<Begin Segment 6>

MN: So by now, when the family moved to Trabuco Canyon, you're getting a little older. What were your responsibilities on the farm?

YK: Well, not too many. I was still, well, ten or less, and so I mainly took care of the chickens and fed them. And mainly my job was to stay out of the way and play with my two sisters. [Laughs]

MN: So the chickens, on what occasions did the family eat the chickens?

YK: Oh, well, every day, of course. And two of my older brothers were the executioners. They would grab a chicken and then put it on a block and then the other one would chop the head off. And so this was a daily occurrence. And one time we had an extra big rooster, and when they chopped his head off, he was actually running around for a while there. It seemed like quite a while, it was probably only a few seconds, but anyway, then he died. But I never took part in the executions, I just watched. [Laughs]

MN: Now even after you kill a chicken, you still have to take the feathers off. Who did that?

YK: Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, they were put in the big pot and boiled, and we'd have to all chip in and pull out the feathers. So that was a daily occasion.

MN: But there was like eleven people in your family and one chicken? I don't imagine it went too far.

YK: Oh, well, we killed more than one chicken every day. [Laughs]

MN: You must have had a lot of chickens on your farm.

YK: Oh, yeah, we had a big, whole bunch of chickens. And then, too, I had the responsibility of getting the eggs. So we had a lot of chicken and eggs.

MN: Now how often did your family eat seafood?

YK: Oh, well, that was only on the occasion when they would go down to Capistrano Beach and fish, or once in a while go out on a fishing barge and bring back fish. And that was usually my father and older brothers, but on occasion we would all go down and play at Doheny Beach and dig for sand crabs and look around for abalones and things like that.

MN: And you shared about how your mother caught octopus. How did she do that?

YK: Oh, yeah, she had two long steel bars about a yard long, and on one of 'em she would tie a string and (...) tie a little crab to it. And the other one was kind of a hook. And so she would put the crab near where there was a big rock, and a little pool of water, and put the crab in there, and then the octopus would come out and try to grab the crab and she'd try to hook it. And if she didn't, she would use what was called bluestone, which she would throw in there and then the octopus would come out and try to get away.

MN: What is bluestone?

YK: I don't know. It was bluish in color, and it was probably sort of poisonous because the octopus didn't like it. And then she would, afterwards, swish the water to try to make the blue go away, because she said, yeah, the game warden could fine her for doing that.

MN: How did your mother usually prepare the fish or the octopus?

YK: Well, most of it was boiled. Of course, the fish, we'd have everything from sashimi to soup to fried fish. And I used to like to eat the sand crabs. And then we also have the little, what do you call them? Snail like things, sea snails, and we would boil those and then you could pick it out with a safety pin and eat that.

MN: I think that was really common. We used to do that too. Now it's illegal to go get them. So you're eating all this for your main course, what did you usually eat for dessert?

YK: What did we have for dessert? Not too much. I remember on occasion they would make doughnuts, get some hot oil and make doughnuts, dip 'em in and put powdered sugar. I don't recall any cakes or pies or things like that. And I don't recall, we didn't have any oven, so she didn't make any cookies.

MN: But you had a lot of fresh fruit on your farm, right?

YK: Well, we had fresh vegetables, and I guess we had some fruit trees, but not very many.

MN: You weren't growing strawberries at this time?

YK: Oh, yeah. Strawberries were the main staple, of course. And our favorite way was to crush them and put Carnation milk and sugar and eat the strawberries. That was our main dessert, that's right.

MN: And it must have been good, 'cause it's home grown.

YK: [Laughs] Yeah. But I used to go out in the field and pick the best ones and eat 'em.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.