Explaining Pumpkin Pie

One of the more peculiar duties I have had while living on international campuses is helping put together the menu for holidays and festivals that are not part of the local tradition.  Thanksgiving is usually the big offender as food is the centerpiece of this celebration and the culinary traditions of this feast cannot be translated easily across boundaries.

My Italian cooks at NYU in Florence were sharp and adaptable and had the ability to crank out a Thanksgiving feast that would have made grandma proud, although I will never forget the response of one of my Italian chefs when I was explaining how to make mashed potatoes: "Why would someone commit such violence on a potato?"

The rural and unworldly Dutch staff in the Castle where I celebrated Thanksgiving had a bit more trouble navigating the holiday.  I remember the looks of horror when I described how to create stuffing.  "Excuse me, you shove the dried bread mixture where?" they would ask me repeatedly. Their sour frowns at my excessive interest in a turkey's innards seemed to border on moral disapproval and caused me to question the very nature of this holiday treat.

And now in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan I find myself explaining this strange assortment of foods that we eat when we are supposedly thankful to two Pakistani cooks and a Kyrgyz kitchen supervisor.  What makes it even more challenging is the none of the ingredients seem to exist within 200 kilometers of our mountain home.

Explaining pumpkin pie.  With language barriers.  The kind and good young Pakistani baker and I went through the recipe several times, but his quizzical expression and his constant head scratching were ominous signs. "I think I should also bake some pastries," he said.  "Yes, you are right," I replied, agreeing to his back-up plan.

A few hours later he brought me a bowl containing his experimental efforts at making pumpkin filling for me to try.  It had a pleasing taste, but something was awry.  "Is this pumpkin?" I asked. "Yes," he beamed.

When we entered the kitchen, he proudly showed me the assortment of small, brown autumn squash displayed on the counter.  "Pumpkin," he exclaimed proudly.  "Yes, pumpkin," I said, quietly, as I tried to figure out in my mind how I would explain squash pie to the small group of North American visitors who would be coming to our campus on Thanksgiving, expecting a traditional feast. It's no wonder I didn't even try to go down the stuffing path this year.

I have no doubt the Thanksgiving meal we'll get tomorrow, will be the strangest one yet from all the Thanksgivings I have spent in various corners of the world.  It will be okay.  It will be a good reminder that it really isn't the food that makes the holiday.  It is the efforts of a Pakistani baker who is probably still furiously working to transform squash into dessert even as I write, it is the paper turkeys and other handmade crafts created by Tajik and Kyrgyz students in art club to celebrate our day, it is the warmth generated by a hundred hearts eating together in a dining hall in the mountains, far away from anyone, that really matters.  And it is for these, and many other, small blessings that go unnoticed throughout our days for which I am quite thankful.

Not my squash pie.