Thanksgiving

Pulling off the traditional Thanksgiving meal when we lived in Norway was a bigger challenge than I anticipated. I couldn’t get all the ingredients and the largest turkey I could find was only nine pounds. If it weren’t for American friends that had earlier come for a visit, I wouldn’t have been able to make pumpkin pie. They brought canned pumpkin, vanilla and brown sugar, things not available in Norway. A Norwegian cousin also made a quick trip to Kansas for his job, so he brought me back pecans for pecan pie, otherwise that wouldn’t have been on the menu, either.




I had to buy several foil packages of spices with unknown names, then open them up like Christmas presents to see what was inside. I was looking for things like nutmeg and cloves, but ended up with several unusable powders I didn’t recognize. Unfortunately, I never found everything I needed, but I seemed to be the only one that noticed things were missing from the recipes.



My cornbread recipe has a can of creamed corn in it and is always a huge hit. I was so bummed that I couldn’t make it because not only is creamed corn not available, but I couldn’t find cornmeal anywhere. I thought I hit the jackpot one day when I bought a box of something with corn on the front, but when I got it home, I discovered it was cornstarch.



We still had much to be thankful for though, and we were glad to share our American holiday with our Norwegian relatives. As is our tradition, we went around the table and everyone said two things they were thankful for. It took some of them a while to come up with something, as giving thanks isn’t really a Norwegian thing. It was fun to watch their expressions as they tasted foods they’ve never even heard of, like stuffing and yams with marshmallows. The pumpkin pie didn’t go over too well, (they all said it must be an acquired taste) but we were glad for that - all the more for us.



Except for eating turkey and pumpkin pie, it didn’t feel much like our traditional Thanksgiving back home because both Kaleb and I had to go to school that day and the day after. The night before, when I baked the pies, I stuck the knife in to see if they were done. I let Kaleb lick the knife and with a dreamy lilt in his voice, he said, “Ahhhh, it tastes like home.” And I guess that is what was missing on that Thanksgiving Day. Thanksgiving is an all American holiday that plays out best at home.