An Athenian Diary

28

Thanksgiving Dinner at the American School

(co-written by Edie and Gary)

Only a handful of leaves on a handful of trees are anything but green, and the weather has turned warm again (Gary was sweating fiercely under a bright sun the other day), but in the hearts and minds of expatriate Americans, last Thursday brought that quintessentially American holiday, Thanksgiving. Never mind that it's meaningless to the Greeks -- the Director of the School gave the staff the day off, and the two kitchens were turned over -- under  the brilliant direction of June -- to the Americans, and by noon seven huge turkeys, stuffed and basted, were roasting away in the ovens, and the tables were being set.  The cook, the only Greek member of the staff who was working that day, was forcibly prevented, for the occasion, from preparing any food in the Greek manner (boiling the green beans, for example.)  Dinner for 40 or 50 Americans in a foreign land, all strangers (or mostly) a couple of months ago, and a few lucky foreigners who happen to be living at the School -- a chance to observe, like anthropologists, the most secret rites and rituals of the American abroad.  

Dinner was a cooperative venture, thanks to June's organizing -- the kitchen was full of folks cooking turkeys, stirring sauces, pouring drinks, washing dishes. And the students pitched in as waiters, too, circulating with fancy orange drinks that Gary didn't dare touch but seemed pretty popular with everybody, especially perhaps the crowd on the porch, and even with the kids, who got Shirley Temple versions.   The food was a pretty fair approximation of an American Thanksgiving menu:  we had turkey with bread stuffing and gravy, mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, buttered green beans, and even some cranberry sauce, brought from America by a member who had missed it on previous occasions.   We had American apple pies, and most glorious of all, five pumpkin pies made with canned pumpkin from the States.  Alas, there were no sweet potatoes:  they exist in Greece, but only as a whitish-blue vegetable with none of that wonderful beta-carotene taste. so -- forget them!  And, in honor of our location, we had many bottles of good Greek wine. 

But what in fact is Thanksgiving about really at all? Well, of course, it's three things -- attacking the food, eating too much, and lolling around after dinner, complaining that you've eaten too much. All three basic requirements were fully met. 

Some of the students even managed to scrounge up some old videotapes of football games, so they were able to lounge around with full stomachs and cheer on whatever ancient teams they were watching.  And some folks adjourned to the veranda, where under the watchful eye of a sculpted ancient, we sang and danced to American and Canadian songs, to the accompaniment of guitar and accordian! 

Maybe the most fun part, from Edie's perspective, was explaining it all the next day to her Greek class, none of whom are Americans:  the food, the rituals ("No, the men always carve the turkey."), the story of Squanto and the Puritans ("they went to Holland first, but the Dutch were too tolerant") and the fact that, amazingly enough, all stores and businesses are closed for the day:  you don't go to restaurants, you don't shop, you don't exchange gifts, you don't go to church -- it's a day dedicated just to food, family, friends  and tradition.  It made us realize that Thankgiving may be, in fact,  the only truly holy day in the American calendar.

December 1, 2003

To return to the Table of Contents of the Athenian Diary, click here.