What makes Thanksgiving special on the Kenai Peninsula? KBBI asked three residents what makes the holiday meaningful to them.
Jeremy Hawk said he’ll take an Alaskan thanksgiving dinner over a traditional one anytime. He still thinks about the Thanksgiving he had around seven years ago when he helped cook moose meat.
“You bake it for like two hours, then you glaze it with cranberry glaze and then you can bake it for a little while longer to give the glaze a little bit of an edge,” he said.
He said he helped make the moose at a church gathering. But the moose wasn’t even the best dish. The best he said was the Russian Salmon Pie.
He said the pie had homemade crust, King Salmon, rice, cheese, and cabbage, among other ingredients.
“It was such a good pie,” he said. “I'd rather have that than mom's homemade apple pie from Arkansas where I used to live. Don't tell her I said that though!”
While Hawk sees the holiday as a way to honor Alaska traditions, Masha Yakunin said Thanksgiving goes beyond celebrating an American identity. Yakunin lives in Nikolaevsk and is a Russian Old Believer.
“It is an American identity I guess, but we also incorporate our own Orthodox identity," she said.
Her family says an Eastern Orthodox prayer for thanks, which helps infuse this seemingly American holiday with her religious values.
“It doesn't mean anything with the Indians or the first turkey thanksgiving,” she said. “It doesn't mean that to us, it just, a time to get together and be a family and thank the Lord and just enjoy each other's company. Enjoy good food.”
She said the feast comes right before the big fast where Old Believers can’t eat any dairy or meat for six weeks. Thanksgiving dinner is one of the last chances to fill up on rich foods.
“I mean there's so much food: mashed potatoes and potato salad…” she said. “We love to make Italian dishes too, so we have all kinds of international cuisine when we get together because of our families, they've lived all over the world, so picked up all kinds of traditions.”
Yakunin was born in Brazil and lived in New York and Oregon. She said her family didn’t used to celebrate Thanksgiving because they were new and kept to the old traditions. She started celebrating after she married and had her own family.
“I think it was just very informal at first because we were young families,” she said. “Just very simple.”
Her family is bigger now. She has eight children and nineteen grandchildren. Most of her family will be celebrating together this year, and she said the holiday has changed.
“The younger generation, they know more about the culture and the early Thanksgiving so they're more into it.”
She’ll start cooking today, and her plans are all in place for tomorrow.
But the plan is much more up in the air for Berton Kvasnikoff. He lives outside of Nanwalek and he hopes a nearby river is low enough to cross so he can make it to his mother’s house in town for the big feast.
“There's a lot of native foods people hand out and share,” he said. “They go around, say try this. I just added something new, just always happy to share their dishes.”
He said subsistence hunting and fishing has become harder over the years, which makes the traditional practice of sharing food even sweeter.
This Thanksgiving, when it comes to food he said he’s most excited for the turkey. But he’s also looking forward to what he calls “Eskimo Ice Cream.”
It’s mashed potatoes with a little bit of lard and fermented fish eggs.
“It’s hard to describe the taste,” he said. “If you happen to pop a fermented egg in your mouth, it's a little bit salty and kind of on the really wild side. Some people are known to gag, but if you can develop a taste, it's really good.”
When I spoke to Kvasnikoff Monday, he wasn’t sure if he was able to make it to town. But he said if the river is too high, both him and his partner will turn on the radio and make the best of it.
“I just kind of act goofy and try not to be so down and help around the kitchen and whatnot,” he said.
He said if it makes it to his mother’s house, that’s what he be thankful for as he sits down at the dinner table.
