Terin CraneFollow

Date Collected

10-2018

Place item was collected

Albania

Informant

Eden Adams

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

Eden Adams is a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints who is currently serving a mission in the Adriatic South Mission. She is from Centerfield, UT. In 2017, she graduated from Gunnison Valley High School. She loves her dog Hearty Boy and considers him a part of the family. When she returns in the summer of 2019, she hopes to go to SUU and pursue a degree in Neonatal Nursing. She also happens to be my best friend.

Context

I interviewed Eden via email. At the time of the interview, she was serving in Vlore, Albania. I had asked her if there were any wives’ tales or folklore that she had heard in her time on her mission. She wrote me back to tell me about this food wives tale. She explained that Albanians use this wives’ tale when someone does not eat all of their food, specifically younger people like teenagers and children. Eden was eating lunch with her companion at either the house of an investigator or the house of a member. She did not finish all of her food, and one of the Albanians there told her the wives’ tale associated with not eating all of your food.

Text

“If you don’t finish your food, you have to kiss it 3 times or else it’s bad luck.”

Texture

Eden thought it was funny, and so did the Albanian who told her to kiss her food. She describes this Albanian as telling her “jokingly” to kiss the food. This led me to believe that neither of them thinks this wives’ tale is true. Eden was typing as if she was in a hurry because there were a lot of grammatical errors throughout our conversation. The entire email was also very short, about two paragraphs. This is normal for Eden because she is a missionary and her time to email friends and family on P-day is very limited due to all of the planning, organizing, meeting, contracting, and tracting that they have to do. I also attributed her grammar and spelling errors to the fact that she no longer speaks English but is currently speaking Albanian. It was a very informal tone because we are friends, so there was no need to add in pleasantries and fluff to make each other comfortable.

Course

ENGL 2210

Instructor

Dr. Lynne McNeill

Semester and year

Fall 2018

Theme

G2: Bad Luck

EAD Number

23.2.1.83

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