Smithsonian Center for Folklife & Cultural Heritage

A dining table set with more than a dozen dishes of food, including white rice, meat on skewers, stewed vegetables, and sliced cucumbers.

Top 5 Folklife Stories from 2023

This year, Folklife Magazine published a sprawling diversity of stories—from Armenian protest movements to young Asian American farmers.

Two women decorate a large array of cookies laid out on a table.

Celebrate National Cookie Day With This Scottish Treat

In our family, Christmas would not be complete without our cookie-baking and decorating tradition

Various cobs of multicolored corn.

How Seeds Tell Stories

In the past century, there has been a seventy-five percent decline in agricultural biodiversity. When we fail to prioritize biodiversity, we risk erasing cultural diversity as well.

Freshly backed, round, golden brown tortas sit to cool in their crinkled metal baking tins.

Torta—Filipino Christmas Cake, I Think

For the majority of the year, I am half Filipina. But during Christmas, I try to embrace this identity fully through a few small rituals.

Three adults stand and two small children stand around a table with plated. The table is covered by a red table cloth and has a large candle in the center with food arranged around it.

Learn to Make Potatis Korv Sausage for Your Festive Swedish Smörgåsbord

I can’t remember a year in my life where my Grandma Lucille laid out the smörgåsbord and the korv was missing.

A plate full of golden brown potato pancakes are placed on a dining table. Behind them are bowls of sour cream, apple sauce, salt, and a menorah with three candles lit.

Are You Team Apple Sauce or Sour Cream? A Smithsonian Staffer Shares Her Family's Latke Recipe

It’s Hanukkah and time to dig out the three-by-five index card with my mother’s recipe for latkes.

Bowls of citrus fruits including lemons, limes, and oranges, are arranged on a striped, bright green table cloth. Behind the bowls are jars filled with various superfoods including Goji berries.

La Cultura Cura: How Latinos Are Reclaiming Their Ancestral Diets

Whole Foods certainly didn't invent chia seeds.

Preparing klulik from Sasoun at Noosh. (Photo by Areg Vardanyan, My Armenia Program)

Eat Like an Armenian with These Tips from a Local Guide

Did you know that Armenian culture is heavily gastro-centric? Any occasion, be it happy or sad, has associations with food.

인삼주 Insam-ju is a ginseng liquor made by preserving ginseng in alcohol above thirty proof. Korean people often make insam-ju at home and take a shot daily for its health benefits. It is also shared with special guests and is often paired with samgyetang (ginseng chicken soup). (Photo by Grace Dahye Kwon)

How Ginseng Connects Me to the Roots of My Korean American Community

Although I grew up in the Northern Virginia area, with the third largest Korean American population in the United States, I always felt foreign, even in my own neighborhood. Adults butchered my name “Dahye” until I finally changed it to “Grace,” just to get through morning roll call.

Master basket weaver Arthur Petrosyan sits and works on a project. (Photo by Narek Harutyunyan, My Armenia Program)

Travel the Sweetest Route through Vayots Dzor and Syunik, Armenia

Numerous popular traditions regarding beekeeping are associated with the medicinal properties of the use of beeswax. Grandpa Grisha, a beekeeper with 50 years of experience, remembers it all very well.

Unearthing a karas (large storage vessel, amphorae) at Trinity Canyon Vineyards. (My Armenia Program )

A Wine Expert's Diary from the Roads of Vayots Dzor, Armenia

Armenia, where the oldest trace of wine production is 6,100 years old, can indeed compete for the title of the “cradle of wine.”

Bright lights and large crowds were ever-present at the Weihnachtsmarkt in Dresden, Germany, 2014. (Photo by Pete Reiniger)

A Taste of the German Christmas Market at Home: Glühwein mit Schuss

Normally at this time of year, the German-speaking lands of Central Europe would be bustling with Weihnachtsmärkte (Christmas markets) or Christkindlmärkte (Christ Child markets), filled with food, drink, good cheer, and other longstanding traditional activities. But nothing seems to be normal in 2020, so almost all of those markets never opened.

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