An American Holiday With a Global Touch

“Of course we have a turkey,” my boyfriend’s mother explained in a lilting Italian accent as she layered ricotta, mozzarella, wide noodles and tomato sauce. “It’s not Thanksgiving without a turkey.”

Every Thanksgiving she made two lasagnas, one for either side of the turkey. Although in her heart she was American, she saw no reason to sacrifice olive oil and garlic for yellow, sweet foods.

At that time, I was in high school and shocked to learn that people stray from candied yams dripping with marshmallows and cranberries chilled in the can. My family prided itself on being typical Americans, and our Thanksgiving menu consisted of the foods pictured on November issues of women’s magazines.

Our assimilation was a fact--four generations from Ellis Island, we had lost all connection with our country of origin. Our native dishes were corn flakes and frozen chicken pot pies.

But since then, I’ve discovered there are many ways to be American, and that each family has its own style of celebrating this holiday. The foods gracing the harvest table vary as much as the people who inhabit our country. The only common denominator is turkey.

The rest of the menu is subject to ethnic background, regionalism and personal taste. And, over the years, I’ve heard of some unusual items turning up.

One Thanksgiving while I was in college, a friend took me to her grandmother’s. The woman, who was turning out dishes as fast as her gnarled fingers would permit, lived in a Jewish neighborhood among elderly people. From the moment we entered her apartment building, we smelled chicken soup. It filled the lobby, the elevators, the hallways. I looked perplexed.

“These people make chicken soup, no matter what the holiday,” my friend said. “My grandmother also makes a brisket every Thanksgiving along with turkey.”

Another friend, who is a strict vegetarian--much to the dismay of his children--abhors the thought of eating feathered creatures. But he allows a turkey on this one occasion as long as it’s surrounded by tofu, grains, nuts and anything that was once green.

On my first job, I worked with a man whose family was of Irish descent, but their conversion to Americanism was passionate and complete. His mother’s idea of Thanksgiving was straight from Norman Rockwell. Every year she made two turkeys. One basked in glory as the table’s centerpiece, while the other was carved in the kitchen and brought to the dining room on a platter.

My husband’s family often speaks of what lovely memories they have of his mother’s Thanksgivings. Unfortunately, she died years before I met my husband. As a teen-ager, she had come to America from Austria under difficult circumstances. And she looked forward to this holiday every year.

“She loved making a real American Thanksgiving,” one of her nieces told me. But along with a turkey and all the other trimmings, there was always a Linzer torte on her table. You could take the girl out of Vienna, but you couldn’t take the world’s best desserts from her soul, even on Thanksgiving.

My husband and I now spend this holiday with his sister and her family. On our first Thanksgiving together, I made a pumpkin pie, only to discover that this is a group that never touches the stuff.

My brother-in-law was originally from New England, a part of the country that knows the value of pumpkin pie. He was the only one to request a slice of my homemade effort. Eventually, I started baking brownies, realizing that the Thanksgiving menu has been revised many times since the Indians and Pilgrims shared that first harvest at Plymouth Rock.

Last year, I visited a neighbor from Bombay who wears a sari. She was chopping vegetables in her kitchen while pots bubbled on all four burners. Curry and cumin permeated her apartment. Delicacies, already prepared, covered her dining table. She apologized for not having time to talk; she was too busy cooking for Thanksgiving. And she was getting up early the next morning to roast a turkey.

“A turkey with all this other food?” I asked.

“Oh sure,” she said. “We like to be real Americans.”