seattle.jpgI 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!