Thanksgiving in Japan

This weekend was essentially absorbed into procurring, preparing, cooking and cleaning for our Thanksgiving feast. The food shopping started in earnest Friday, when Rachel and I went shopping for American equipment essentially like rolling pins (beer bottles don’t quite do the job), a masher (mashing thirty potatoes with a dining fork seemed like a recipe for disaster) and a peeler. Miraculously, after spending a few hours wandering around Tokyo Hands (which has nothing on Target) we found everything. It might have gone faster, but I got really distracted by the “robo mop,” kind of a donut-shaped swiffer pad with a battery-operated ball in the middle that pushed the “mop” around. It was way too much fun to play with.

The biggest challenge was finding a big pot for making the soup and potatoes in. With the exception of drinks and ramen, almost everything in Japan is very small. I’m not a particularly big eater, but I wind up going through half a Japanese-family-sized yogurt container for breakfast. Serving size? I laugh at serving size. What we thought was “a very big pot” in the store wound up being pretty small once we removed it from its home environment. It could no longer benefit from being scaled against the other tiny equipment.

Our next challenge came in the form of telling the chicken butcher that we needed approximately two liters of chicken fat for the gravy and the stuffing (I don’t even want to think about this). Japanese people eat a lot less fat and grease than Americans in general, and he looked at us in horror as though we had asked him “So, along with the turkey, could we have two pounds of its feathers please?” His response was apparently something along the lines of “I don’t see why that wouldn’t be possible, but I don’t understand why you would want it.” He went home that night and researching gravy recipes and came back with an alternate solution. He offered us both what looked basically like liposunctioned chicken fat (eewwwww) and a very concentrated chicken stock (success!). Next, we were the talk of the town at the local grocery store when we bought five bags of potatoes and twenty-two apples. My backpack was essential.

My primary responsibilities were apple butternut squash soup, which I’ve made for large groups several times before, mashed potatoes, which are pretty idiot-proof, and apple pie. I was quite nervous about the pie because I haven’t baked much and sort of see recipes as suggestions. I don’t think I’m a terrible cook, I think my instincts are ok, but I’ve definitely had some unpleasant ventures into creativity/complete abandonment of common sense. The worst of these happened in 7th grade when I tried to turn lemonade pink through the use of red vinegar. I also once tried to bake three hundred cookies for my dorm holiday party after midnight (such is the stuff of the true all-nighter). I then realized I didn’t have a bowl large enough for all the ingredients—this was about halfway into the mixing process and all the way into the “I am covered in flour and don’t understand what I’m doing!” process. I had to be rescued by a friend who studied chemistry. I added the last bit so I can pretend I was making very complicated and high level mistakes.

I fully intended to stick to the recipe when making the pies, but then I got bored and thought they’d taste better with more egg and brown sugar. I understand baking isn’t the time for improv. Oops. Anyway, the pies were delicious and my lattice looked good, so I wasn’t an embarrassment to myself.

We also had the roast chickens we ordered, potato bread, stuffing, gravy, green beans, and cranberries. It was a very through Thanksgiving. Rachel can’t cook (once, she tried to make brownies and when it said, “flour the pan” she used the two cups of flour the recipe called for to coat the pan, then threw the rest away) so she made a beautiful “craft corner” of activities for the Motoguchi kids, so I have an array of hand turkeys with katakana script hanging from my walls now.

We wanted to tell them the story of Thanksgiving. I had an interesting conversation with my friend Sarah yesterday about how one can tell the Thanksgiving story. Like so many holidays, it’s hard to boil it down a tale that is both intellectually honest and morally satisfying. It seems hollow to describe the first Thanksgiving to people who have little knowledge of American history without mentioning the many things that happened to the Indians after they shared their food. On the other hand, describing the Trail of Tears and the Battle of Wounded Knee makes it very difficult to conclude the story with a celebration. Unlike Columbus Day, which I think is just a bad holiday, there’s something valuable about reflecting upon what we are thankful for with people we care about. I once went to a humanist seder that told the story of Passover as though it was an allegory for the liberation of all people from all oppression. I think a similar universalizing of Thanksgiving could be appropriate, and be a way to offer the Motoguchis thanks for their hospitality.

Rachel had to tell the Thanksgiving story in Japanese, which was a challenge because the idea of being “grateful” without being grateful TO someone was difficult to convey, and she wanted to avoid religious overtones. I think we wound up with a harvest story, which worked out well.

The Motoguchis brought over speakers for us to use. Each speaker was cubed shaped and about 2 inches square. I admired them because I thought they’d be an excellent fit for my nomadic life, and asked Tauru where they bought them. He promptly told me they were a present for me and I couldn’t refuse. They’re excellent speakers and so light that I’ll be able to take them anywhere, but I have to be more careful what I compliment and I definitely need to get them a nice goodbye present. Rachel and Brett advise I wait till I’m on my way to the airport to avoid a return gift. They are such a sweet family and their kids are adorable. Leon, who is ten, fell asleep on the couch immediately after eating, while Sue-chan wanted to be pushed around in the captain's chair.

Our other guests were Peter, who is from England, and James, from New Zealand. They’ve both been over here in Japan for about four or five years, teaching English. They worked for a program called NOVA, which employed over eight thousand English speakers teaching English throughout Japan. The program recently went bankrupt because it overextended itself, and my gmail-generated ad kept saying: “Job opportunities for NOVA teachers in China!” I guess its scanner picked up that I was a young English speaker living in Japan and went for it. Peter intends to stay on in the hopes that NOVA is able to right itself, and James has a job teaching business English for the next six months, then he plans to go back home.

All in all, Thanksgiving-in-Japan was a success and as a result, my apartment has Christmas lights (with eight different settings) and tons of leftovers. I’m excited about these last few weeks. This Thursday, Rachel and I are watching the Republican youtube debate with pancakes (it’s 9 am our time), Saturday is a neighborhood Buddhist festival, and Sunday I’m going to Kamakura.