An Untraditional Thanksgiving Tradition

Thanksgiving traditions in most American households include serving the following dishes at dinner: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, a fall vegetable dish of some sort and cranberry sauce. My family's Thanksgiving traditions are quite similar. Every year, we have the 22-pound fresh turkey; a home-made corn bread based stuffing with sausage, apples and currants; mashed potatoes; mashed turnips; brussel sprouts; a fresh cranberry sauce made with cranberries, a little orange zest and a healthy dose of some flavored liquor; and, maybe another vegetable dish thrown in for good health. What is untraditional to most Thanksgiving traditions is that we start our meal with a soup.

For the past 10ish years, we have begun our Thanksgiving feast with a Curry Pumpkin Soup. Concededly, the curry seams a bit unorthodox, or untraditional, to perhaps this Mayfloweresque celebration, but surprisingly, the spice and flavor compliment the meal flawlessly. The curry in the soup, although present, plays a minor role in comparison to the soup's main ingredient – the pumpkin. The pumpkin in the soup is always fresh – never canned.

The process for pureeing pumpkins is arduous at best, as the process begins in a pumpkin patch and ends in a food processor. Cheese pumpkins, which really resemble a Cinderella coach rather than an aged Gouda (well, perhaps the color of a cheese pumpkin is akin to a mild cheddar) are halved, seeds removed, and baked until the pumpkin is soft and mushy.

Once the pumpkin is adequately baked, the fleshy pumpkin meat is scooped out of the pumpkin's shell and placed in a colander to drain. As a quick word to the wise, a patient cook would allow gravity to work its magic so that the pumpkin's moisture slowly drains from the fleshy pumpkin meat. An inpatient cook (yours truly) would mash spoonful size portions of pumpkin meat in a fine sieve until the pumpkin meat is sufficiently dry. This technique is not only messy, but completely tiring and inefficient. I digress, but we do learn from our culinary mishaps after all. After the pumpkin meat is drained, it is run through the food processor until it is a puree. After a few pulses on the processor, pumpkin puree is formed (just like the canned pumpkin)!

After laboring over the food processor, the soup is made by sautéing some finely diced onions and leeks. The pumpkin puree is added, along with proportionate amounts of chicken broth, curry powder, nutmeg, salt and pepper and a few bay leaves. This mixture cooks for about 45 minutes on low heat. At the last minute, a few drops of heavy cream are added to the soup. The soup is served with a dollop of sour cream and a few pinches of paprika to garnish the soup.

So this untraditional Thanksgiving dish has become a tradition to my family's meal. Although the curry may seem unordinary, the tasty is really quite extraordinary.

Until next time…