I am an Australian who had a Canadian thanksgiving in England. Confused? I am.
About three weeks ago my flat mate Connor announced that we were to have a Canadian Thanksgiving. My initial question was what is Thanksgiving? The following thought, none of us can cook.
As per usual I turned to good, old, trusty Mr Google. I searched ‘Canadian Thanksgiving’ and was presented with many images of turkey, pumpkin pie and the Canadian flag. After my initial search, I didn’t think much about the event until last Sunday when the jobs for the event were divided amongst the 9 of us in our flat. The boys were given the mashed potato, mashed yam, beans and brussel sprouts. The girls were given the pumpkin pie and Connor (the Canadian) gave himself the tedious task of cooking the turkey.
Wednesday soon rolled around and I must say I was a little bit excited but also quite humoured as to how the boys were going to pull off the whole bonanza!
My two Australian girlfriends and I began making the pie at 2pm, to ensure they had enough time to cool (apparently this was important). All three of us had no idea how to make a pumpkin pie or even how the pie was supposed to taste.
We got on with it anyway and managed to completely destroy one pie but the other was fantastic, well it looked fantastic.
Once the pies finished baking we decided to go and see how the boys were doing, the same boys who have been living off of bacon and egg sandwiches since Freshers’ week (I counted one day and there were over 25 eggs in our fridge). We were shooed away until 8pm.
As 8pm rolled around the girls and I entered the kitchen to a nicely browned turkey and pots of mashed vegetables. We were quite impressed. We all helped transfer the food to the table and 11 of us sat and ate the delicious meal.
As a Canadian Thanksgiving tradition we then took turns around the table to share what we were most thankful for in the past year. I was quite touched by everyone’s response. Most of my flat mates were thankful for the wonderful people they get to share this study abroad experience with, bless them all!
Then it was time for dessert, I looked towards my two friends Georgie and Alison hoping that the pumpkin pie didn’t taste like absolute crap! To our delight it was a wonderfully mixed taste of savoury and sweet, with the spices being the most dominant flavour.
All in all I was so pleased that this foreign tradition including a large delicious meal (the preparation, the cooking and the eating) brought us all together, binding our flat closer than we ever would have been without it.
By Justine McKenna
All images writer’s own.