> Since this is impossible in imperative languages, I can't give you a comparison.

I'll bite. Here's foldr() in JavaScript, written in an imperative style:

    function foldr(func, list) {
    	var r = [];
    	for(var index = list.length-1; index >= 0; index--) {
    		r = func(list[index], r);
    	}
    	return r;
    }

It isn't defined via pattern matching, but it's absolutely a higher-order function. Functional programming is a collection of ways of thinking about problem solving, and it can be applied to any language.