Faux Thanksgiving

Yesterday, we had our friends Harry and Jonathan over for a Faux Thanksgiving dinner. In addition to being belated, it felt "faux" for a variety of reasons, which I will explain. However, it was a truly enjoyable evening, and made me feel wonderful, so that part was completely real.

First, it should be noted that Kiwis know that American Thanksgiving exists, and that it's in November, and not a whole lot else. What they do know is mostly from American movies. Apparently, Jonathan and Harry had a debate on the way over about whether or not Americans go around the table and say something they're thankful for before they eat. I guess they both won this time, because I said that we do and J said that we don't. :)

The first, most obviously different thing was the lack of Grandma Verschelden's house, full of family. Not really replicable here, but we knew that. However, Harry and Jonathan are wonderful friends, and J and I did our best playing host and hostess, and it was good. We taught them to play 500 (the card game), which is actually a Denner family game, and I have therefore never played it at Thanksgiving, but it is J's favourite card game, so it's all good. They picked it up quite well, and we played for hours. So a bit of a mish-mash, but lovely.

Speaking of mish-mashes, the food at our Thanksgiving dinner was... shall we say... unique?

We were unable to find any of the necessary ingredients for pumpkin pie! Well, we could have made home-made pie crust, I suppose, but there was no pumpkin pie filling, nor could we even find an actual pumpkin from which to make any (not that I know how)! They have things here that they call pumpkins, but they are whitish grey inside and out, and what kind of pumpkin pie would that be? Anyway, no pumpkin pie, so we got some apple boysenberry pie, which was pretty good, but nothing like the amazing deliciousness of the pies at the Verschelden Thanksgiving. While I'm on the subject of pies, I should mention that pies here are savoury - mince pies, steak and cheese pies, lamb pies, etc. If you mean our kind of pies, you have to say "sweet pie." Anyway, Harry and Jonathan were happy to try a sweet pie, and we talked to the baker at New World grocery store about making a pumpkin pie some time, so we'll have to check back on that and see what we can get. People here have NEVER even TRIED a pumpkin pie!!!!! Amazing, right?

We were also unable to find cantaloupe, which J insists is a Thanksgiving tradition, although I've never thought of it that way. By the way, Harry and Jonathan didn't know what "cantaloupe" was, until I remember that in British English, it is called a "rock melon." They said that some grocery stores here have them, but they're not that popular. We got pineapple instead, which isn't Thanksgiving-y at all, but it was yummy.

Canned cranberry sauce does not seem to be an item here, although we did find cranberry jelly that was very similar. Apparently, they have that for Christmas here.

We did find sweet potatoes, which was a good thing, because they are one of my favourite things about Thanksgiving! Here, they are called kūmara, and they are much smaller than what I am used to, (although that might be because I'm used to my dad's incredibly huge ones), but still delicious. J made them with brown sugar and marshmallows, but not too terribly sweet, and they were perfect. Jonathan and Harry had never had them cooked like that (or even heard of it), and they loved them.

We had chicken instead of turkey, but that was our choice. Maybe next year we'll tackle a turkey. :)

One of the best parts of the night was when Jonathan and Harry got here, Jonathan said, "We brought a couple things for both of you, but this first one is mostly just for Emma..." and he pulled out two cans of Dr. Pepper!!!! I know that this requires a bit of explanation, so here goes. Dr. Pepper is the only pop that I will drink, but I really love it, and always consider it a huge treat when I get some, even though in the States, it was not all that uncommon for me to have one. Here, Dr. Pepper is largely unheard of. It is not in any restaurants, grocery stores, convenience stores... nowhere. There are two little shops in town where you can buy it, but I don't make it there very often. So I have been lamenting my lack of Dr. Pepper, and Jonathan remembered me telling him that weeks ago, and brought some over! How wonderful is that?!? And it was particularly perfect, because one of the places that I'm guaranteed to get my fill of Dr. Pepper is at Grandma's house for Thanksgiving. The Verscheldens must like it, because it was always there as I was growing up. And now, my very kind Aunt Pat always makes sure to bring some, because she knows how much I like it. So it was particularly heartwarming for Jonathan to bring me some. :)

We played cards until late at night, talking about all kinds of things, and doing a lot of explaining about how Thanksgiving came to be, and what traditions we have around it. I'm so glad that we did that!