Islamabad Pakistan - 1984
Two days after I arrived in Islamabad, Pakistan in 1983, the kind couple assigned by USAID as my sponsors invited me to join them for Thanksgiving dinner at the American Club along with a large contingent of other American diplomats. The State Department restaurant on the secured grounds of the embassy offered two seatings to accommodate all the guests that had requested reservations. We arrived on time for the early seating to find the dining room already uncomfortably crowded.
Weaving through the maze of diners, Pakistani waiters served us plated dinners of turkey with all the traditional fixings. The food looked attractive, but it had the bland taste of mass-produced institutional fare. As soon as we finished dessert, the waiters encouraged us to vacate our seats so they could reset the table to be ready for the guests for the second seating. Never again would I eat Thanksgiving dinner at the American Club.
In my first week working for USAID, I met Ahmed, a native Urdu speaker, who the American Embassy had hired to teach basic conversational Urdu to interested American staff. Although full-time attendance at the State Department’s language institute in Washington, DC, is normally required of all employees before overseas assignments, USAID made a high stakes exception for me. They gave me two years to take daily, one-hour classes in Pakistan to master the intricacies of this complex language well enough to pass the mandatory foreign language competency exam. If I failed, I would lose my job.
At eight months into my training, Ahmed revealed the testing process I would face at the end of my second year in Pakistan. “You will have a one-on-one oral examination by the institute’s native Urdu teacher.”
I shuddered, imagining the type of heartless grilling that a student defending his doctoral thesis would feel.
“He will ask you several questions on a variety of topics. The questions vary from person to person. But they often ask to describe your favorite holiday. So, Brenda, what is your favorite holiday?”
“Thanksgiving, for sure!” I answered, “Especially the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy.”
With raised brows, he laughed. “You realize there are no turkeys in Pakistan?”
I leaned toward him with open eyes. “No turkeys?” Having seen so many chickens scurrying around in the city, I assumed their turkey relatives couldn’t be far away.
Ahmed continued, “Ironically, we actually have a very obscure word for turkey - shotormorgh. Though I’m sure that 99 percent of Pakistani people have never heard that word. If you can memorize that word to use with the language institute examiner, you might earn extra points."
I could have just memorized the word, but I decided the conversation would be more interesting if I could describe a home-style Thanksgiving feast cooked up for seven of my more curious Pakistani staff. Of course, I had to warn them it would be nothing like their ordinary meal of naan, basmati rice, and chickpea dal served with a meat or vegetable curry.
Also, since everyone would sit together at one large table, rather than in one room where the women could eat together, and a separate room where the men could dine, I expected some resistance. I suspected they might find it too uncomfortable for all of them eating strange food at a communal table. But to my surprise, not one of them turned down my invitation.
In early November, the American commissary air-freighted in frozen turkeys from the US, along with canned and frozen accompaniments not available in Pakistani markets. I bought a 15-pound turkey and other fixings for my feast. My female housekeeper, always eager to learn how to cook the “American way” helped me prepare a few dishes the day before. On Thanksgiving morning, we hustled to get the turkey stuffed and into the oven by 10 a.m..
I’d invited my guests to arrive at 3:30 p.m. We would serve dinner at 4 p.m. I set up a drink station in the living room. As my invited staff arrived, I offered them a choice of non-alcoholic drinks since Islam strictly prohibits the imbibing of alcohol.
“Would you like to try some cranberry juice and ginger ale punch, or would you prefer Fanta?” I asked my guests.
They had never seen or tasted cranberries. The tiny round fruits need a boggy habitat to flourish, which isn’t found in Pakistan, a country characterized by deserts and mountains. Some of my guests, enticed by its bright red color and sparkling bubbles, tasted the mock cranberry cocktail. “Too tart,” they claimed, opting for their familiar overly sweet orange Fanta.
At 4 p.m., summoned by the irresistible aroma of roasted turkey, I led them into the dining room, where my housekeeper had laid out the feast on the table and sideboard. Before serving, I explained each item on the menu, attempting to describe the flavors they would be tasting. Then we uncovered the dishes.
“Please help yourselves to all or any of the food we’ve prepared. Take samples to try. You can always go back for more if you find something appeals to you. Don’t feel that you have to eat anything that doesn’t taste good to you.”
The mashed potatoes won for most popular dish. Pakistanis use this staple (aloo) cubed in curry or as a spicy mashed filling between two pan-fried chapattis. Everyone liked the shotormorgh and stuffing, but found eating the “dry” meat bland, compared to the similar tasting chicken they ate, simmered in a spicy curry sauce. Though not spicy, I passed them the brown gravy. “Try spooning this sauce over your turkey and stuffing.”
I expected they would like the green bean casserole topped with pieces of fried onion, because after all, what American kid (or adult) doesn’t love that holiday favorite. It got a thumbs up from all. The cranberry sauce went untouched except for the portion I took; being too tart for the Pakistani palate. Pakistani cooks use onions every day in practically every dish they prepare, so the pearled onions appealed to everyone despite the strange creamy white sauce puddled around them.
As we ate, I told them how the pilgrims had landed in America. After struggling to survive their first winter, the following summer, they planted vegetable and herb gardens and learned about native foods from the indigenous Indians. With the fall harvest complete, the pilgrims celebrated with a feast and gave thanks for the bounty they had received from the land.
We enjoyed lively conversation about our respective local traditions, bearing in mind their culture had existed ten times longer than America’s. One of my guests insisted I must join his family for the Eid celebration, a lavish feast following the fasting month of Ramadan, when the Quran was revealed to their Prophet Muhammad.
Pumpkin pie topped with fluffy whipped cream served as the finale to our eating extravaganza. None of my guests had ever tasted this dessert. I worried they might find my pie lacking in sweetness compared with their sugary syrup-soaked gulab jamans or the overly sweet chum-chums they loved. All of them tried a small piece of the pie and seemed to enjoy it. I appreciated their gracious willingness to share this culinary experience with me. They provided a comforting reminder of home, where my family would enjoy the same meal halfway around the world just a few hours later.
The following year, on a jet headed back to the US, I struggled to control my jittery nerves as I practiced a variety of imaginary conversations I might soon have with a complete stranger speaking only in Urdu. The next day at the language institute, I sat facing a stern-faced middle-aged man dressed in a business suit. In Urdu, he greeted me and introduced himself. For the first five minutes, our conversation proceeded cordially. He asked me questions about how I had adjusted to living in Pakistan, to which I gave careful answers.
When he asked me to describe my favorite holiday, I almost jumped out of my chair with glee! Well prepared, I eagerly recounted, in great detail, the Thanksgiving feast I prepared for my Pakistani guests. Yes, I used the word shotormorgh several times, eliciting a look of surprise and a slight smile from the Urdu expert. A few days after I returned to Pakistan, Ahmed received a telex notifying him I had passed my exam with flying colors.
Thanks to Ahmed, my Pakistani dinner guests, and a turkey that found its way from a farm in the US to my dinner table in Islamabad, I had become proficient in a language as unfamiliar to most Americans as turkeys are to most Pakistanis.
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