Anyway, JAFCO, the company I work for, had a party to celebrate Thanksgiving in an effort to give the students a chance to speak English somewhere other than the classroom... also to allow them to try turkey, since it's not a common dish in Japan and most had never had it before. The planning process was quite something. They ordered food from two places on base, plus making some things at home. We had around 35 lbs of Turkey (25ish were baked traditionally, and 10ish fried cajun style from Popeyes), 10ish lbs of ham, mashed potatoes (three different kinds, actually), stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, red beans and rice, bread, pie (pumpkin, apple, and peach), and some Japanese goodies for the foreigners who showed up. Here's a picture of the spread:
The students brought supplies and made fresh tempura while they were there. Okambo San and Yamaguchi San were responsible for making salad and grating daikon (Japanese radish) for the tempura:
Kumano San was one of our tempura friers. It was nice and fresh.
The party was a lot of fun. The food was good, and it was nice to see a bunch of my students in a non-class setting. Probably the most fun, though, was watching the students try to figure out what all that American stuff was. I was repeatedly asked what stuffing is (thankfully, I'd consulted our Family Cookbook and knew most of the basic ingredients), and no one was quite sure what to do with gravy until a nearby American would take a scoop and drench their whole plate.
But the funniest, to me, was cranberry sauce. I have to start by saying I love the stuff. Zack doesn't eat it, so since it arrived in our commisary, I've been buying a can or two at a time and then eating it straight from the can over the course of several days. To me, the appropriate way to eat cranberry sauce is plain, with a spoon or fork. The Japanese people would not believe that this was a good plan. Here's what they did with it:
Apparently, it makes decent jelly. Who knew?
On a side note, JAFCO also had a Christmas party for which they ordered a lot of American food (and I forgot to bring my camera). They decided to forgo the cranberry the second time around. :-)
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