their national heritage is expressed through food and Armenians have maintained their traditional, richly varied, and to some even exotic, cuisine, using fresh and dried fruits, honey, rose water, nuts, herbs and spices in both sweet and savory dishes. Much is also familiar in Armenian cuisine. Cheese has been a basic from ancient times; rice and cracked wheat are the most widely used grains; lamb is the preferred meat, often cooked on a spit over wood or charcoal embers.

Armenia has existed under different names since ancient times and is referred to in the Bible as the land of Mount Ararat, where Noah's Ark is believed to have landed after the Deluge. Located along the trade routes between the Black and Caspian Seas, this territory was often a battleground and conquered by invading armies. Today Armenians are widely dispersed; many from Turkey and the Middle East made their way to the United States in the early 20th century. In the 1980s some 40 Caucasian Armenian families from Azerbaijan and Russia settled in the East Lansing area. One of these families, the Gevorkyans, has catered locally for a number of years, and also operated the now closed House of Kabobs. The restaurant name recalled shish kabob, for which Armenians are best known in this country, and offered a selection of Armenian and Russian specialties, some of which are available at the festival.


Federated Polish Home
Lansing, Michigan
Polish foods
The Federated Polish Home is a social and fraternal hall built by Polish immigrants in about 1926. It is made up of three Polish fraternal organizations: Polish National Alliance, Polish Falcons, and White Eagles. These organizations were started by immigrants to provide accident and death insurance coverage to members from Poland and their families. In addition to their function as insurance providers, these organizations also are social organizations. Among other things, they sponsor dinner dances at which Polish foods prepared by members are sometimes served.

Pierogi are very popular dumplings that symbolize Polishness in the United States. They have a variety of fillings, including cheese and potato, which are offered by the Federated Polish Home, along with homemade kielbasa (sausage) and sauerkraut.

Maria's Tacos
Lansing, Michigan
Tex-Mex foods
The term "Tex Mex" designates Texas Mexicans (Tejanos) and their culture. Much of the cuisine we know in Michigan as Mexican is Tex Mex, brought by families who settled in Michigan from Texas and by seasonal agricultural workers from Texas who live part of the year in Michigan.

The Espinoza family's ancestors emigrated from Mexico to Texas during the Great Depression. Highway construction work in the 1950s brought the grandparents of James Espinoza to Michigan, and ultimately his family turned to agricultural work and settled in the Thumb region. James Espinoza and his mother, Maria, made and sold tacos for the first time at a Croswell festival three years ago. They make tacos the way their family has made them for generations, with corn tortillas, cheddar cheese, beef or chicken seasoned with cumin and garlic, lettuce, tomato, and mild homemade salsa. This, according to James, is the "real" Tex-Mex taco from the region of Corpus Christi. In addition, they offer burritos, which James describes as taco ingredients plus beans wrapped in a flour tortilla.

Michael Bernard
Lansing, Michigan
Jamaican

Michael Bernard, currently the sous chef at the Lansing Center, grew up in Jamaica. At an early age, he was helping his mother in the kitchen, learning from her the skills and knowledge needed for cooking Jamaican. His passion for food led him to train to be a professional cook and eventually to work as a chef and to train others.

Jamaican food culture has been influenced by many different cultures over time: the Tainos and peoples from Africa, India, China, Spain and Britain. The island's motto is "Out of many, one people." The Tainos are credited with contributing the "jerk flavor," the British for patties, Indians for curry. At the Great Lakes Folk Festival, Michael Bernard offers tastes of these flavors and more.

 
Woody's Oasis
East Lansing, Michigan
Arab foods
Outside of the Middle East, Michigan is home to the largest Arabic-speaking population, comprising many religions, nations, ethnic groups, and regional cuisines.

Great value is attached to cooking and good food in the Middle East. It is a sensual kind of cooking, generously using herbs, spices, and aromatics. Most local cuisines include rice and wheat dishes, stuffed vegetables, pies wrapped in paper-thin pastry, various methods for roasting meats, meatballs, thick omelettes, cold vegetables cooked in oil, scented rice puddings, nut-filled pastries, fritters soaked in syrup and a variety of fruit and vegetable juices.

Some areas are known for a highly developed cuisine. Lebanon, for example, is one of only two Middle Eastern countries to have a highly developed restaurant tradition. Lebanese emigrant cooks and restaurateurs brought Arab cuisine to the attention of the world. In Michigan, the majority of restaurants and bakeries offer Lebanese foods. Woody's Oasis, the first Arab restaurant in the area, has pleased its customers with Lebanese foods.

Zemer's Rootbeer
Tyler, Texas
homemade rootbeer
Rootbeer is an all-American drink that dates from the mid-nineteenth century. Chris Zemer is a fourth-generation rootbeer maker and vendor; his great grandfather started his rootbeer business in Ionia in the 1920s. From a stand made by his grandfather and great grandfather in the 1920s, Chris and his wife Joy have been selling rootbeer since 1991. Chris's grandfather made the counters and his great grandfather had used the rootbeer barrel, both of which are part of the stand. The stand is a highly valued family heirloom and the rootbeer business, a long family tradition.

With this history, Chris has stories to tell. He won't give us his secret recipe, but he will tell you there's nothing better than an ice cold glass of his homemade rootbeer. "Once you taste my rootbeer," Chris boasted, "you'll never want anyone else's."