I should start this post off by saying that Thanksgiving is an American holiday, and it is not celebrated in Perú. That being said, as my coworker said on Tuesday, “Elisha, remember where you came from…” So of course, I made plans to celebrate Thanksgiving here. With a goal to share my culture, in a place where no one celebrates this holiday, with my Perúvian husband.
Being in Perú this time of year instead of back home in the US, sadly, means not celebrating the holidays with my family. However, family is who you make it. So me, my Perúvian, and a close friend had our own Thanksgiving.
Growing up, my family was untraditional. As a kid you feel a little weird, and wonder what all the fuss about turkey is…hey, I’m still wondering.
As an adult, in another country, it’s great – because there’s no one here to get mad at me for trying non-traditional recipes on such a big holiday! Basically, my Thanksgiving was entirely open to my own interpretation. Did I want to show the Perúvian’s some turkey, mashed potatoes and pie, or should we go buy fish, make pizza, chocolate cake and have lemonade?
Thanksgiving this year, in Perú, was all mine. No family drama welcome. Also we’re heading into summer here, so wearing fancy dinner clothes was not required, while shorts and tank tops were encouraged.
A major plus of being the only one celebrating Thanksgiving on a random Thursday, I went grocery shopping the morning of, got the freshest veggies, and never once waited in line. There wasn’t a crowd and it was amazing!
My favorite part from that morning was when we were at the market and my husband said, “Elisha, there are only three of us, we don’t need to get so much food for one meal.”
Rest assured that I informed him of the true meaning of Thanksgiving… leftovers.
Being married to someone from a different country, with different traditions and holidays is quite a special experience. For example, with his country not celebrating Thanksgiving, we didn’t have to fight between where to attend dinner at and how to go to all of our family’s different celebrations. It was quite peaceful, and solely our own. Perú also has different holidays that the USA doesn’t celebrate, such as Fiestas Patria, and we get to experience each other’s culture.
The differences between our holidays is special to me, because it’s almost like we have the freedom to celebrate both of our family’s traditions, without having to choose between which one to be present at or participate in. Granted, my family is back in the USA, so we can only participate to a partial extent for now.
One of the things my family has been doing to keep our relationships close, in spite of the distance, is Virtual Cooking Club.
Virtual Cooking Club is a thing my family started about a year ago, I’m sure I’ll go into greater depth on it one day. For now, a brief description is that every month my family and I choose a challenge to create something special and unique to cook. We all have to complete our dish before the end of the month, and share photos and recipes with the rest of the group.
This month we decided that we had to take a traditional Thanksgiving dish and make it in an untraditional way. Sorry to everyone out there who sticks to a strict belief that there can be no fun and new things on Thanksgiving day. Traditions, traditions. Technically, we had the whole month to make something, but half of us completed our assignment on Thanksgiving day.
With all that being said, what did we do for Thanksgiving?
I decided this year to introduce my Peruvian’s to the full spectrum of Thanksgiving dishes. Roast chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie included.
We made my mother’s cranberry sauce recipe, only fresh cranberries couldn’t be found here, and I had a Virtual Cooking Club assignment to accomplish, so we substituted in blueberries!
Blueberry, Apple, Pear Sauce: a jam-like texture with a sweet combination of fruits.
When I informed my older sister that “I don’t know what you’re traditionally supposed to eat cranberry sauce on”, she started laughing. Growing up we didn’t eat turkey. We made cranberry sauce every year, but never turkey. We always ate the cranberry sauce as it’s own dish, or maybe sometimes on ice cream or on a roll.
My sister informed me that most people eat cranberry sauce ON TURKEY. WHAT?!?! She also informed me that she didn’t know this was a thing until she was probably my age or older, and that our family is weird and how did we not know that because we are American and it’s a “tradition”!? You live and you learn, I guess?
Back to the cranberry sauce, if you like it on other things besides turkey – I would suggest it’s great on toast, in yogurt or in BBQ’d mushrooms (sounds weird, but it’s amazing) and especially, on its own.
A whole turkey is too big to fit in my oven… and having leftovers is a must, so we made a whole chicken instead.
We made one type (of the 3,500 + potatoes that can be found in Perú, more on that in another post) of potatoes into a classic mashed potato with green onion, butter, salt and pepper.
We also made salad, stuffing, pumpkin pie, chocolate coconut cake, cauliflower mac and cheese, hot chocolate –Peruvian style, hot apple cider, and probably a few other things I’m forgetting.
We listened to Christmas music, traditional Peruvian music and watched a few Christmas movies. Overall an incredibly long day of cooking–but hey, what’s new there, it was Thanksgiving! A very fun and wonderful day nonetheless!
Let’s talk about controversial things in the comments! Tell me one non-traditional Thanksgiving dish you’ve always wanted to make for the holiday! Also, how do you feel about turkey? Are we all just sucking it up for other people, or do some of you also make anything but turkey for Thanksgiving?
