Hey Pumpkin! I could eat you with a spoon.

Last Thursday, while my family feasted on Aunt Tina’s ambrosial pies and fresh beans from Aunt Sue’s garden, I was telling the Thanksgiving story ad naseum to a bunch of kids whose response to pumpkin pie was, “That sounds disgusting.”

Paging Aunt Tina, you’re needed in France.

I explained that we eat pumpkins and sweet potatoes because they are delicious autumn vegetables, and who doesn’t love celebrating autumn with orange vegetables? I told them the abridged version of the Pilgrim-Native American relationship and one unknowing student hit the mark when she concluded, "And that's why the Pilgrims ate the Native Americans."

The ohhhh’s were unanimous when I pointed out the “thanks” and the “giving” in Thanksgiving. “I thought it was sanksgiving,” said one. No, little lady, that’s just your accent.

The pumpkin pie and sweet potato antagonism had me thinking more than usual about the French notion of food. The French are not all snobs, but when it comes to food… let’s just say, they know they’ve got it going on in the kitchen.

When I told someone I love making couscous, she asked me if I make real couscous. I replied that I don’t know quite what real couscous is, but I make mine using the vegetables in the fridge, the spices in the pantry, and the couscous in the pretty box. It tastes real – and real good – to me.

I suppose the attitude stems from tradition. The French take immense pride in traditional dishes, and a strong food culture penetrates every region. But there’s something distinct about the way people here view food and decide what constitutes Good Food. With my mouth full of Thanksgiving quiche oozing butternut squash and Gouda cheese, I realized the wide-reaching legacy of ol’ grandaddy René Descartes.

In a Cartesian Plane, divisions are distinct and utterly black and white. A point lies in one of four quadrants and its placement is indisputable. The French mindset concerning food is strikingly Cartesian: a quiche means a Quiche Lorraine and is made with gruyere cheese, little bacon cubes, and eggs. Anything else is not a quiche. Sure, you can make a quiche au something else, but it needs that specification and goes straight into the “other” quadrant.

The lines are blurring as fast food leaves its greasy fingerprints in France. Not even the French can resist those golden arches, and it terrifies them. But that's a whole 'nother can of snails.

Because life, like quiche, is surprising and wonderful, an unfortunate event led me to some dynamic and curious French students in Lyon, who've become mes amis. They were thrilled at the prospect of taking part in a real Thanksgiving celebration. And so two days after my family feasted in St. Louis, a kitchen in Lyon smelled of sweet potato casserole, prune-leek-sausage stuffing, the aforementioned butternut squash quiche, a succulent pumpkin pie, and roasted butternut squash seeds.

Our pumpkin pie, made in a tarte pan, was a pleasing visual blend of French and American desserts: larger in circumference than an American pie and with a thin bottom crust and no crust on top, it was a pumpkin pie with tarte aux pommes (apple tart) feathers.

This Thanksgiving, I am grateful for old friends and new friends, old foods and new foods, and for my family who loves me and feeds me sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie.