Thanksgiving in Japan

 Thanksgiving '08:  Sharon & Sylvan                                                                                                                     Photos by Takashi Uchio

Thanksgiving dinner conjures up images of plump turkeys, copious side dishes and of course the obligatory stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce.  But not at our house.  I gave up on the traditional fare a long time ago. 

Recreating Thanksgiving in Japan is kind of a crazy idea anyway.  Well, first it’s an American holiday (though Canadians have their own version in October).  And second, most Japanese kitchens aren’t equipped to handle big dinners, or big anything for that matter.  Many Japanese houses or apartments don’t have ovens, though people do have combo microwave/electric ovens called denchirenji.  Stovetop burners are often a portable two-burner contraption with a gas hook up.  Modern kitchens, typically galley-style and tucked away where guests can’t see the cooking mess, are clearly designed by men who don’t cook.  Farm kitchens, though short on counters, have plenty of space, and were warm centers of the home with a charcoal fire cooking apparatus called kamado.  Some houses had irori, an open-hearth affair where people could gather round, stay warm and roast food slowly over burnt down embers.  Our friend Harigaya-san rebuilt his old mountain home around the original irori room and also put in a set of kamado in his traditional kitchen adjacent to the irori.  The best udon noodles I have ever tasted were ones Tadaaki made up at Harigaya-san’s house, then boiled in a huge iron pot set over a raging fire.  And the best potato I ever tasted was one from Harigaya-san’s garden roasted in the slow-burning irori fire.  Think about it.  Those plain wheat noodles dipped in a traditionally uncomplicated soy sauce flavored broth and that unassuming fresh-dug potato were the best I had ever tasted.  Sometimes simple is sublime.

But I’m getting off track.

I began making Thanksgiving dinner a few years after I came to Japan.  By then, Christopher was born and we were living in the first house we built that is now SSU!.  It’s hard to remember back that far, but I have a vague memory of a Butterball turkey, all the usual trimmings and a bewildered set of in-laws.  That was the last time I tried to include them and the last time we had the Butterball.  We regularly invited Tadaaki’s parents to dinner, but this kind of eating marathon was really beyond their stomachs or stamina.  I soon learned that hors d’œuvres before dinner were also too much of a temptation, as despite my warnings, they would fill up and be unable to eat the main course.  So straight to the table it became.  And forget the dessert.

The first Butterball turkey tasted a bit like flavored cardboard, so Tadaaki started raising turkeys.  Enthused by the homegrown birds, I branched out on the trimmings as well and perused my Gourmet magazines for menu ideas.  Southwest cooking was big around then, so for several years we had blue cornbread stuffing and maple syrup flavored sweet potato purée.  But, more important, that second Thanksgiving was the year I read an article in the November 1993 issue of Bon Appetit that changed the way I look at Thanksgiving. 

The fact is, the colonial Thanksgiving dinner was a far cry off of what we eat today in America.  And the more I read about what food was served at those first Thanksgivings, the more I realized that what we had on the farm and in the fields here in Japan was a lot closer to what the colonials had.  So I let go of all preconceived ideas about a “traditional” Thanksgiving dinner and started to explore menus using stuff we had.  Never really being crazy about cranberry sauce, it was easy to give up on buying plastic bags of Ocean Spray cranberries available in Tokyo or through mail order.  But we did have chestnuts, and I sometimes made purée de marrons.  One memorable Thanksgiving, I recreated the menu from an article in Saveur detailing an ex-patriot Thanksgiving dinner in Paris.  Foie gras stuffed turkey and roasted sweet potatoes mashed with cream, anyone?  It sounds decadent, but it was damn good.  In fact, we repeated that menu the following year.

 But that was the last year we had turkeys.  Renovating Tadaaki’s parents’ 70-year-old farmhouse took every ounce of energy reserves and sapped us both for a good three years.  Each spring we tried to remember to order turkey chicks, but mostly forgot or called too late.  The couple times Tadaaki managed to get them ordered, there was some disaster such as arriving dead or getting killed by stray dogs.  I haven’t given up, but these days we eat roast chickens (and skip the trimmings).  So how can we call it Thanksgiving dinner?
 

For me, Thanksgiving is a day to be thankful for the food we have and for the good friends who come share it with our family.  So Thanksgiving has become a simple affair, with no gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing, or pumpkin pie.  And no Butterball.

There’s a sort of glorious feeling of freedom in being able to create one’s own world free of family or societal pressures.  I’ve come to realize that despite the restrictive nature of life here in Japan, in some way, Japanese are fairly tolerant of the odd ball.  (Maybe more so than we are in the U.S..)  Japanese society will fight like hell to keep a person in the correct box, but once a person pushes all the way out, the resistance melts away.  That’s a sign of cultural security.  Can we say the same about our own country’s tendency to subtly urge people to become homogenously “Americanized?”  I doubt it.

Marjoram Gougères 

Gougères: this recipe is from Patricia Wells’ Bistro Cooking, a great straightforward cookbook with a wealth of practical, down-to-earth fare.  It’s one of my mainstay cookbooks.  And these gougères are the perfect accompaniment to champagne:  light, airy and delicately cheesy.  Of course they rely on great cheese, the best flour and farm fresh eggs.  The recipe makes about 40 “cheesy puffs” as I eventually begin calling them after intoning the name gougère over and over again on seemingly deaf ears.  Put 250 cc water, ½ teaspoon sea salt and 120 grams (or 4 oz) butter in a medium-sized saucepan over high heat.   Bring to a boil.  Remove from flame and quickly stir in 130 grams (1 cup less 1.5 tablespoons) unbleached organic white flour.  Beat well with a wooden spoon to form a smooth batter with no flour lumps.   Return to a medium flame and smash dough across the bottom of the pan to cook the flour for several minutes (more if you are increasing the recipe).  Transfer dough to electric mixture.  Add 4 large farm eggs and 30 grams (1 oz) grated Gruyère cheese.  Beat on high speed until mixture is completely homogenous.  Spoon 5 cm (2”) rounds of dough onto a buttered cookie sheet leaving a good 5 cm (2”) between each.  Sprinkle with 30 grams (1 oz) grated Gruyère cheese and bake for 20 to 25 minutes in a 220C (425F) oven.  Remove to a plate lined with paper to absorb the steam and serve immediately.  Optional: add chopped chives, thyme, savory or marjoram.

 

 

 

Comments

[Sarah O'Toole]

Oh, gougeres! My favourite!
Nancy, your writings are a feast for the senses ... the warm cozy kitchen, scrumptious goodies on the table, the excitement and anticipation of the main meal (who's sitting where??) and, since I have a pretty good imagination, almost as satisfying as the real thing! Who am I kidding?

[Rodney Fong]

Here we are in the middle of feasting season, just done with Thanksgiving, and then on towards Christmas and New Year's. I can hardly wait to read what you write about New Year's events or rituals, as we have some exposure here to things Japanese. Our cuisine is a mix of both traditional (gotta have the turkey and stuffing) and local (sashimi, sushi, Korean kalbi short ribs, mochi rice casseroles and the like). And in between my wife's exasperation with my mom about food items, or our polite eating at her uncle's home, where the turkey is not so great, and varying degrees of ono (which is our way of saying what is "oi shi") of pot luck items that everyone brings, it still comes down to a time of being with family and friends (and lots of sports on TV for me). Christmas and New Year's, as I have mentioned, will be more of the same. Now we throw in Christmas gingerbread, cranberry macadamia nut cookies, butter mochi, haupia chocolate pie, Chinese jai, more sashimi and sushi, and we've got another feeding frenzy for the next month.

Yes, Japanese tourism is way down, as well as tourists from just about everywhere, including mainlanders due to the economy. Chinese are the next great source of tourists we are trying to attract. Businesses are hurting everywhere, schools are shutting down 1 day a week, as are most government services, but the holidays hopefully will help to uplift spirits and look forward to a better year next year. Aloha.

[Nancy Singleton Hachisu]

Sarah: Well, if anyone could imagine the holiday dinners from the writing and photos, it's you (having attended your fair share in the day). Gougères never lose their appeal for me as well. I made them in California with some trepidation, as I didn't have Tadaaki's flour or eggs, but they still were a hit. I'm a lot like Baachan these days, give me appetizers any day, and I can almost skip the main course. Though that's not quite true. It's nice to have something warm in the tummy. I also made the turnip soup in the U.S. (had to push Pam on that one as it introduced an extra course and we had to scrounge up some small bowls). We served it standing up in black miso soup bowls I had brought as a present some previous year. A dollop of crème fraîche and a few sautéed turnip greens completed the soup nicely. I never get tired of that one either, though I'm thinking of a doing a carrot soup for Christmas dinner. Who knows, the menu is percolating. Chizuru is downstairs as I write, baking Christmas cookies. I'm hoping to slide out of that chore all together this year. Great to hear from you.

Rodney: Wow, what an assortment of holiday foods. I love the melting pot mélange of flavors and countries involved. What's a mochi casserole? I'll be writing about mochi soon, as we still pound it in the hollowed out tree trunk in the front yard on the 30th. Butter mochi? Is that mochi sautéed in butter? Do you guys eat anko (sweet azuki bean paste)? These days I've been salting my own cod for brandade, etc.. It's delicious as "sashimi" after a few days as seen in the photo. You salt the cod on both sides and let it sit in the fridge set on a wire rack over a cookie sheet to catch any drips. After a week, you reconstitute the cod in cold water to use. It's simple, but amazingly delicious. I pound the brandade with some garlic, warm cream & olive oil in a Japanese grinding bowl: suribachi with a surikogi. The texture is fantastic. Way different that commercial salt cod. But here I go talking about food again. Have a great Christmas, I'd love to hear more about the hybrid customs.

[preeva tramiel]

HI, Nancy,
Gougeres look great!
Love reading about your different holiday traditions! I really admire your steely will to keep your own customs overseas, and love to see how they morph.

I bet the homegrown turkeys were better than Butterball!

[Nancy Singleton Hachisu]

Preeva: Yes, learning when to stick to one's guns and when to roll with it is a work in progress. The homegrown turkeys were killer and I keep hoping we'll get our act together and actually get them ordered on time. Maybe this coming spring. I missed the chicken extravaganza for Thanksgiving and asked the boys which they'd prefer for Christmas: chicken or duck. Christopher answered emphatically, "duck." So that's that. They're a bitch to pluck, however. More coming on that.