Viva la Thanksgiving
There are Thanksgivings to remember. The other ones are nice. You hold the same traditions, see the same people, go to the same house and do the same things, and it all sort of blends together in a warm gravy of food and laughter and subpar NFC North football. The Thanksgivings that stand out break from the norm.
When I lived in Los Angeles, and knowing I would be home soon for a 2-week Christmas visit, I often stayed in LA for Thanksgiving. One year, my friend “Los” invited me to his parents’ place for dinner. I’d been to their home before, a second-floor West Hollywood apartment just big enough for a family of four. They spoke English with me and Spanish to each other. They were from Argentina.
Perfect.
I was happy to celebrate that day with a friend and looked forward to an authentic cultural experience.
The men were watching sports on TV when I arrived. Not Detroit Lions football. The other football. South American soccer. I had no idea who the teams or players were, but it was sports, and it was Thanksgiving, and I can’t name most of the Chicago Bears anyway. None since the 1985 Super Bowl Shuffle team, anyway. I enjoyed watching Los’s dad watch the game and cheer in Spanish. Here was that authentic cultural experience I imagined.
It was this.
When dinner was ready, we broke bread in the dining room – I want to say there were 7-8 of us total.
Turkey. Gravy. Stuffing. Green bean casserole. Cranberries. Mashed potatoes. Creamed corn. Rolls.
Nice
And yet...
No asado. No empanada. No provoleta. Not a single thing from back in the home country. I didn’t expect that. As an Italian-American, we add Italian dishes to Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July, Arbor Day, whatever.
Then I had this thought.
Maybe their faithful adaptation to the Platonic ideal of a Thanksgiving dinner means something.
His parents, who had come from afar, had fully embraced this country. They didn’t cook their favorites for our nation’s great annual feast. They cooked traditional American food. Such was their love for this country that they learned to make a turkey, and do the stuffing and bake the casserole. Not just make those dishes – but make them to an exceedingly high quality, like you’d expect at a restaurant.
This … is America. The land where you move not knowing the language or its ways, and decades later, not only do you still have your own customs (viva la futbol), but you faithfully adopt the customs of your beloved new homeland. My grandfather moved to America from Italy. I could relate to a family that was not from this country but loved it passionately.
This is a great Thanksgiving meal, I thought, because it was cooked by people who chose Thanksgiving, rather than someone who had never thought much about it.
After dinner, I pulled Los aside, and I shared my feelings of gratitude for the meal and my respect for how seamlessly his family had woven this American holiday into the tapestry of their lives. This meal provided by you, your mom, your sister and your dad, I said, it was perfect. Like you’d expect from fourth-generation Midwesterners. Like my Aunt Eileen in Cleveland, which is the highest praise I can offer. To pull off such a feat in the small kitchen of a 3-bedroom apartment – a miracle.
It may have been patriotism – or the wine – but I told Los that I felt the true spirit of Thanksgiving, sharing a communal meal among people who came to make a life in a new land.
I’ll never forget. After he let me finish, he put his hand on my shoulder, and laughingly said, “Oh, thanks. We ordered it from Gelson’s.”
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That brought tears to my eyes....until the last sentence when I cracked up.
But I get what you were saying. My maternal grandparents (your great-grandparents) had passed away many years before I was born, so I didn't know them. But I grew up in a duplex with my paternal grandparents next door. They, along with my father, came from Italy. They spoke Italian with my parents, but no one ever taught the language to us (something I still so sad about). My grandfather wanted his family to become American while still remembering their Italian roots.
We had lasagna with our turkey on Thanksgiving.