Thanksgiving in turkmanistan and the Incredible Spontaneously Cumbusting Apple Pie

Loved ones,

 

These two items are, in fact, unrelated.   I appreciated all the Happy Thanksgiving wishes.  What's Thanksgiving like in T-stan?  Well, kind of a blip, really.  It's not a holiday celebrated here.  Some groups took it upon themselves to cook a "real" Thanksgiving dinner.   We just kind of let it go – there are only 4 of us and one is a vegetarian.  Not thatTurkey is a total necessity but it just seemed like a lot to take on.  We were going to mooch off of some volunteers hosting T-giving dinner for themselves at the office, but most of them are about to leave the country  and we don't know them very well, so we didn't crash their party because of anticipated feelings of awkwardness.  (We did happen to be in the office during their festivities and they brought us a plate of food:  real salad, turkey, stuffing w/gravy, sweet potatoes!  oh, it was heaven!  I ate a ton, my second lunch that day.  Worth every calorie).   On Thursday we each taught in the morning.  Went to lunch where we had our cook's version of pizza.  We'd gotten a can of cranberry sauce from PC the day before so we had that, too.  Only we didn't have a real can opener.  So we got this ghetto one from the cook and she tried to open the can from the wrong end.  In the end, we managed to get a bit pulled back but the thing looked like a case of tetanus waiting to happen.  We also had gummy bears, courtesy of my loving daddy J 

 

And…. yes, I made a pumpkin pie!  It was alright; probably could have cooked the pumpkin a bit more. But even Summer ate some, and she says she never eats pumpkin pie.  I have pictures; I'll try to post them. 

           

On Saturday we took the day off and went to the city.  We went to a shopping center called "Yimpash" (the 'y' is silent) which was incredible.  It was like a department store and a grocery store all in one.  Three floors – food court on the third floor.  We had cheeseburgers and sodas for lunch and then the 5 of us shared a banana split.  Heavenly.  After eating, we shopped and I dropped 111,000 manat on baking supplies: butter, powdered sugar, corn starch, whipped topping mix, baking powder.  It was amazing.  It was a little slice of Western decadence right in Ashgabat and it was as comforting as a mother's love.  I'm sighing a little sigh of happiness now. 

 

 Arms laden with cooking supplies, I left Impash with the ladies and we headed to a salon to have our eyebrows done. Rather than wax, threading is the common method of hair removal here.  Basically, the lady twists a piece of thread together, holds on end in her mouth and the other in her hand, and runs the twist along the hair.  Somehow it gets pulled out.  I'm not exactly sure how it works because my eyes were closed and I was trying hard not to flinch the whole time, but she did a good job.  For 30,000 manat ( a little over $2 ) I am a new woman.  Or, at least one with shaped eyebrows.

 

From the salon, it was off to Peace Corps.  Briefly checked mail, ate tons of food as I mentioned, and then with happy hearts we headed home.  On the way back, I stopped at a bazaar to buy 4 kilos of apples for my apple pies. 

 

THE APPLE PIE

Can't get much more American than that, right?  So, we're discussing pie last week at home and I am telling my host sister about the different pies I can make.  She was particularly intrigued by apple pie so I told her that rather than go to the city, I would stay home on Sunday and teach her how to make it.  I bought all the requisite ingredients.  My friend's were trembling with the thought of eating fresh baked apple pie.  Mmm… I even have cinnamon!  And nutmeg! (also thanks to my dear father)  Amazing!

 

This will awkwardly tie together eventually:

 

Sunday rolls around and I need to do some laundry.  And by some I mean probably a load and a half/two loads worth in a washing machine.  But, I can't get into the banya to do my washing because it's occupied the whole morning.  So, resigned to waiting, I sit and begin to read an American newsweekly.  My host sister comes in and says we're leaving to her aunt's house.  It's nearly 11:00 and I'm moderately upset because I want to do my laundry!  But I trudge along because that's what a good anthropologist would do.  Sit with a bunch of young girls around a plastic table cloth laid on the floor.  Admire the celing – exposed wood beams!  How log cabin quaint!  How familiar! Eat fried bread.  And more fried bread.  And tons of pickled veggies.  Every time I try to stop eating, someone sees and says, "Jess, eat! Eat!"  Damn those Turkmen and their incessant hospitality.  I'm gaining weight here!  Argh!  Anyhow:  then lunch comes out.  Steaming, hot bowls of… goat soup!  My favorite!  Luckily, my host sister explains that I don't eat goat and I'm spared the discomfort of having to sip at the goaty broth.  And really, the "soup" was goat broth and goat.  Not just meat, but tongue, cheek, gross, squishy white chunks of either fat or brain (or both).  So I gorged on pickled veggies and it was good.  Don't get enough veggies anyhow.  And I'm satisfied that this family, with whom I will be living only another 3 days, understands that I do not like goat. 

 

We head home and I do my barge load of laundry.  I can definitely forsee developing carpal tunnel because after 2 hours of washing and wringing, I was in pain.  I need a wrist brace for that kind of manual labor.  Laundry hung, it's time for pie.

 

As a baker, I am very attached to my measuring cups.  Cooking without measuring scares me.  Out of necessity, I cooked for myself all last winter, and I must say, I made great strides in "winging it".  Nonetheless, for this pie I had to measure three cups of flour with a tea cup and it made me slightly anxious.  But then I thought that the home bakers of yesteryear probably did without measuring, so maybe I could to.  My host sister and I each made a pie.  It was hard to describe to her how exactly to make pie crust – she's used to making dough for bread and at one point, started kneading her dough!  Big no-no in pie crust making!  She ended up not using enough liquid but whatever.  It worked. My crust turned out beautifully much to my surpise – no measuring and no food processer.   My dad would be proud: he cuts his butter into the dough with his hands and now I can to.  I'm quite pleased, actually. 

 

Things are going swimmingly.  The random fly is buzzing around, landing on my arm, my face, my head,  as wantonly as though I were a dead puppy [there is, by the by, a dead puppy in the no man's land outside our town, decaying in a trash heap.  Sad.]  Then one landed on the dough and Towus (my host sister) tried to brush it away.  The fly wasn't going for it.  So she PICKED IT UP and tossed it aside.  Seriously.  These flies are freakin' domesticated. Nothing scares them and I so loathe them and their audacity.

Next comes peeling and slicing 4 kilos of apples.  No sweat, except my hands turned orange.  But the apples smell and taste so wonderfully delicious that looking like an oopma loompa is totally worth it.  Roll out the dough -- little difficulty with her dough here but no biggie --  and we're in business.  Assembling the pies – rolled the dough too thin and the bottom layer's leaking all the juice and the perfectionist in me is screaming bloody murder – but then I think, "hey, I'm in Turkmenistan, who says I have to make a perfect apple pie every time?  It'll still taste the same."  Feeling good about not being overwhelmed by my temporary baking shortcomings and sit back as Towus puts the pies in their brick oven.

 

Not even 2 minutes later she calls my name and both pies are out of the oven, top crust layers scorched.  Huh. Apparently there were flames.  I didn't think to check the temperature on the brick oven.  Which is total sarcasm because there is no temperature to check!  It must have been mighty hot to burn the crust so quickly.  I entertained thoughts of Hansel and Gretel and Sweeny Todd.  So she turns the gas waaaay down and we put the pies back in.  I try to explain that they need to cook for a long time, but she stood there anyway, waiting for them to cook.  And took them out nearly every 5 minutes for me to check.   I stood with her, enjoying the heat radiating from the bricks, listening to the juice in the pies bubble.  That oven would be an amazing marshmallow roaster.    So, lah-dih-dah the pies are done and I slice one up into 9 pieces for everyone to try.  One plate for me, 8 pieces in the pan for everyone else to eat out of.

 

Now, I could have only made one pie, but silly me assumed that it would be a big hit and two would be best.  Besides, that way Towus would learn by doing!  Alas, as I devour my piece of pie, I am met with sheepish grins and giggles and spoons being lowered to the plastic tablecloth.  They don't like spice it turns out.  The cinnamon was too much. But frankly I bet the results would have been the same sans cinnamon.  My host mother said, "Turkmen don't like spices.  We use salt and pepper and that's all."  Which is true and highly unfortunate for them, IMO.   And rather remarkable, considering the close proximity of such spicy empires as, say, India.  She also said, "We only eat Turkmen food."  My heart breaks for them. 

 

So they don't like my pie which is fine.  My feelings aren't hurt.  It's a damn tasty pie.  My host mother made me eat two pieces (yes, she made me.  You seriously do not understand how important it is for you to have food in your mouth at all times here.  She wanted me to eat three pieces but I put my foot down there. )  But them not liking my pie is good because now they understand me not liking goat (I told you there was a tie-in!)  This makes it easier for me to refuse gross food for the next 3 days.  Then I'll have to make another apple pie for the next family to turn their noses up.  The only problem was that I had a pie and a half left.  My fellow Americans happily ate our homemade slices of America  yesterday and today.  And burnt though it was, my crust was flaky and delicious.

  

I learned my lesson: when cooking tasty American food for Turkmen, underestimate the amount of food needed. 

 

I wrote a rousing journal entry on (the lack of) diversity in Turkmenistan and its cultural implications but I'll leave that for another time when I'm not waxing poetic about apple pie for 2 pages.  It just occurred to me that very shortly I will be without internet for an indefinite amount of time (as of Dec. 7 – the big move!)  So, keep that in mind. I'll be in Ashgabat until Saturday so I'll try to get in another email before then. 

 

I still fit into my skinny jeans,
Jess