Monday 10 October, 2005

Thanksgiving, details

The Thanksgiving dinner was a success, although not as perfect as I was hoping. This was my first time trying my hands on a turkey, and I'm told it was quite ambitious... Seems that when it comes to roasting turkeys, they don't exactly obey the laws of physics as they should. For example, I had a 2.5 pound roast which should have been done in about two hours, but it ended up being in the oven for four. Our American friends tell me that turkeys are not a science, they are voodoo, and Clay told the horror story about a turkey that was in the oven for 12 hours before they decided to eat it even though it hadn't reached the required temperature. Luckily our guests weren't in a hurry.

Pumpkin LoafBut it was my pumpkin loaf that got the biggest praise. You see, pumpkins are not a big thing in Finland so I've never really eaten any, but I got all sentimental about this whole Thanksgiving business and decided to go to town with the whole theme. Only when I was roasting my pumpkin at home it occurred to me that most people probably wouldn't do that but would buy some kind of canned product... but by that time I just took that as all part of the experience. I thought making the puree was actually extremely simple, really the biggest thing was to drag the damn thing home from the market.

Anyways, when we were munching on the pumpkin cake on Saturday we just though it was extremely nice cake, but Laura and Clay, our American Thanksgiving experts praised it to high heavens. Apparently the home-made puree made all the difference - and true enough, when eating the pumpkin cupcakes later on I understood what they meant. Pumpkin cupcakes had that kind of pumpkiny feel to the taste, but my cake was dense and moist with real sweet pumpkin aroma. I'm totally sold now, and as I still have loads of the puree left in the freezer I could bake another pumpkin cake for Dragon as the birthday cake.

Funnily enough, others have had wrestled with the pumpkin theme lately too. To answer the question about why pumpkin have never been part of Finnish cuisine is quite simple, actually. I believe (and my mother will correct me if I'm wrong) that it's basically too cold to grow proper big pumpkins in Finland, the summers are generally just not long and hot enough. Even today when pumpkins are grown, they are still at least partially grown in greenhouses. As for the taste - I'm not sure if the suspicion and dislike of pumpkins is just about the unfamiliarity, or is it just that the taste is unnusual for the Finnish palate. I can't say anymore, as my tastes so completely change with my environment, and I very quickly adopt different cuisines and local incredients. Pumpkin is a new one, but already a favourite.

Posted by kolibri at 10 October 21:02, 2005
Comments
# 1 - Outi (on October 11, 2005 01:13 AM):

We had pumpkin often in my school. Unfortunately. See, they put it in "porkkanaraaste" (can't think of an English word for it, sorry). Any NORMAL people would use bits of orange but in my school they used pumpkin. Almost without exceptions. And the taste was awful compared to what it would've been had they used oranges. *sigh*


# 2 - hfb (on October 11, 2005 02:42 AM):

Size doesn't matter as the smaller, paler varieties are generally better for baking. The ones I used were grown here as far as I know. :) But they grow well enough in nearby Latvia and their cuisine has lots of uses for pumpkin other than pickling. Aside from my sister-in-law thinking the piparkakut crumb crust as being too exotic and weird for her and my parents-in-law wondering why americans make such a fuss over pumpkin pie, the guys in the office loved it.

And, yes, the vast majority of yankees wouldn't roast their own pumpkin since the canned version is easily available and most recipes ask for canned pumpkin and even give volume by can, e.g. 1 can libby's canned pumpkin. The advantage is consistency of the can vs. great variation in the home puree.


# 3 - Jaana-Mari (on October 11, 2005 05:53 AM):

Shredded carrots with diced pumpkin, a disgusting combination favourited by schools and other industrial lunch restaurants all over Finland. I have been fooled a few times, thinking it was diced peaches in there. Oranges or peaches, yummy, (pickled) pumpkin...hello garbage bin.


# 4 - kolibri [TypeKey Profile Page] (on October 11, 2005 07:18 AM):

Wow, that sounds disgusting. I wonder why I've been saved this...


# 5 - Emokolibri (on October 12, 2005 02:00 AM):

In Finland a variety of pumpkins (kurpitsa) are grown. They are different from American pumpkins, the colour is not so bright and they not very suitable for nice lanterns. The yellow or orange cubes are made of these (very tastless) pumpkins. This pickles tastes mostly of vinegar and spices (cinammon,laurel leaf, etc).


# 6 - Chu (on October 14, 2005 07:19 AM):

Oh, so that's what the yellow stuff with shredded carrots was! I always wondered :).

I think I've only ever had pickled pumpkin (and IMO vinegar ruins it :P), so it would be delightful to have some of the normal stuff sometime.


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