When Far From Home - Holidays

Turkey Roasted Surrounded by Sage Dressing

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. I know for many it seems to be the most boring. However, for me it was the joy of being with my extended family without all the comparing or stress of getting gifts or of the competition of finding Easter eggs and baskets. Thanksgiving was a day when we all got together and just hung out with each other. The men would be in the back room, sisters, cousins, and I would be all over, inside and outside of the house playing, aggravating, stealing whatever food that was near readiness. Grabbing a slice of ham, or a piece of the turkey after Grandpa sliced it, or if we worked it perfectly a devilled egg. The women, i.e Grandma, Aunt and Mom would keep running us out of the small kitchen that barely fit them. Then finally, the entire spread would be laid out on the kitchen table and we would all gather around trying to get our favorite dishes on our plate. There were a lot of choices and a touch of chaos.

When I was very young I think Grandma and Grandpa did all the cooking. We would arrive at their house (a whole two blocks from ours) with empty bowls, because Grandma was not letting her tupperware out of her sight as once out of sight it never seemed to return. Aunt, Uncle and the cousins might already be there. Grandma would have made the macaroni and potato salad the day before. They would be in her largest lidded tupperware bowls. Her mayonnaise based potato salad would be covered with paprika. The macaroni salad would have to have a little extra mayonnaise added as the macaroni would have absorbed most of the mayonnaise from the day before. On the stove peeled and quartered potatoes would be on the boil. Another pan would have green beans and another would have corn. The big stock pot might be filled with homemade chicken and dumplings. A dish that was magical as to how 5 lbs of flour and a couple eggs mixed, rolled and sliced would become these delicious squares when cooked in a pot with a whole chicken. The lower oven would be filled with the big black roaster which held a huge turkey surrounded by two loaves worth of sage dressing, that when cooked with the turkey kept absorbing all the drippings and became a savory pudding.

Thanksgiving ham, turkey, beans, corn......

A ham would be on the teeny tiny side counter, probably baked the day before, and if we were lucky Grandpa would have already sliced it up so we could munch on it as we waited for everything to come together.

Eventually, around 2 pm, the table would be overladen with food. A plate of sliced turkey and a bowl of dressing, sliced ham, corn, green beans, baked beans (slow baked covered in bacon), potato salad, and macaroni salad. I know on a couple of occasions succotash would be on the table. There would be buttery mashed potatoes and a bowl of gravy and next to that would be sweet potatoes and a cranberry sauce still in its cylindrical shape as it had been pushed out of its can.

Just before the men would be called from the back room where they would have been watching this year's football games, someone would remember the rolls. They were always store bought half baked rolls. They had two lines on the top that let you pull the roll apart. Nearly every year the first pan would come out half burnt as its eight minutes passed quickly while the table was being filled.

How many types of potatoes does a Thanksgiving need?

When we were very young the mom’s would help the kids get our plates and carry them to the back room where the five of us would fight over who got the four tv trays and who had to sit on the floor.

We would change the tv to a parade or perhaps a Christmas show, anything that was child friendly. Multiple trips would be made down the long hallway of that 900 sq foot house to where all the adults sat around the table with barely enough room to fit their plates. This wasn’t a Norman Rockwell painting with a huge formal dining room, linen, china, and water goblets. It was that old fashioned mustard yellow bordered corelle plates and a hodgepodge of glasses filled with milk or soda. No head of the family at the far end of the table carving the turkey.

Time to take the turkey out.

That was done by Grandpa on the sliver of the kitchen counter next to the stove. It was hand me this or hand me that or a boarding house reach for the other thing. Kids coming up to the side and asking for seconds of one thing and refusing to eat something else.

When the men’s stomach’s were overfilled they would head outside for a smoke or walk back to the tv room and kick us kids out so they could finish their football game. Or if they were really overstuffed one of them might crawl into one of the two beds in the house and if they were filled with someone else maybe head for the living room couch.

The rhythm of the day was familiar and comfortable to me. Sometimes we would go into Grandma’s teeny room with barely enough room to walk between the dresser and the bed. We might look at what she had in makeup or perhaps play with her broaches and scarves. Or just curl up on her double bed and take a nap.

Around 5 pm, it would start getting dark, football games would be over and someone would get the munchies. First out came the devilled eggs or perhaps a slice of pie. The rustling of foil and the fragrance of food would waft down the hallway. Some people would be planning to leave, but needed to fill up bowls for their leftover lunch the following day. By 6 all the platters would be on the table again, some people having just a bite to eat before they left, others packing up their favorites. By 7 pm all the food either distributed, eaten or put back in the refrigerator and dirty dishes washed, Grandma and Grandpa would get their house back to themselves.

My grandparents had five granddaughters, no grandsons. As we began to have serious relationships the partners would be invited to face the gauntlet, except for me. Have to say my grandparents were not color blind and while they never said anything to me, I know they asked Mom, when she was going to put a stop to my relationship with Hubby. So there we were, Hubby and I had been dating for over a year and a half. Our university was about an hour from my home. We had planned to go out in the evening, so the plan was he would drive me down, go back to the university and come pick me up in the evening. As I walked in the back door of my grandparents’ house, Mom told me to go catch Hubby as Grandpa had said he could come in. I ran out quickly, caught Hubby before he left, he turned very very pale, but he parked the car and entered the gauntlet.

First he came in the kitchen from the back door, because growing up that was the only way anyone ever entered my grandparents’ house. Only strangers and delivery people knocked on the front door. He did the meets and greets with my aunt and grandma. Then he was taken down the hallway to meet Grandpa, uncle, cousins’ significant others. Everyone was hi, hello, nice to meet you. Then Hubby quickly went back to the kitchen where my Mom was. He sat at the table drinking a coke as the women chatted and prepared the food.

Later I asked Mom, how this monumental event happened. It seems that my very large grandma took my larger grandpa into the teeny tiny bathroom and said “Honey, it’s not fair that she can’t bring her young man like the others do.” And grandpa said “OK”. From then on it was expected that Hubby would join us for the holidays.

Then came the move to India. Thanksgiving is an American holiday. In those days, if a turkey was to be found, I didn’t know where. As a way of giving thanks, my in-laws, Hubby, and I arranged to feed people. We arranged for aloo poori and sooji ka halwa to be made. The first year I goofed, I didn’t realize that the halwai had not taken out the food for us and I almost gave our lunch away. All we did was send one of the staff to the local juggi (slum) and said that we were feeding children. It’s a little foggy, but I think first Mummy had 7 children sit on the driveway. She gave them Rs 5 and gave the plates by her hand. By the time these kids ate there was a long line outside our gate. I stood and handed out the plates to those in line. I had expected the cook to take out our lunch first to make sure we and our staff ate, but it seems you aren’t supposed to do that, so we kept distributing the food until the cook told me to stop. We did that for a couple of years.

Aloo Puri and Sooji ka halwa for Thanksgiving Distribution.

On Thanksgiving day itself, the local American Embassy would have a service at Roosevelt House, the ambassador’s residence. Hubby, kids and I would get dressed up, we would show our passports and be shown where to sit. The local boy scout troop would perform the flag ceremony, someone or some group would sing the traditional song, and then the ambassador would read out the President’s Proclamation. Once he was finished they would serve some tea, lemonade and nibbles. For the first couple of years that was my Thanksgiving.

My portion of the house had not been made and my in-laws portion was vegetarian. Thanksgiving without traditional American food, was just….not...right. A couple of years into our stay we became members of the American Club. We would first go to the Roosevelt House function and then keep ourselves occupied until the first serving about 3 pm. They initially served a plated dinner. Turkey, dressing, corn, sweet potatoes, soup, salad, rolls and dessert. Of course my kids didn’t like any of it except the corn and dessert, so I began asking them to serve ours family style, so that I could have leftovers to take home. Later they began serving the meal buffet style. Appetizer and choice of soup would be served at the table, and the rest was self-serve. Similar menu, but they added a vegetable and choice of desserts.

The first couple of years it was just Hubby, kids, and I. They would miss school and Hubby would take a day off from the office. Then one year, Hubby had to be away on business at Thanksgiving. He tried to explain about Thanksgiving, but that didn’t hold any water and off to Mumbai he flew. Now I could have invited some of the family, but they are all vegetarian and that would have been a waste of food and money. So I invited my older son’s best friend, his brother and his mom, whom I had become friends with. And so started our true Indian Thanksgiving tradition. The boys and I continued for a few years with the embassy function as my kids were cub scouts, but eventually, due to security issues the embassy function changed and we stopped going. So my friend would pick up all four boys. I would be at the club waiting for them. It would usually start at 3:30 so they would have time to play and unwind and then we would have a late lunch. We would have the food on the table served family style so that less would be wasted. As it worked out, Hubby was called away at Thanksgiving for several years in a row and each year just made our new tradition stronger.

Then the club decided 3:30 was too early to open. Not enough people came for the early seating. The boys were older now and so we started dressing up and meeting at 7:30. It was usually still just the four boys and the moms, but when Hubby was in town, we would also invite the friends’ dad. As the boys became teens and then entered college, occasionally, a special friend was invited, but this was rare. Then as the boys began to get significant others they would be invited to join our tradition. Then disaster struck.

In the US one of the Indian diplomats caused an incident because she refused to pay her Indian maid a proper salary. (Devyani Khobragade Incident) By the time the dust settled only diplomats could be members of the American Club. No more Thanksgiving Dinners at the Club allowed.

So we began having Thanksgiving Dinner at home. We looked around for places that would provide a Turkey and all the trimmings. By this time the boys and their crew and their significant others enlarged our group to almost 16 depending who was in town. Because initially I insisted that Turkey be provided I found a five star hotel that would provide our meal. Only problem is that they could never understand that I wanted a traditional meal and not a fru fru fancy take on Thanksgiving. Instead of the turkey being baked in the dressing as requested, explained etc , they sent a beautifully roasted turkey and on the side - roulade, which no one ate. They did not understand the concept of cranberry sauce and the concoction that was sent was actually sent back. Not necessarily their fault, they just had difficulty in understanding American cuisine. My issue was that too much food was wasted, because they kept trying to give me what they thought an American Thanksgiving should be. So last year I decided to try our local club. After finally accepting that no one else seems to like turkey, since I always seemed to have three fourths of one left, I decided to have roast chicken baked in dressing (which they did superbly), I also had a roasted leg of lamb for those who preferred red meat, and a vegetable cannelloni as a main for the several vegetarians who now attend. I had the club send dutch apple pie and though their pumpkin pie was OK, this year I’ve decided to order chocolate mousse, as I am the only person who eats pumpkin pie and I have no business eating an entire pie by myself.

I've become the carver.

Talking about this year makes me remember the last few year’s dinners. All the boys are now adults with lives and significant others. I’m lucky when I get most of them, there are always two or three who are working or studying overseas. However, those in town including my friend and her husband, come to my house. We have a few appetizers and a couple of drinks. Weather and mosquitoes willing, we sit out on the balcony and catch up on each other’s lives. Then we stand around the table and say out loud what we are grateful for. Initially, people were shy, but now it’s tradition and the gratitude comes more easily. Then it is filling plates and tummies, having a bit of sweet and perhaps another glass of wine. It is a feeling of overstuffed togetherness.

Turkey has become a chicken, but it is still Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving in India. Thanksgiving in the US. Changes in traditions. When I left the US all of the women of my childhood were still alive. After a couple of years my Grandma passed and the holiday cooking fell mainly to my mom’s shoulders. She would get up at 4 am and “dance with the turkey”. She’d clean it and put it in the pan, surround it with sage dressing and put it in the oven. Dishes would be parcelled out to her sister, cousin, nieces and daughters. Since the younger generation didn’t want as much clean up they started voting items off the table. Succotash definitely disappeared. I’m not sure what else was voted off because the rare times I went home for Thanksgiving I got to choose the menu. I did so without consulting my sisters. My mom, being the grand mom she was, made sure that everything was there. But I had to pay for the pleasure, as my sisters also voted me as head dishwasher. In India the staff took care of serving and cleaning. In the US my sisters made sure I knew how much work went into making a good Thanksgiving. I’d stand there in front of the single sink, washing plates and bowls, scrubbing a pan or two as my fingers shrivelled. To my sisters it was a jest, they never knew to me it was coming home to be one of the women who made Thanksgiving a family affair.

4Nbahu