Antonia's Turkey |
| (originally a blog post on www.abookbloggersdiary.blogspot.com) |
Our second year in Italy, we decided to have a Thanksgiving feast and invite our Italian friends so they could experience an American holiday. We knew it wouldn’t be completely traditional; we’d have to use chutney instead of cranberry sauce and get a turkey from our American friend who had access to the store at the local U.S. military base – but it could be done. The day of Thanksgiving dawned. In honor of our guests I had decided to polish the wood floors of our apartment. But as the polish spread across the floor and the wood began to glisten I noticed a horrifying smell rising up. Think pink. Think your grandmother’s floral perfume mixed with that thick, gritty pink bathroom soap that used to come out of public dispensers. My husband ran out to buy scented candles, which we lit, to no avail. Our friend arrived with our Butterball turkey, which landed plump and steroid-filled on our kitchen counter. We shoved it in our tiny oven and soon the smell of roasting turkey wafted out to the living room, where it was met with a wall of pink scent. You could almost see the battle lines. But the Italians were sweet, carrying flowers as they arrived, and we sat down at the table, filled from stem to stern with mashed potatoes and turkey and stuffing and chutney and salad and vegetables and… And suddenly, I saw it all through their eyes. Our table looked like the playing field after the ending whistle of the Super Bowl. Nothing like the five-hour lunches we had experienced at their houses, where one dish followed the next, each given attention and admiration, their flavors finding their way, slowly and luxuriously, into your soul. But the Italians were polite; they were lovely, in fact. Maurizio especially loved the chutney that he said, with utter delight, reminded him of the sweet and sour sauce at McDonald’s. And at the end of the evening, when the last guest was gone and the last dish was dried, I sat in the lingering pink scent of my living room and realized that perhaps I was the one who had learned about tradition that evening. Antonia’s chapter in The School of Essential Ingredients, and its different approach to Thanksgiving, grew out of that experience and out of all the interesting things we see and learn when we look at ourselves through the perspective of a different culture. Stuffed Turkey Breast 1 boneless turkey breast (about 3 lbs) Soak cranberries in sherry (15 minutes), drain. |