There’s no surprise in the fact that majority of Egyptians do not know about Thanksgiving, let along celebrate the holiday. During my last stay in Egypt, Thanksgiving passed by without notice. My friends and I spent the holiday at the beach and four wheeling through the desert at sunset. During our dinner that night one of my friends happened to remember that it was Thanksgiving. Oh. "Happy Thanksgiving everyone," and that was that. Without the distraction of the beach and ATV fun, I decided that Thanksgiving was not going to pass us by this year.
You would think that making your own Thanksgiving celebration in a foreign country would be relatively easy. Thanksgiving festivities with my family in Middlesboro, the Greene family, means delicious home cooked food and a delightful day spent with family. So, to recreate this holiday in another country all you have to do is buy and cook lots of yummy food and surround yourself with people you love. The latter part is relatively easy, but since my cooking attempts usually end up as failures, the first part was slightly more difficult. Not to mention that grocery stores in Egypt aren’t stocked with the same items as those you would find in the US, which makes cooking traditional Thanksgiving dishes a little more difficult.
When I think of Thanksgiving food, I think of turkey, cranberry sauce, and my favorite … an array of pumpkin dishes … pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread … I pretty much love it all. Finding these items in Egypt is not an impossible task, especially if you know the right places to look, but it is rather pricey. Luckily for my roommates and me, we live close to a store, Mariam Market, which is known for stocking imported items. This means if you are really craving Doritos, Hershey’s chocolate, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and items of the sort, you can find them at Mariam Market for a really inflated price. Our Thanksgiving dinner menu included marinated vegetables, broccoli casserole, orange glazed chicken, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin bread for dessert. In order to make this meal we needed pumpkin puree and Ritz crackers, which we found for a stealthy price of 85 LE (Egyptian Pounds), which is approximately $16. We skipped out on cranberry sauce because one can cost approximately $6. We also skipped out on turkey because you must preorder turkeys and they are really expensive. Though we wouldn’t have required a whole turkey, one whole turkey cost 600 LE, which, if you do the exchange rate of 5.5 LE to 1 US dollar, is the equivalent of $109 … a little more than we were willing to pay for turkey (hence the orange glazed chicken).
Walking through the market, my roommate and I were instantly connected with the hefty number of foreigners also shopping for their Thanksgiving meal. Though we possibly had nothing else in common besides the fact that we were from the same country, living in the same foreign country, and seeking out the same type of holiday spirit, this connection bonded us. As my roommate and I checked out with our $16 worth of crackers and pumpkin puree, the man at the cash register, a jovial little Egyptian man, wished us a Happy Thanksgiving.
Surprisingly enough, my cooking attempts ended up in success … though my pumpkin bread turned out to have the consistency of pumpkin pie in bread form … but it still tasted delicious. I would have much preferred the cool, crisp fall weather of Kentucky, the beautiful fall colors of the Appalachian Mountains, Mom, Mamaw, and my aunts’ yummy cooking, and the company of my parents, brother, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, but my makeshift Thanksgiving celebration in Egypt was fun. The best part is, Thanksgiving celebration in Egypt comes without the stress of Black Friday. For that, I am thankful.
I hope you too had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration. Happy Holidays!
Karema Eldahan is a Middlesboro native living in Egypt. She shares this experience through her weekly Middlesboro Daily News column. Contact her via e-mail at editor@middlesborodailynews.com.
Post a Comment
