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Illustration by Drew Shannon
I have never really understood the whole tradition of Thanksgiving. My parents were immigrants so their ideas of foods for festive occasions were more along the lines of nasi goreng (a fried rice dish) with sate babi (pork satay) or, on my mother’s side, a classic roast beef with boiled potatoes and canned green beans. The process of roasting a turkey, preparing the stuffing and including all the trimmings was just one more thing about living in Canada that my family just couldn’t warm to. I was curious though. When that holiday rolled around every year, I felt like I was on the outside looking in – as if I was standing on my neighbours’ front lawn watching it all unfold inside.
When I grew up and moved across the country to attend university in Montreal, one of the first things I wanted to do was have a large Thanksgiving party. The first year, our 20 guests included single friends and lonely West Coast expats who would be alone for the holiday. A special playlist for the occasion was in order – lively tempo for the pre-dinner cocktails, transitioning into light and soothing for the first courses and then picking up the beats once dessert rolled around.
To satisfy another project that I had in mind, I had asked my friend coming for dinner from Toronto to bring me something: ‘Hey, could you pick up a pound of worms and bring them up with you?” At that point in my life, I was living in a third-floor walk-up apartment with little access to the natural world. I was determined to mitigate some of the organic garbage generated in the house with a worm compost. Before starting, I devoured literature on worms and their care (officially known as vermiculture). Sunday reading sessions were interrupted with notables such as: “Did you know that worms have tastebuds all over their bodies?!” or, “Earthworms have five hearts that pump blood through their bodies!” and, “Did you know that Charles Darwin found them so interesting that he spent 40 years studying them?”
Following my considerable vermiculture research, I purchased the recommended-sized container. I found some soil but then learned that it had to be sterilized. Not owning a microwave, I dragged a garbage bag full of dirt to work. My coworkers were wise enough not to question why I was microwaving bowl after bowl of soil but politely refused my offer to make tea afterward. Sterilization completed, I layered the soil with potato peelings, newspaper and leaves from the linden tree outside our St. Urbain Street apartment. Then I lovingly placed the container in the front closet knowing that the worms would like a dark, private space to munch away.
On the day of the much-awaited Thanksgiving dinner, my friends and I solved the number of dinner placements by simply taking a door off its hinges and placing it on milk crates. Once covered and be-candled, with cushions strewn all around, the humble door transformed into a grand setting. Any latecomers knew that they’d be suitably chastised by being seated at the doorknob or closest to the fridge to fetch beverages.
The guests started arriving around noon and offered to help. The place was soon thick with eager cooks chopping, stirring, basting, cutting, mashing, tossing, stuffing and cork popping. As I was in the middle of thickening a large vat of gravy, my Toronto friend showed up with the pound of worms in a container roughly the size of a Ritz Cracker box. We all stopped to have a look. What a solid, tightly packed, glutinous mass they were! The reaction was mixed, ranging from fascination to revulsion. I slit the package open and gently placed the worms in their dark, cozy new home.
Despite the low-level chaos, dinner was everything I’d hoped it would be. The wine and the playlists were working their magic. Everyone was asking for seconds. At one point my friend’s daughter got up to use the washroom. In the hallway, she let out a stifled gasp and came running back in. “Mags!” she shrieked, “It’s the worms! They’re everywhere!”
Shock registered on everyone’s faces at the same time. The elegant door/table was nearly overturned in our frenzied rush to see what had happened.
We flicked on the closet light to find worms crawling up the walls, into our shoes, our coats, under the door. There were even some brave ones heading down the hall to the front door. I rolled my eyes to heaven and went back to the dining room for a huge gulp of wine.
Luckily my eclectic guest list included animal lovers and many guests pitched in to retrieve the worms and clamp the lid firmly shut for the night.
I learned many things that evening about worm appetites and habitat preferences (no more linden leaves, apparently). All those tastebuds must make them pretty picky eaters.
I also learned that in times of need, people are a lot more willing to rise to the occasion and help out their fellow humans and other life forms.
For my next Thanksgiving dinner, I might just stick to something familiar. Canned green beans and sate babi anyone?
Maggie Wouterloot lives in Nanaimo, B.C.