Cooking with Humour: A Study of Belarusian Humorous Folklore about Family Cooking Traditions

This paper is a study of Belarusian humorous folklore revolving around cooking. It examines two different types of folklore text: jokes collected on the internet, and humorous anecdotes in family lore about cooking, the latter collected through fieldwork. By comparing the two kinds of humour, the paper investigates to what extent the values and attitudes manifest in my interviews mirror those found in internet jokes. The research shows that while there can be some parallels between the two types of humour, their forms, topics, and functions differ greatly and reflect separate aspects of Belarusian foodlore.