Thanksgiving!

November 27, 2010

(November 25 – Thanksgiving 2010)

I’ve not been in such a “giving thanks” mood in quite a few Thanksgivings. I’ll attribute this feeling to the opportunity to travel and living in a different culture. I think you appreciate your holidays and customs more when you are of a tiny minority that celebrates where you live. This feeling of being thankful might also come from the numerous retellings of the Thanksgiving story to the kids at school. Whatever the case, this was a Thanksgiving full of thankfulness.

Now, as you might have gathered, Spain does not celebrate Thanksgiving. In fact, if you didn’t know (in which you should review the Thanksgiving history), it is solely an American holiday. Well, Canada actually does celebrate a type of Thanksgiving but it takes place in October. Nonetheless, the holiday is American. The pilgrims came to America. Had their hardships in America. American Presidents declared it an American holiday. You get the point. With that said, I also want to make it clear that much of the food we enjoy on Thanksgiving is not readily available at the super markets here in Spain. In fact, it is quite difficult to find much of the food we traditionally eat on Thanksgiving. Given that, we had a heck of a time putting together a Thanksgiving meal in Spain. But isn’t that what made the first Thanksgiving so great? I think so.

We ended up having a fantastic Thanksgiving that we won’t forget for a long time. The first challenge of our Turkey Day was well, finding a turkey. Fortunately, our friend, Ian (we met him the last time we were in Spain at school, he is back living here in Madrid now too), knew a guy that said he could get us a turkey. This seemed questionable to me when Ian described the situation to me on the phone. He “knew a guy” that could find us a turkey. Like I said, turkeys are not common to Spain but I went with it. As we made more plans for the day, we agreed that Caitlin and I would bring things that didn’t require an oven (we don’t have an oven). We made some delicious applesauce, a salad with apples, pomegranate, cranberries, sweet onion, brie and blue cheese, walnuts, a homemade vinaigrette (which we forgot at home), a cheesecake (not homemade unfortunately), and some fantastic cheese and crackers for an appetizer. We knew our portion was going to be fantastic but still were questioning the turkey and mashed potatoes that Ian and his roommates were making. So Thanksgiving Day arrives and I call Ian on my way home from school and find out there have been a few complications. Complication #1: In the “new” apartment Ian moved into which had an oven was actually a super old, rundown apartment which had an oven that might work. He informed me that while he was working on cleaning out the oven that morning one of the panes of glass in the oven fell out and shattered. So the already questionable oven became that much more questionable. At this point I wasn’t entirely sure if we were going to have turkey. Neither was Ian. Complication #2: The turkey was very fresh (this isn’t the complication but is rather just entertaining), so fresh that Ian was pretty sure that the guy he knew had killed the turkey that morning. The turkey still had quite a few feathers left on it. Not a big deal, just a little extra work plucking off the feathers before putting it in the oven to cook. Oh yes, putting it in the oven to cook. That leads to the complication. This bird was huge. Or perhaps the oven was very small. Maybe both. Either way, there was going to be some serious finagling to get that bird in that mostly broken oven.

So this was our situation at 3pm and we were planning on eating around 9:30pm. I was apprehensive and optimistic. Ian is the type of guy that will get things figured out in the face of adversity. So when he called us about 9 after he finished with work and told us to head over we were confident that we would have turkey on Thanksgiving. So at that point Caitlin and I packed up our grocery carrito (small cart) with our food and headed to the metro. When we arrived and met Ian at the stop, he led us up to his older apartment and introduced us to his roommates. He lived with a girl from Korea, whose good friend from Korea was visiting, a guy from southern England, and a guy from Germany. The guy from Germany was on vacation so the dinner party included the others I mentioned, Ian, Caitlin and me. What an interesting mix. The girls from Korea spoke Spanish, but with a Korean accent making it difficult to understand at times. They were very pleasant and really funny. The guy from England didn’t speak any Spanish and was in Spain trying to learn. Watching him and the girls from Korea communicate was hilarious. I asked Ian if he would help out and translate back and forth so they could communicate better or just to clarify big confusions. Ian said, “no, I really just like to watch.” I could see why. It was hilarious watching them find ways to talk to each other. Between James’ (from UK) limited Spanish and Ju’s (Korea) limited English and good personalities on both sides, it made for an entertaining ordeal.

Once we had introductions and got to begin knowing each other a bit better, we began preparing the rest of the food while laughing about our dire, feathery turkey situation. After we had everything set out on small tables in the Spanish Civil War era living room, we realized that our dinner was not dire at all, but on the contrary, incredibly delicious! The turkey turned out well, a bit dry but along with our apple sauce it was delicious. Everything was good. We enjoyed the food. We enjoyed the company and had probably the best cross-cultural Thanksgiving dinners that has gone down in the books. I hope everyone back home had an equally enjoyable, delicious Thanksgiving meal.