I am quite sure many of you macacas have had some version of this experience, recounted by Mukta Tripathi of the Napa Valley Register:
During my first fall in the United States, someone asked me what Indians do for Thanksgiving.
Faced with this sort of inquiry, there are three basic approaches you can take.
1) A thorough, sensitive explanation that Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday unfamiliar to desis-from-desiland or any foreigners for that matter, augmented if you care to, by a description of meals consumed at holidays of the desi tradition of your choice, and if you need to, by a patient clarification that you are not one of those other Indians, you know, like that nice lady Pocahontas;
2) A petulant riposte that you are, by birth or longstanding residence, as American as the questioner, and how dare they suggest you would mark Thanksgiving any differently than they;
3) Simply invite the questioner to sit down with you and get your eat on.
My personal preference goes to option 3, as does Tripathi’s, who contributes in that spirit a menu of desified Thanksgiving delights:
I have put together a list of dishes using some traditional American Thanksgiving ingredients: green beans, pumpkin, turnips, potatoes and even cranberries. The sweet and sour pumpkin dish and the turnip, tomato and pea curry can be served with rice pilaf or rolled in a flour tortilla or flatbread as a wrap. I can guarantee that your vegetarian friends will be happy with these alternatives to turkey, and even the non-vegetarians may be inspired by these recipes.
They include Sweet and Sour Pumpkin with Indian Five Spices, Turnip Tomato and Peas Curry, Rice Pilaf; and Ginger and Cranberry Chutney with Five Spices.
You will have noticed that one key item is missing: the turkey. That’s fine if you’re vegetarian — you get to avoid the chore of preparing this fundamentally boring bird in a way that’s fit to eat — but if you or your guests are not, and unless you splurge for a partridge or goose, you need to deal with the problem. That’s where restaurateurs like Qudrat Syed of Chicago come in. He’ll desify your gobbler for a fee:
For $75, Syed took Motamen’s store-bought bird and gave him back a tandoori turkey with biryani, a vegetable-laden rice dish, and Motamen got to keep his own kitchen clean. “It was really different and really good,” said Motamen, who plans to do it again this year.
Another alternative is to outsource not just the cooking but also the cleaning and decor by taking your little tribe of macacas to a restaurant. In Washington, for example:
Thanksgiving is not a holiday in India, but Rasika (633 D St. NW; 202/637-1222) and the Bombay Club (815 Connecticut Ave. NW; 202/659-3727) are adding tandoori turkey to their a la carte menus on Nov. 23 for $15.50 and $14.95.
Or on Long Island:
The Curry Club, an Indian restaurant in East Setauket (751-4845), is contributing the turkey chandni ($9.95), or boneless chunks of fresh turkey breast marinated overnight in sour cream, black pepper and other fresh-ground spices, cooked with red onions, tomatoes, chopped garlic and ginger, and turkey vindalu ($9.95), a dish for spice lovers who crave hot curry. It is cooked with potatoes, tamarind and vinegar as well as spices.
Still, call me –gasp– American, but I just don’t like the idea of feasting at a commercial establishment. Fortunately there are some home solutions to be thankful for. The Seattle Times visits Stuti and Anu Garg of Woodinville, Wash.:
So when she arrived in this country from Mumbai (Bombay) with her parents in 1989 to study, she took a natural liking to Thanksgiving, a holiday that centers so heavily on food, family and togetherness.
“It’s a time to share our food and our memories,” said Garg, 35. She stood in her kitchen amid the scent of simmering Raajma Royale, a kidney bean, onion and tomato dish similar to American-style chili that she likes to bring to potlucks. On her counters sit tins holding curry leaves, turmeric, cumin. Bags of lentils in different colors line her pantry. In her nearly two decades in the United States, it’s become increasingly easier to find her ingredients just about everywhere, she said.
The website Sub Rosa, which Abhi linked to last year, suggests:
Pumpkin pie leads the way to India – nutmeg, ginger, allspice, cinnamon, cloves and baked pumpkin. If you know your Indian food, you instantly recognize these as staples in the Indian kitchen and key ingredients in your mom’s favorite pumpkin pie.
So you jack that up with crystalized ginger and a cardamon whipped cream and you are sailing straight towards Kerala, a province at the tip of India. Cumin rub on the bird; stuffing with dried fruits and cinnamon; Horseradish mashed potatoes; Cranberry chutneys gone to Bombay and back all help turn your American standards into East Indian delicacies.
Finally Shanta Nimbark Sacharoff brings us full circle. Apparently faced with having to feed a posse of Western, fake-meat and seitan-lovin’ vegetarians, she flips the script altogether and concocts a meal that mixes the flavaz of Desiland with those of them other Injuns. This results in dishes like her Savory Pueblo Pie with Spcies of India:
For the main Thanksgiving entrée, many of my vegetarian friends struggle to make a mock turkey with soy or seitan (wheat gluten protein) or end up buying the frozen “unturkey.” Many of these products are healthy and tasty, but being a lifelong vegetarian, I do not have a need for fake meat, so I usually make a main dish that is substantial, such as a casserole. This year, I decided to make a main entrée that is a fusion between Native American food and Indian spicy cuisine. This pie does not need any crust. Instead, cooked polenta and cornmeal are layered on a filling that is fuss-free and nutritious.
If you’re still hungry, here’s Abhi’s 2004 Thanksgiving post, Abhi’s 2005 post, and some gratuitous Tofurky pr0n from Manish. I’ll see you around the virtual dinner table. Feel free to bring a few bottles of pinot noir, it helps the turkey go down right. Gobble Gobble Y’All!
Hehe… culture writers are so quaint 🙂
A lot of desis who celebrate the holiday don’t really have a choice but to eat desified Thanksgiving food. Desi moms have a way of desifying everything – they can’t help it. You’d have to make everything yourself, or tell them what to do (wtf, tell my mom how to cook? perish the thought!) if you want it done the traditional American way.
Mmm. All those desified Thanksgiving dishes sound divine. I’m thinking even gobi or gaajar-mattar or gajar halwa would be appropriate with Turkey.
The joy of Thanksgiving is of course that it’s just an American national holiday and isn’t associated with any religion, and it’s all about the food, which pretty much anyone can share in, and no-one ever asked me if Indians celebrated it (lots of anecdotes on this blog make me think I was lucky enough to experience the more cosmopolitan American milieux…no redneck howlers). Makes for a great joke, though, the ex and I had a Thanksgiving party once and we sold it as particularly appropriate seeing as there was an American and an Indian….
Who you callin’ quaint? Also: recipes, please!
Thanksgiving is hands down my favorite holiday of the year. I actually look forward to the Wednesday before Thanksgiving as much as the day itself because invariably, because everyone is in town with family, I end up at a bar with old friends that I’ve known since childhood. Coming from a pretty orthodox TamBram background, my Thanksgiving is your standard desi party. Potluck lunch AND dinner (it’s an all day affair) with aunties in their finest pattu saris and uncles ready to break out the black label and talk politics. Now that us young’uns are all growns up, there is generally beer involved as well. In fact, the only traditionally “american” things about it are the fact that we all gather on Thanksgiving and we all watch football (Go Cowboys!!!).
To all you mutineers out there, have a safe and happy holiday weekend. Eat, Drink, and Be Merry.
Yum! thanks for the links- I brought black cardamon on a whim one day- but never found in all my desi cook books a recipe that uses it until this (rice pilaf)
warning for you epicurean’s
I have been dying to know….just what does tofurkey taste like??
That snake wouldn’t have burst if it had just been prepared with its maternity pants for Thanksgiving dinner….
Seriously. Those who fail to loosen their belt do so at their own risk. It’s a great meal for lungis or sarongs…
Re: Recipes: In 2002, the Newark Star-Ledger featured my brother’s desi-spiced turkey and stuffing. The link is no longer available, but if you have access to a newspaper database, the citation is
At the Thanksgiving Table Handed-down family recipes flavor celebrations with history and memories
by NANCY RING Wednesday, November 20, 2002, Page 65, 1653 words.
Best day to PARTYY!!
That’s a lovely image Sriram. Enjoy your day!
Might be my favorite post ever.
My mom desi-fies Thanksgiving too, but I think that makes it even MORE American. I have always loved Thanksgiving because it was the one holiday that it seemed I could legitimately celebrate along with my classmates and friends. Now I know many folks take issue with Thanksgiving for several reasons but all that aside, I really do enjoy spending time with family and friends while eating. What could be better? Also, the lack of presents makes it less stressfull.
My mom’s traditional Thanksgiving included roasted pumpkin soup with lots of garlic. No one in my family really likes pumpkin pie, so we have cranberry sauce over vanilla ice cream (Hagen Daaz of course) for dessert. I’m telling you, nothing ever tasted so good.
You think? I know!
I’ll be making a pair of desified, spicy quiches for Thanksgiving, one most likely clove and ginger-flavored, and the other spicier and with spinach and onions. I put the basic recipe up a few days ago, after I made a few different quiches for a Sunday brunch over the weekend.
Off-topic: Anu Garg is mentioned above. For those who may not know him, he’s famous for his Another Word A Day mailings to over 600,000 people daily. A true, wonderful word nerd!
Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!
I know quite a bit about soy substitutes, even though I don’t like them. Soy can be used to make any number of things, but meat substitutes are for people who still crave meat and simulate its taste and texture with other products to satiate that craving – a bit hypocritical if you’re a moralist veg, I think. Me, I don’t know what turkey (or any other kind of meat) tastes like, so I can’t give you a point of reference, but if it tastes like Tofurky products (which are supposed to be top of the line), then I don’t feel like I’m missing anything. I can only describe it as a dense and coarse bean curd sliced really thin and loaded with salt, pepper and other kinds of spices, depending upon what meat “flavor” you get. And of course, there’s just no way to get rid of that soy aftertaste.
This is the Thanksgiving version. I have yet to try the “Tofurky Feast”, but I don’t know about a giant slab of soy stuffed with god knows what… though I have to admit that their “Giblet Gravy” is pretty good on mashed potatoes.
Um, yeah, that’s sexy… :-/
Best wishes to you all from the polar circle. I hope you and your dear ones have a fantastic thanksgiving. Thank you for sharing your personal anecdotes and thoughts.
Siddhartha,
I just tried to email you, but it looks like IllHindu is down so I couldn’t get your address. Here’s the link to the Times profile mentioned above, the one of Anu Garg and his wife about their Thanksgiving celebrations, for those who want to read the full article.
Siddhartha’s website hasn’t been working for at least a month now. Maybe Mr Kobayashi’s atheism finally got to our Ill Hindu?
Ha! I’m an idiot. I should have just moused over your name!
wow…am I the only one whose parents actually do the whole american turkey-dressing-sides thing? no desification anywhere in sight in our house…
Siddhartha’s website hasn’t been working for at least a month now. Maybe Mr Kobayashi’s atheism finally got to our Ill Hindu?
And Apple Itunes store is very unhappy because of it. I’ve had no inkling to download the latest craze in, say, Senegal music.
Hey hey now some of us aren’t moms yet but still desify our Amrikan food! Here is my recipe which has become a proven success. Best rate of success: 32 lb turkey gone in 20 minutes.
I losely follow this Martha Stewart recipe with the following variations:
I premake a frozen roll of unsalted butter with Indian red chili pepper & finely chopped fresh mint. Soften 1 stick of butter and mix with 2 teaspoons of the pepper & the mint. After everything is mixed well put it in a ziplock bag, squeeze it to the end and make a roll of it and stick it in the freezer. When it’s all set, cut the plastic off and you have a “log” of spiced butter. Cut it into coins/slices.
Losen the skin of the turkey from the inside so that it is still attached to the turkey on the ends but there is space between the skin and the turkey. Stick the coins of butter under the skin all over evenly. Put 3/4 of the log on the outside of the turkey under the skin. Use 1/4 of the log to rub on the inside of the turkey, in the cavity and on the legs/wings. Stick whole cloves in a pattern that looks like a ham pattern on the outside of the turkey to sort of secure the loose skin onto the turkey and seal the butter coins in.
I’m not a big fan of stuffing a raw turkey with uncooked veggies or other things so I make a pouch of cut lemon, thyme, basil, mint, bay leaves and kadipatta and stick it inside the turkey, in the cavity.
Follow instructions for the roaster and setting temperature according to the size of your turkey. Line the bottom of the pan with raw long chopped carrots and celery. Sprinkle 1/4 teaspoon of garam masala on it & 1 teaspoon of chili power on it.
As the turkey starts heating up roasting the frozen butter under the skin will melt into the skin and start dripping down into the pan. Add white wine to the pan. I actually prefer California Chardonnay to cooking white wine or other obscure liquids.
Your pan will start filling up soon with the spicy turkey drippings, wine mixed with the masala and the celery and carrots. This is your basting liquid and can be used for the base of your gravy. The carrots and celery prevent your pan from turning into a burning mess and the boiling of veggies creates a steam under your turkey so the heat isn’t so dry. I highly recommnend a good baster and a good cooking brush.
When the coins of butter have pretty much melted off into the turkey line the turkey with the cheesecloth which I presoak in a butter, chili power and wine mix. You baste over the fabric. And this turkey needs a lot of tending to and basting because the cloth tends to dry up fast and burn if you ignore it too long.
Towards the end remove the cloth, when your turkey is almost done. Sprinkle a mix of brown sugar, cinammon & red chili over the turkey and finish roasting the turkey and letting it brown without the cheesecloth. Baste before you sprinkle with the mix.
Questions about this recipe will cost you $1 each 🙂
To me it isnt quite about replicating taste and texture. soy substitutes are just another ingredient – who happen to fit in very well wherever the recipe calls for ground meat. i have tasted shepherd’s pie and it made me feel quite ill and heavy*. But the vegetarian version was just fantastic.
*for me, going vegetarian was really because of the physiological reaction i had to meat. beef made me feel sick. one meal of mutton and i would be sweating these ammonia bombs. the bones threw me off when looking at chicken bones. though to be candid i have had moose and beaver to abide with my host’s tradition. another story.
And then there’s the desi families that won’t even hear of having a desi-ish dish at dinner on Tgiving. This is often cultivated by older siblings who grew up when there were no desis around, and are so white identified that they freak at any sullying of this sacred white holiday. “Gross! Indian food at Thanksgiving? That’s sooo stupid! Like do you really think the pilgrims and the American Indians were eating vindaloo? I don’t think so! You and you’re stupid ‘identity stuff.'” Yes, its the stuff of holidays. 😉
Our family usually has a happy balance. The turkey gets masala-fied, and we have about an even number of brown and american dishes – and of course, my 4-cheese baked mac-n-cheese.
TerraTango – I know of what you speak -those are usually the families where the adults have yummy desi food and the kids insist on eating blander-than-bland classic turkey that mom was forced to order in or make. Kind of ironic about it being a whiter than white holiday, given that many of the traditional thanksgiving foods were brought by, um, the Indians, and are New World foods.
Great post, Siddhartha — making me very hungry. My new favorite Thanksgiving dessert riffs off of Maya’s sweet deception using pumpkin. My mom thought it sounded gross when I described it over the phone, but when I recently tested it on friends last month, the reviews seemed pretty good.
Tamasha — I feel exactly the same way about Thanksgiving, and your observation that desi-fying it makes it more American seems so spot on. I think it’s a
fabulous— oops, sorry, I mean fantastic holiday, one that always has been a personal and family favorite. A happy Thanksgiving to all of you!Happy Turkey Day all! No turkey for me, I dont like it at all, taste like dark meat chicken, but anyway I will be making a giant leg of lamb. Yup, a very South African South Asian American holiday for me!!!! Mashed potatoes……garlic mashed potatoes…lots of it!!! Yummmm
desitude:
The grocery store too. I kinda felt guilty about hating okra after his bit on NPR about okra and racism. So I got me some okra and made it reeely sticky. And I still didn’t like it. But at least it got me back on sauteed dry okra – that counts for something, hain na? Please sir, bring back your website.
hairy_d:
Oh I understand (and I actually do the same thing). I just don’t like them hippie moralists who make everyone else feel guilty about their dietary choices, but find every which way to replicate the taste and texture of the forbidden flesh. Cultural and religion-based vegetarianism (if it’s not done with the zeal of a convert) is very different from trendy moralist vegetarianism.
Shruti:
Save your snark
swoon
The grocery store too. I kinda felt guilty about hating okra after his bit on NPR about okra and racism. So I got me some okra and made it reeely sticky.
It is a little slimy Shruti, however he might have poeticized it. It might make a good stuffing.
shruti
:-p yum desitude
:-< eegh (or wait.. vere you saying Shruti is slimy. no personal attacks please 🙂
I would love to have some sauteed dry okra. my last experience with okra was at a pakistani resto in SF. they made it a bit too oily and it was shredded. didnt enjoy it. care to share shome shrepies shroo
don’t forget- Abhi had posted some fierce recipes last year. I was going to bust out with the sweet potato recipe, in fact.
Being wegetarian, I don’t even mess with Tofurkey or any of that crap. More side dishes and dessert for me, thank you very much. Everybody can fill up on turkey and have their little tryptophan coma. I’ll be heading back for seconds on scalloped potatoes while you snore…
out of curiosity – is pumpkin used in any indian cooking? actually, i’m sure it is – i believe it is called a kaddoo in hindi (ryhmes with laddoo) – just dont recall anyone actually cooking with kaddoo.
i can say that again and again. kaddooo kaddOOOO kaDDDooo KAAADDDooo KadDDoooOOOOooo
If you’re ever in the Bay Area, go to Avatar’s in Sausalito. They have a dish called Punjabi Enchiladas and one of their ‘secret’ ingredients is pumpkin.
I knew a Malayali Aunty who made a damn fine cranberry pickle. I always thought that would have been a great desi spin on cranberry sauce. Invite your American friends over, giv ’em turkey and cranberry achar…
my mom makes an awesome pumpkin dish… here’s a v simple recipe… works w any kind of squash actually
From Maharashtra: Pumpkin Raita: Same as tadkafied Potato Raita. Staemed pumkin replaces boiled potato. Pumpkin Bharta 2: Has texture of baingan bharta. Pumpkin Poori: Pumpkin mush mixed in dough. Can be made sweet or savory. Quite popular in Maharashtra.
Tarla Dalal has a killer Rajsthani sabji recipe. If you can’t Google it, I can get it from my semi-guju wife.
There isn’t much to it, especially in terms of the ingredients required.
Don’t shred the okra. Wash it and then slice it into pieces that are about half an inch thick. DO NOT WASH AFTER YOU’VE SLICED THEM (the water facilitates the sap, and makes them really slimy to work with while preparing and cooking). I trust you can gauge the proportions depending upon the amount of bhindi you want to make…
Chop two medium sized onions and bring them to a light brown in about a tblsp of olive oil on med heat.
Add the okra slices. Don’t stir too much, or you’ll make it mushy. Leave it at a low-med heat so that it dries out slowly by itself.
About half way (when it starts wilting a bit) add a clove of garlic, and chili bowder, salt and haldi to taste.
You’re almost done when it’s gotten dark, wilted and dry (don’t make it too dry, just enough that it doesn’t stick to the spoon). You need to add something sour to it – half a tsp of amchur, if you have it, or a tsp of lemon juice. Stir till it’s mixed and you’re done.
If you want more substance in the base (which will make the dish less dry), add chopped tomatoes, coriander and cumin to the onion as you’re browning it.
As for pumpkin, doesn’t “kaddoo” just mean “squash”? You know, Garam Masala – Coriander – Cumin + Nutmeg = Pumpkin Pie Spice
You must try to find that old ketchup commercial “Ismein kaddoo nahi zara”. A dig at rival ketchup makers who mixed cheaper kaddoo to improve the bottom line.
Apologies for typo-ridden run-on text in previous post.
Awesome.
As a long term FOB, TG is at first intimidating, because it is about finding family. In the long run, it has become fulfilling. One of my favorite American Holidays.
Thank you Sonia, Shodan, Shruti and Sumiti. youve made me very hungry.
I think the secret ingredient here is amchur or mango powder. Got ot get me some.
My contribution will be a little spare. Hey – if it takes more than 10 minutes of my time in the kitchen, it’s too long. But this should go down well with the desi males. They can feel they’ve added something to the table without being a total sponge.
Gather the following 1. One sweet potato peeled. Four red potatoes not peeled. Four blue/purple potatoes not peeled. 2. 3/4 red onion. 6 cloves garlic. 3. 1 teaspoon sea salt, 1 tsp pepper (coarse ground) 4. Capful of skanky ho olive oil. 5. Large square of aluminum foil 6. half a lime
slice and dice 1. sweet potato into wedges 2. red and blue potatoes into fat blobs. 3. garlic into slices 4. onion into rings or half moons.
cook it all by 1. throwing it all in the foil. 2. Drizzling with skanky ho olive oil. 3. Adding the salt and pepper 4. shoving it in toaster oven and wait for 20-25 minutes
serve with squeeze of lemon. You;ll be surprised what a color splash this makes. I’d try cooking the sweet potato unpeeled as well – but the mud sometimes gets to me.
hmm i think i’ll try amchur too the nex’ time.
turn the oven on first of course and set to 350 degs.
happy thanksgiving, mutineers!!
it’s my FAVORITE american holiday, complete with Dahi Vade and Vegi Stuffing!!
if you want a cheerful alternative to pumpkin pie that takes 1/3 the time, here is a recipe for pumpkin brownies which are always a hit:
4 eggs (or the equivalent of egg subsitute– use Ener-G potato starch found at a health food store) 1 can pumpkin (i think about 15.5 oz?) 3/4 cup veg. oil 2 tsp. vanilla 2 cup all-purpose flour (you can also use rice flour if anyone is allergic to gluten) 2 cup granulated sugar 2 Tbsp Pumpkin Pie Spice (found in the spice aisle) 1 Tsp Cinnamon 1 Tsp ground cloves 1 Tsp ground ginger 2 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. salt (optional)
Beat pumpkin, egg, oil, vanilla
Add dry ingredients and beat until thoroughly mixed. Pour into greased 13 x 9 pan Bake @ 350 for 20-25 mins until a toothpick inserted at the center comes out clean. Don’t overbake– you want the brownies to be moist!!
For some seriously decadent frosting:
take cream cheese (an 8 oz package will do), let it sit out until it can be beaten– add 1/2-1 cup of confectioner’s sugar (or enough to taste) and thoroughly beat with an electric mixer until it is spreadable. Add a dash of vanilla and pumpkin pie spice. when the brownies are cooled, frost and enjoy.
YAAAAY!!
JOAT,
How much are you charging at the door for an invitation for your awesome-sounding (and probably, awesome tasting) turkey? 😉
I’m going to stick with the following:
Appetizers: Puff pastry with mushroom cream sauce and spinach Main course: Chole, Paneer something & chicken something Dessert: Pumpkin pie (Thanks Whole Foods) and the staple: LOTS of wine and Texas vs. A&M Football.
Hook ’em!!
ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! All Thanksgiving Turkey Chefs!
Everyone Stop what you are doing right now and run home to BRINE your turkey!
If only we had this post a few days ago, but its not too late. You can brine your turkey the Indian way tonight. My family religiously gets together on Thanksgiving to play traditional American family. We always had the big Turkey and all the fixin’s. But every year, the Indians complained of ‘the smell’. ‘Do they put Benzoic acid in everything’ my aunt wanted to know. “No its must be what wild animals smell like when cooked.” Someone said the turkey was fermenting. Even the dogs wouldn’t eat it. Until last year. I got bit by the ‘brine the turkey’ bug. I called my uncle over and we brined it together.
The turkey was too big for any utensil we had so we took one of the big plastic bags grocery stores have to put your greens in and dropped the cleaned turkey in it. WE then put the whole thing in a bucket to avoid accidents. Next we added water in the plastic bag till it engulfed the turkey. Added a cup of kosher salt. we put fresh rosemary, fresh thyme and dried Bay leaves which we bought for this purpose. Then to ‘Indianize’ it, we had my mom toast few cardamum, a cinnamon stick, and 5 or 6 cloves and added to it. To make it spicy, we crushed green chillies, black pepper and ginger and dropped it in. My uncle wanted to put rosewater in it but I revolted. We thought we put enough spices in it to overpower any turkey smell. Next day we cooked it according to instructions and it was unbelievable. It tasted so delicious and spicy on its own. The smell was slightly like chicken curry. We had it with gravy containing extra crushed pepper. We had everyone gnawing on the bones. Last week my uncle promised to make it the same way at his house this year but I’m not sure he wont put rosewater in it.
I don’t think you can go wrong but just in case, I should put in a disclaimer. Try this and you’ll have a great adventure I promise, but results are your own.