Thanksgiving Day is a jewel

  The run up to an American Thanksgiving is very similar to the excitement and feverish activity with which most Zimbos prepare for their Christmas parties and celebrations. Like our distant cousins across the Atlantic, we make every effort to be with our families at this time of year. This explains why buses travelling to the rural areas on Christmas Eve are crammed with passengers, and why an air ticket from London to Harare in the month of December, cannot be had for either love or money.
 While Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, Thanksgiving in America dates back to 1621 when the Pilgrim Fathers, recently arrived in the New World after an arduous sea journey from England, succeeded in growing and harvesting enough crops to see them through the harsh east coast winter. Friendly native Indians, Samoset and Squanto, saved the ailing colonists from starvation by teaching them how to plant Indian corn in mounds of earth, fertilised by decayed fish.
Like today’s permaculturalists, they instructed the settlers to plant other crops alongside corn. Rejoicing in a successful harvest, the Pilgrims’ governor proclaimed a day of thanksgiving, to be shared by all the colonists and the neighbouring American Indians. It is said that ninety braves attended the celebrations, which lasted for three days. This celebration became an annual custom.
 One can only speculate about the Thanksgiving menu in the 17th century, but the centrepiece of today’s feast is undoubtedly roast turkey. In conformity with most things American, it tends to be very large. It is also stuffed, and each family will use a favourite stuffing recipe, handed down from great grandmother’s cookery book. Cranberry sauce and gravy are served with the turkey, and favourite side dishes include mashed potato, winter squash, glazed sweet potatoes and green beans. Collard greens, a vegetable similar to muriwo, was often seen at family meals in the The Jeffersons, a TV sit-com about the upwardly-mobile African-American couple George and Louise, who lived in ‘a deee-luxe apartment in the sky.’ These greens no longer seem so fashionable and have been replaced in the annual feast by fancy dishes like broccoli in cheese sauce, or lettuce and pear salads with vinaigrette dressing.
 Americans, by and large, are generous, fun loving and exceptionally sociable. I can lay claim to having at least one American friend, and she is well known for hosting memorable thanksgiving banquets, where the roast turkey surpasses any local roadrunner in size and flavour. This year, however, any plans I had to attend a Thanksgiving celebration, coincided with a previous invitation to dinner at Harare Club, an establishment founded in 1893.
 Although turkey was not on the menu, by lucky coincidence, the chef at Harare Club last Thursday evening had prepared stuffed roast chicken for dinner. Served with gravy, squash, roast potatoes, spring vegetables and beetroot salad, it was undoubtedly the tastiest roast chicken I have eaten this year.
 Thanksgiving may be over until next year, but for Zimbos, the time has come to plan our Christmas menus, and to start perusing granny’s cookery book for tips on roasting a turkey, and how to make the perfect stuffing.

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