Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is upon us and with it a gathering of family and friends and usually a table laden with food the variety of which can be astounding to new comers. The main guest to dinner was a 22 lb. turkey, done with strips of bacon on top and bread stuffing with mushrooms and nuts. A large ham roll provided that diversity from fowl. An accompaniment of oven roasted potatoes, broccoli and corn in a cream sauce, parsnip puffs (a casserole), boiled baby beets in sauce, and a lime and pineapple moulded salad. Dessert was pumpkin pie topped with whipped cream accompanied by tea and coffee. That table very nicely stuffed 15 people.
 
I can't remember a thanksgiving in Finland although they no doubt have some festivities for when the crops are in. The major feast at the end of summer was "Rapu Juhla" or crayfish festivities, when pots of crayfish (mini-lobsters) were consumed all over the country with copious amounts of alcohol. Turkey is a new-world food that we, as new immigrants, embraced enthusiastically. Maybe that's why Finland doesn't have a formal Thanksgiving. How much can you do with rutabaga and herring?
 
Finland of course is not a third world country and does not have famines. What we see in the news of the hunger in Ethiopia and Somalia can be a fact of life in a majority of our world at some time or other. Agrarian countries are so dependent on the weather that a small shift in the weather patterns could spell crop failure and famine. One of the signs of global warming is a shift in the regular rain belt and an increase in drying winds. Where crops may have failed once in a decade could see failures once in five years. It would be very difficult to accumulate surpluses in such a situation.
 
So the question really is, how can we in the countries of exceptional surplus share with the countries of grinding poverty and famine?  Our surplus of wheat already goes to international aid (often to countries whose staple is not wheat). We can, I suppose, stop using up more than our share of the world's resources. But isn't that a source of income for some of the countries in need? What is clear though, is that we need to figure a way to ease this inequality from the grassroots up because it will never happen from the top down. And more of the world could then give thanks.