The Great Pumpkin Search
My fall kicked off this year, quite appropriately, with a great pumpkin search. Well, to be more specific: a great canned pumpkin search.
The second I felt the seasons start to change in early October, I had a hankering to make pumpkin bread. Which honestly, is a bit odd for me. This impulse to bake things. Especially pumpkin-flavored things. I used to bake all the time when I was younger, but the habit completely disappeared at some point during my early twenties. However, thanks to coronavirus and quarantine, baking came roaring back into my life mid-April (right around the sourdough starter/ Tiger King phase of lockdown - remember those days?). So, these days, I bake.
And this season in particular, once the leaves started to turn golden, with that unmistakable crisp in the air, I had the unshakeable desire to make one thing: pumpkin bread. My mind was set. It had to be done.
Which meant that I needed some canned pumpkin puree. The key ingredient. And specifically, I needed the classic Libby’s canned pumpkin, complete with its old-school, hasn’t-been-changed-since-the-1950s branding and just a **touch** of homey nostalgia. If you know, you know. It’s an American fall staple.
However, a preliminary search at Migros (one of the two main grocery stores chains in Switzerland) left me empty handed. I quickly realized that acquiring Libby’s canned pumpkin, or any canned pumpkin for that matter, in Zurich could be more difficult than I initially anticipated. So, I took the 21st century approach and put out a plea on Instagram, the ultimate crowd-source: Is this quest for canned pumpkin a futile one, or will my persistence ultimately be rewarded? And lo and behold, I got quite a number of responses. Apparently, my search for this elusive item was not a unique one.
Many told me if I was willing to shell out six (six!) dollars for a canned gourd, Globus and Jelmoli (the fancy department stores with even fancier gourmet food shops) sometimes stock Libby’s. Orell Füssli (a bookstore chain), I learned, has an entire section - somewhat oddly - of “American treats:” Duncan Hines cake mix, Reese’s Pieces, Annie’s mac n cheese, and seasonally: Libby’s Pumpkin! I was also introduced to American Food Avenue, the self-proclaimed “Swiss Store for American Food” online shop, which is so overwhelmed with traffic that it often has to temporarily shut itself down. And lots of people responded that I could easily find jarred, but not canned, puree in Coop (the other main Swiss grocery store chain). Which was fine...but not exactly what I was looking for. Pureed pumpkin in a jar felt a bit too similar to baby food and/or applesauce for my liking, but it had some potential. And yes, quite a few followers responded to me quizzically, wondering why I didn’t just make the pureed pumpkin myself. Honestly, the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. I saved it as a nuclear option.
**As a reminder, for all intents and purposes, there is no Amazon here in Switzerland. So, just ordering it on Prime for next-day delivery isn’t an option, either.**
Encouraged by the positive responses and armed with information, I confidently hit the streets.
The jarred pumpkin at Coop was, as promised, easy enough to find. It was probably also at Migros this whole time, but because I was instinctively looking for a can, not a jar, it’s entirely possible that I just overlooked it. It’s funny how if we are tied to a particular image of something in our head, we can completely miss what's right in front of our eyes.
As for Globus, Jelmoli, Orell Füssli, and American Food Avenue? All out of stock. I was too late.
So I went home, somewhat deflated, with my two jars of bright yellow kurbispuree from Coop. As if to drive the point home that it was not the same, the jars had pictures of a butternut squash on the label. Yes, I know, squash and pumpkin are all in the same vegetable family - but it just felt a bit like an insult to injury. Butternut squash bread just didn’t have the same ring to it. I might have got what I needed, but not what I wanted.
It was a weird, oddly specific, journey for me to be on. Like I said, I’m not much of a baker anymore, 2020 notwithstanding. I hardly ever made homemade pumpkin bread back home, even in the height of my baking prime. Moreover, this was my first real “ex-pat search.” What's an "ex-pat search?" you may ask. It's that laser-focused quest an ex-pat will embark on for a very particular, entirely typical, nothing special, American (in my case) item. Which truthfully, I tend to avoid doing when living abroad. I’m normally not one to try to recreate things exactly as they were at home. I do everything I can to circumvent that all-too-familiar expat frustration. You know the feelings. When the annoyance, the discouragement, the strangeness of it all just overflows. When, for god’s sake, you just want to be able to go into a store and buy this ONE thing, this one easy normal thing, and why can’t things just be like they are back home, and why does everything have to be so HARD here?!
Ugh, those feelings.
I hate when those feelings creep in. And yet, here I was, searching, with increasing desperation, among the shelves and aisles for a single can of Libby’s pumpkin puree.
But of course, it was about more than the can of Libby’s pumpkin puree.
It’s because I miss home. And I’ve found that being homesick in 2020 hits differently.
I haven’t lived near my childhood home for over a decade, so even though I miss my family all the time, I’ve accepted the fact that I’m only able to see them once or twice a year. It's the life that I’ve chosen. It’s my normal. But of course, we all know that this year is not normal. It’s different, and will continue to be different. And the truth is, even though I’ve already optimistically booked a flight for Christmas, I’m not entirely sure if I’ll be able to go. We can’t be sure of anything, and while this has been an excellent exercise in the art of understanding the things we can control and the things we can’t, and an excellent reminder to not take anything for granted - it’s been tough. The amount of collective loss and consequence that we, as a society, have experienced is frankly overwhelming. Being far away during such a time of instability is difficult. And it’s emotionally exhausting, especially when I feel split in two, with my physical body here in Zurich but my consciousness quite literally a thousand miles away.
But mainly, I think the one thing we all seem to understand - wherever we are in the world - is what it means to miss people, and the way that things used to be.
And so I found myself wanting this thing. This one thing, a tangible if not slightly irrational thing, that made me feel connected to home.
Which, I’ll admit, is a lot of emotion to attach to a blended vegetable in a can.
But sometimes, little things can take on a larger-than-life meaning. And finding that can of Libby’s was more than just about finding an ingredient. It was about nostalgia. The beginning of the holiday season. That cozy, warm, home feeling.
And now, more than ever, I understand why we do this. Why we crave to find the things that have the power to transport us home. Things that represent certain times in our lives, or certain people, or just one certain memory or even an emotion. Why we search so hard to try to find these things in places where they might not even exist. And if they don’t exist, why we try to replicate them as best we can. It’s home.
Yes, my search was about finding a can of pumpkin, but it was also just a raw, deep, sense of homesickness. And well, acknowledging that made me feel a little less crazy about running around town looking for Libby’s.
And it also was an exercise in reminding myself what I love about this new home. Why Raunaq and I are here in the first place. And to be honest, this not too hard to do during autumn in Switzerland. My quest for canned pumpkin took me all over the city. Which means I was taken on a grand tour of Zurich during arguably its most beautiful season. Autumn this year has been deliciously drawn-out, and the constant trips to the various grocery store gave me opportunities to revisit the bright amber trees on the plaza at Lindenhof Hill, and catch the fire-orange trees along the terrace at ETH right at their peak. On my last walk home from Coop, jars of butternut squash in my arms, I was treated to the kaleidoscope of colorful trees along the Sihl river.
And well, if I can’t be home, than I am incredibly grateful that I can be home here.
And you know what? The pumpkin bread, even with Swiss jarred butternut squash, turned out pretty good. It smelled exactly as I remembered. And now, I get to have a new pumpkin-related memory that in a way, blends my two homes together. So I guess my search wasn’t that futile after all.
