Not All White Meat : Ethnic Households Serve a Variety of Thanksgiving Fare

Tripe stuffed with animal blood and rice. Noodle soups. Guava salads. Baklava.

Those were some of the non-traditional Thanksgiving dishes served along with turkey Thursday in various ethnic households around Orange County.

Both longtime residents and new arrivals celebrated the 370-year-old American tradition of giving thanks. Most have embraced the turkey as the centerpiece of their Thanksgiving Day meal and even created their own stuffing, while some families left turkey off the menu and opted for ham or lamb.

“It’s a beautiful time to gather with family and friends to celebrate new life in a new country,” said Esteban Fajardo, a native Cuban who now lives in Huntington Beach.

His family was planning to serve turkey with white rice, black beans and tropical fruits, he said.

Victor Zayas of Garden Grove said his family also likes to have shish kebab or tripe along with the traditional turkey.

“We stuff turkey with rice and rum,” said Zayas, who was born in Puerto Rico.

Ho Young Chung said Korean Americans like to cook turkey with chestnuts and dates. They also serve barbecued meat, rice cakes, noodle soups and kimchi-- pickled cabbage with peppers and garlic.

“Thanksgiving is a good chance for our children, who come home from college, where they eat American foods, to eat their parents’ food,” Chung said.

But turkey was not on the menu at Tuong Duy Nguyen’s household in Westminster.

“The turkey is too big,” he said. “We Vietnamese think of eating turkey and having leftovers for more than a week, and we dread it.”

His family’s Thanksgiving dinner consisted of Vietnamese dishes, such as noodle soups or barbecued meat, he said.

Some Arab-American families also do not usually serve turkey, said Nadia Saad Bettendorf, president of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee in Orange County.

“It’s ham for the Christian Arabs and lamb for the Muslim Arabs, who like to stuff lamb with rice and pine nuts,” she said.

However, “most of the members of the (Arab-American) community do celebrate the American way with turkey,” said Bettendorf, who was planning on pumpkin pie for dessert.

For Hassan Hassan, owner of Hassan’s Cafe in Newport Beach, the Thanksgiving Day meal also included stuffed grape leaves and baklava, a sweet dessert of thin pastry baked with chopped nuts and honey.

“I take advantage of this holiday. I take a day off and I cook at home instead of at the restaurant,” the native of Lebanon said.

But a family with Lithuanian roots was sticking only with dishes known to have been served during the Pilgrims’ celebration with American Indian friends hundreds of years ago.

“We will be honoring the Native Americans,” Danute Mazeika said while baking corn bread at her home in Mission Viejo. “We’re as American as we can be on this holiday, except that we are very grateful for all who were concerned about Lithuanian independence.”

Lithuania, along with Estonia and Latvia, gained independence from the Soviet Union in September.

“This has been a very incredible year,” Mazeika said. “It’s very poignant that we have something extra to be thankful for.”