Reinventing Thanksgiving

If I am having the Thanksgiving meal at home with my parents, we absolutely must have turkey. My mom has tried to change this a couple of times over the years, and I am adamant because the stuffing is my absolutely favorite thing, and it's just not the same in a duck, or cornish game hen, or chicken...or anything! I want my mom's turkey and perfect stuffing at least once a year, and kinda like keeping it at Thanksgiving - call me traditional... In terms of side dishes, I am wide open to mixing it up with new variations on favorite dishes or brand new menu offerings.

Also, the Christmas meal I completely am fine with changing... Lamb this year? Great! Trout or salmon? Yay, healthy! Ham? I love it! Crab? It's in season!

I will keep my sweet potatos w/ marshmellows and crandberry mold thank you very much. And the five flavors of pies. And the stuffing. Oh, the stuffing. But I may reinvent other aspects of Thanksgiving.....bumper to bumper traffic on I95, high school football games with cheerleaders who no longer have pompoms, nor do they chear, but rather dance to Beyonce. Aren't they awfully young to put a ring on it? Maybe we could move the food to another day, a more international holiday, with global appeal and recongnition...say to the Melbourne Cup day...when is that again? With the food taken over, we could reinvent the 4 1/2 day holiday break into Thankstraveling, extending it to a full week....give up traffic, family, football, and Beyonce cracking over load speakers. We could take to the boats, just like the Pilgrims and we could travel by boat...maybe even a cruise ship....ahh, they have lots of great food on cruise ships.....I hear that late November is the true shoulder's shoulder season.

I've had Thanksgiving dinner in some interesting places. One year, it was on a trek in the Simein mountains of Ethiopia The camp crew had no idea of Thanksgiving. We had lentil stew.

I'm going to repeat a previous post on other countries.

I did an organized trip to Patagonia. After a trek in Torres del Paine, we crossed the border for a two-day stay in a real hotel in El Calafate, Argentina. This day was listed as "meals on your own," but since it was also American Thanksgiving Day, we decided to eat together at a relatively classy place recommended by the guide. I had brought with me a stash of silly Thanksgiving decorations--napkins with turkeys on them and a bunch of those silly expand-o honeycomb paper turkeys. They guide helped me smuggle them into the restaurant. The guide explained the American Dia de los Gracias to the proprietor who loved the decorations. The rest of my group got a kick out of them as well. Our Thanksgiving dinner was a ton of that wonderful Argentine lamb, cooked over a fire in the front of the restaurant. The owner politely begged for one of the expand-o turkeys, because he was so enchanted by them.

Another time I was in Vietnam for Thanksgiving and did the same thing. The restaurant staff ad never seen a turkey and were inspired by the decorations. They cooked a whole chicken, head and all. It was brought to our table, in a sort of seated position, with the head propped up. Pieces of tomato were toothpicked to the head to simulate wattles. A feather fan was attached to the rear to be the turkey tail. The staff was so proud and we were the ones who were enchanted.

I'm only having four people this year, of whom one is vegetarian, so turkey is out. I'm going to roast a duck, and the menu will only make sporadic nods to Thanksgiving. Guests have been warned.

Hmm..I tend to be a traditionalist, but if someone wanted to do chicken instead of turkey and I wasn't cooking, I would say...mmm...chicken is great!

Just think if turkey had been made the national bird we might eat Bald Eagle for Thanksgiving.

A couple years ago when we were in Rome at Thanksgiving I made an absolute point not to have turkey.

Stan

It turns out one of my guests has decided to become host to my proposed table and some others, so that duck will live (but the turkey population will be down one).

Whether or not it's OK for Thanksgiving, I would say that you don't see roast chicken often enough these days.

My girlfriend in Peru wants to stuff a guinea pig with cranberry sauce.

Whether or not it's OK for Thanksgiving, I would say that you don't see roast chicken often enough these days.

Every so often, when I want to astonish people, I invite them for dinner an serve roast chicken. I get all sorts of happy comments about "I haven't had this in ages."

Did any of you Merkins see the spread in Parade magazine about re-creating the first Thanksgiving? Be a Pilgrim for a day. The author had turkey, venison, lobster and eel, as well as "grits, turnips and a boiled salad (yes, boiled) of spinach and currants."

That's A.J. Jacobs, who's written books about reading the Encyclopedia Brittanica and living according to Biblical precepts for a year. I wonder about that "boiled salad". I see that Gulliver mentions "wholesome herbs, which I boiled and eat as salads with my bread" bu that's a hundred years later. And even then and in 1621, as now, salads were usually thought of as raw.

Spinach and currants do go well together though. Add anchovies and pine nuts too.