Thanksgiving 2014

If the holiday of Thanksgiving had ever crossed my mind since coming to Greece, I guess I thought it was a given that I would not be celebrating it this year since it’s an American holiday and I’m not currently living in America. That was totally fine with me. Just another Thursday during the Christmas fast.

Well, the first thing that changed those thoughts was when my Greek teacher asked me a few weeks before (half jokingly) to treat the class on Thanksgiving since I’m the only person from the United States in the class (in Greece it’s traditional to treat your friends on your birthday or nameday). I suggested that rather than buying cookies or chocolates I give them a taste of Thanksgiving. She said, “Not turkey, please! Not in the classroom!” I laughed and said, “How about pumpkin pie?” Everyone seemed to like the idea. They all forgot about it, and even forgot which day Thanksgiving was. But I was committed to the idea. And since I didn’t know who in the class was trying to fast I decided to try to make the pie fastworthy, so I searched for vegan pumpkin pies on Google and came up with the following: http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipe/vegan-pumpkin-pie/

Well, the problem is that Greece doesn’t do measuring cups or spoons so we had to approximate. Plus, cornstarch and molasses are impossible to find here. As is sugar cane syrup which I’ve never even heard of in America. I used corn syrup instead. Here is the recipe as I modified it:

Crust

¾ cup (or a little more) flour

½ tsp salt

½ tsp sugar

½ tsp baking powder

3 tbsp canola oil

3 tbsp soy or almond milk

½ tsp lemon juice

3-4 tbsp water

Filling

2 cups pureed pumpkin (bake until soft (about 1 hr 15 mins at 400º F), puree in blender)

1 cup soymilk

¾ cup corn syrup

½ cup flour (thickening agent, add gradually)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Cinnamon (2 tsp or to taste…I put a lot more!)

To make crust:

1. In medium bowl, combine flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder. In small bowl, mix oil and soymilk mixture.

2. Pour liquid mixture into dry ingredients, and mix with fork until dough holds together in ball. If it is too dry, add some water, a little at a time, until dough is moist enough to roll. (If time allows, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.)

3. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface with lightly floured rolling pin (or a roll of plastic wrap in the absence of a rolling pin…), forming a circle that lines the pie pan. Flute or crimp edges with fingers or fork. Cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until ready to use.

4. Preheat oven to 425°F.

To make filling:

5. In large bowl, mix all remaining ingredients until smooth and blended. Pour into prepared crust and smooth top. Bake 10 minutes.

6. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F; bake about 50 minutes and then check it every 5-10 minutes until a knife comes out mostly clean (I just baked it until one spot on the top turned dark brown, then I took it out and prayed that the middle was set). Set on wire rack to cool, then refrigerate overnight. Top with your choice of dessert topping if desired.

I was very worried that I wouldn’t do it correctly, but I did! Thank God! I used the kitchen of a friend of mine from France who is a co-student of mine and offered to help me. I was eternally grateful! It went over well in the class, and we had half a pumpkin leftover so I baked two more the week after, and took them to Fr. Spyro’s talk the following Thursday. It went over well there as well! Now if I ever have to make αρτίσημο (non-fasting) pumpkin pie, I don’t know how I’ll do it. My only experience is this one, haha!

Here is a picture of the finished result:

Well on Thanksgiving all the Americans got together at a taverna. There were two options for food: turkey or cuttlefish (something like squid). Both pictures are below:

After dinner they brought us the Greek version of pumpkin pie, κολοκυθόπιτα, which is basically pumpkin filling in fyllo dough.

We stayed there quite a long time. It officially started at 7:00, I got there around 7:30 and we ate around 8:30 if memory serves. The last of us left around midnight. After dinner and dessert, one of the guys had an idea to watch football (Chicago vs. Detroit was on), and he was looking for an outlet to plug his computer on. I pulled mine out of my bag since I had it with me and it was almost fully charged.

We were all sitting around a long table but somehow we divided into the stereotypical parts of the house. Let me explain: At one end of the table, four or five of us were talking philosophy and theology interchangeably, kind of like the “den” atmosphere after dinner in a home, if we had had more space to spread out.

At the other end of the table two of the girls were talking (I don’t know about what), and it reminded me of the conversations that would happen in the kitchen after dinner, if we were in a real house. In the middle of the table some of the other guys were half-distractedly watching football (living room, right?) And behind the table one of the other guys’ dads (who was visiting for a few days) was standing and talking to one or two people at a time, kind of in passing (like standing in the hallway). So we had kitchen, den, living room and hallway, all around one long table in a taverna.

It was a good time! :)