International students enjoy feast at MCI

PITTSFIELD – This is Chef Ed Porter’s special Thanksgiving dinner recipe: 100 pounds of turkey, 40 pounds of mashed potatoes, 10 pounds of squash, five pounds each of corn and peas, six cans of cranberry sauce, 76 yeast rolls, 56 buttermilk biscuits, a dozen snacks, dips and appetizers, followed by a gallon of whipped cream and 15 pies. Just for good measure, sprinkle it all with snow.

“But the most important ingredient is the people,” Porter said Thursday afternoon, while putting the finishing touches on dinner at the Maine Central Institute kitchen.

So add in 30 international students from a dozen different countries, two deans, three dormitory parents and a half dozen of their children, and you have one heck of a celebration.

It may not be a holiday that the high school students from Taiwan, Korea, France or Hong Kong recognized, but they knew it in their hearts Thursday.

“This made me feel special,” Vincent Hu, 16, of Taiwan said after dinner. “It reminded me of New Year’s in Taiwan. I would have a big dinner and then play games with my cousins.”

Tom Bertrand, dean of residential life, decided to make Thanksgiving special for those dormitory students at MCI that could not go home or make other arrangements for the long holiday vacation. There are more than 100 boarding students at the school in grades 9-12 and when it closes down, those unable to go home stay in motels or with host families they do not know.

“Thanksgiving is an American holiday and when we celebrate, we sometimes feel they get left out,” said Tom Bertrand. “That’s not at all what this holiday is about.” So he set about making the students feel welcomed rather than “pushed out the door.”

Bertrand, with the help of his wife, Angela, and brother, David, filled one end of the school’s cafeteria with a big screen television surrounded by couches and stuffed chairs, added a second television for playing video games and then offered cards and games.

It was just like anybody else’s Thanksgiving. “Nana” Bertrand cuddled her grandson Adam on the couch while watching a Christmas movie. The scent of turkey and stuffing drifted from the kitchen. Outside the window, snow swirled steadily and some of the students – one in flip-flops – decided to make a snowman, their first.

“I’m not used to the snow,” said Jeff Smith, 19, of Chattanooga, Tenn. Smith said he wasn’t homesick – as a basketball player on MCI’s postgraduate team, he said he was used to attending sports camps. But eating in the cafeteria, no matter how homey it tried to be, wasn’t like Thanksgiving at home.

“I have a lot of family, and we would go house to house, visiting family and friends, stopping and eating at each one,” he said.

When the movie ended, Tom Bertrand – who also coaches the MCI Huskies football team – turned on a football game and announced, “Now it’s Thanksgiving.” He explained to the students that football was a Thanksgiving tradition and then added that “eating too much is another tradition, so fill yourselves up.”

Most of the students heaped their plates with Porter’s bounty, but one item – cranberry sauce – got a few odd looks. “I didn’t eat it. It looked strange,” said Ricardo Lau We, 17, of Hong Kong.

Hu said most American food is too oily for him, “but I really like hamburgers best.”

Davis Wen, 16, of Taiwan, said the biggest difference between his country and Maine “is the weather. I think the snow looks beautiful, but it is really too cold.”

Fon Santanee Phruekpattama, 18, of Thailand said the American culture is much more open than hers. “School is also different,” she said. “It is much harder in Thailand.”

When the meal was over, the adults sat around awhile talking and then began cleaning up. Some of the students began playing games while the children grabbed plastic dining trays to slide down a small hill outside.

“This was very, very nice,” summed up Daniel Yang, 17, of Taiwan.