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| American Thanksgivings |
| 2007-11-22 |
| I am an American Muslim from India. My adolescence was a series of rejections, one after another, of the various dimensions of my heritage, in the belief that America, India, and Islam could not coexist within the same being. If I wanted to be one, I could not be the others. Food was one of the battlefields. My mother used to pack samosas, pakoras, mangoes and other Indian culinary delights in my school lunch, for which I would get mercilessly teased by my classmates for the associated smells and messes. I started requesting cold cuts on white bread with brownies on the side. “Brownies? White bread?” said my mother, aghast. “There’s no taste, no nutrition. Why don’t you want the food I give you, the food of your heritage?” “You mean the food of my torment,” I wanted to say. My mother caved on my school lunches (excepting the white bread). At home, though, we still ate Indian food. And on Thanksgiving, my mother made biryani – one of the jewels of Indian Muslim cuisine. Like turkey, it takes all day to prepare. And like turkey, it is a feast food – a food of gathering and gratitude. For a while, I thought I was cheating on America. After all, there were no commercials for Thanksgiving biryanis on television. The President never pardoned a goat, the meat traditionally put in biryanis. I’ve been conducting an informal survey of the Thanksgiving meals of some of my friends. A remarkably high number are preparing the feast foods of their ethnic and religious culture – lamb for my Arab American friend Tarek, an array of curries for my Indian American friend Sunil, kissra and pumpkin stew for my Sudanese American friend Hind – on Thanksgiving. But all of them use the food to serve a large gathering, and all of them take a moment to offer gratitude. I now view the different parts of my heritage as mutually enriching, and I see America's diversity as a source of strength. As the great American poet Walt Whitman said of himself and his country, "I am large, I contain multitudes." This range of Thanksgivings is a metaphor for America: Different expressions on shared values. The food is different, the spirit of gathering is the same. The prayer varies, the offering of gratitude is common. |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #3 “You mean the food of my torment,” I wanted to say. LOL! I'd like to drop a bunch of collards on his ass. |
| Posted by: Thomas Woof 2007-11-22 16:40 |
| #2 The peaceful breaking of bread will forever be one of mankind's most civil and hallowed acts. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-11-22 13:25 |
| #1 E pluribus unum. |
| Posted by: doc 2007-11-22 10:15 |