That is Not a Pumpkin

It is November, and no matter where in the world they are, Americans manage to celebrate Thanksgiving. The embassy commissary in the most far-flung outposts will be stocked with frozen turkeys, standard issue. But the side dishes can get a little bit creative, allowing for local tastes and ingredients. One iconic dessert, however, has become a bit of an obsession of mine: pumpkin pie. This is a dish with a fair amount of flexibility, since it can be made with virtually any squash or gourd-like vegetable. In my ignorance, I thought a pumpkin surrogate would exist somewhere in the vast array of fruits and vegetables for sale here in Brazzaville. I may have been wrong about that.

Armed with the French word for pumpkin, “potiron,” and also the backup “courge” or squash, and the good will of a number of folks I have met at INCEF’s offices, I set out to find a pumpkin. My first destination was an open-air vegetable market in the downtown area, which several different people had recommended to me. Inquiries about a pumpkin led to several other suggestions: no, I did not want an eggplant. Or a zucchini. Or a papaya. Finally, a round, green candidate was presented: was this it? I inquired about the color inside. Yes, is was orange-ish. They didn’t have a cut open example, so I took the seller’s word, and triumphantly carried home my “pumpkin.”

By then, it had reached the point in the heat of the day where the thought of turning on the oven to bake a pumpkin just made me want to weep, so I put the gourd aside until the evening brought slightly cooler temperatures. Once it was dark, I found a cleaver, and cut into the pumpkin. The sound of the first cut was the first clue: that was not a pumpkin. I had purchased a lovely, round, watermelon. I will be headed back to the market tomorrow, keeping in mind the fact that sometimes the desire to please the questioner can distort your findings, as can the desire to find what you are looking for.