Over the thirty-five years that my family has been in America, Thanksgiving has never stuck. By the time the holiday rolled around, we’d already celebrated the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival that mostly fell in September. Moon cakes, gazing at the giant moon, and returning to visit family were part of that traditional harvest-time celebration. The Moon Festival (Tet Trung Thu) symbolized a giving of thanks and culturally resonated with us.
Pilgrims, pumpkins, and pies were novelties that didn’t catch on with our family. My mother roasted turkeys that she bought through rock-bottom supermarket deals but we never liked them. The bird was too dry, and we could not afford a Butterball to taste how other Americans ate.
11/19/10 Update: After reading this post, my parents scanned in this photo and emailed it to me.
It's from the 1980s. You see the chestnuts, sticky rice stuffing. I think I dolled it up (that's my hand)
with baguette slices, for what reason I don't recall.
One Thanksgiving long ago, Mom suggested — and we unanimously agreed with her — to cook smaller, more succulent birds. Roasting chickens and game hens became our top choices during the holidays.
One thing we never waivered on were the holiday chestnuts. My parents would roast and peel several pounds of them. They'd combine the ugly broken ones with sticky rice, fatty ground pork, shiitake mushroom, cognac, butter and herbs. That dressing filled up the bird’s cavity, which my mother, a seamstress, neatly sewed up with a needle and bright red thread. She wanted a color that she could find once the bird was out of the oven. The beautiful whole chestnuts were simmered with chicken, butter, and cilantro.
My sister Linh was into sweet potatoes and often made a roasted casserole with orange peel and rum. There were no marshmallows. My mother, not a tippler, loved the dish and still makes it on occasion.
One year, I brought Brussels sprouts, a specialty crop in Northern California where I live. My immediate family was appalled. My sister Tasha reminded me that we’d eaten so many overcooked, gas-forming ones when we were at Camp Pendleton in 1975.
“I’m not eating them,” she said, shaking her head. I made them anyway, tossed with browned butter. My family members changed their minds and the refugee food scars healed a bit. I was relieved to dispense with 5 pounds of Brussels sprouts.
In-Law Complications
Thanksgiving changed after my siblings and I got married. We started new family traditions of our own and ended up spending Thanksgiving Thursdays with the in-laws and Thanksgiving Fridays at my parents’ home.
The result was that my mom hasn’t roasted a Thanksgiving bird in years. Instead, she takes email and phone requests for our favorite Vietnamese foods.
The grandchildren get sticky rice and Chinese sausages (lap xuong) and banh cuon steamed rice rolls. Adults ‘order’ banh xeo sizzling rice crepes, banh tom sweet potato and shrimp fritters, bun thang rice noodle soup, or bun cha grilled pork and rice noodles. There’s usually some homemade Vietnamese charcuterie such as warm cinnamon sausage (cha que) and tangy sweet pickled veggies (dua gop) for us to nibble on.
I won’t even mention the spread of sweets that my mom pulls out for one of her typical dessert courses. It’s as if she lures us home with her cooking.
This year, my husband and I decided to stay in Santa Cruz for Thanksgiving. His aunt passed away in June so we no longer have a Thanksgiving Thursday commitment. I have not made a regular Thanksgiving meal in a while so I did a ‘practice’ run yesterday to make sure that I’m still on my game with making the stuffing, roasting the bird, gravy, etc. (Details to come.)
After getting my email about not coming for Thanksgiving, my ever practical mother responded, “It’s good that you’re not coming for Thanksgiving. Christmas is just around the corner.”
Thanks for understanding, mom. I’ll surely miss Thanksgiving next Friday.
What’s your family's Thanksgiving holiday tradition like?
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Thank you for this post. It brings back wonderful memories of my Chinese-American childhood Thanksgiving feasts. My grandfather made his turkey with a soy-based marinade and had a rice stuffing. I wish I had hung around the kitchen long enough to learn his recipes because it was delicious! Anyone who likes the white meat of the turkey (my happy husband) loves having Thanksgiving with my family because we prefer the dark meat and leave the white completely untouched, eating a little only out of desperation because every bit of dark meat is gone. We’ve now rectified that by roasting extra turkey thighs with the whole turkey to make sure that there’s enough.
This post was more than interesting. Translating one country’s cutoms to another set of customs is always fascinating to me. (I, with my family,once, had Thanksgiving dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Boston Mass.)
When you have a moment I would love to hear more about chestnuts cooked with butter and chicken.
Happy Thanksgiving.
I used to be a borderline Nazi about Thanksgiving — it was all New England or nothing! Even sweet potatoes were too exotic. Now I’m married to an Irishman, living in the South and raising a son from Vietnam. Suddenly sweet potatoes, Irish brown bread and Vietnamese deserts are on the menu. After all, shouldn’t our family traditions reflect our family?
I didn’t actually experience Thanksgiving until I went to the US for studies. I’m not sure whether it counts as a tradition since I only had about ten years worth of Thanksgivings, but there -were- things that became a constant. For the first two and a half years (my undergraduate days) I would celebrate with my foster family in Andersonville, TN. I learned how to appreciate things like stuffing and green bean casserole, even though by and large I dislike green beans immensely!
It wasn’t until my graduate years and a move to Virginia Beach though that I got my own kitchen, and thus began about 7 years of ‘tradition’. I’d be the one cooking for friends who’d come by from out of state, and I’d always roast a chicken or Cornish hens because a turkey was too large for me to handle. Stuffing could vary, but I usually used a Lebanese friend’s recipe for a gorgeous lamb stuffing with celery, onions and carrots and French bread that was just -divine- (this before my diagnosis of course). I always baked bread too, and made mashed potatoes from scratch. Oh, and cranberry-orange sauce! When I switched to gluten-free cooking, I made a gluten-free cornbread stuffing and prepared cookies in place of bread. I still made the sauce though, and the mashed potatoes.
I might just have to roast a chicken this year for my own private Thanksgiving, for old time’s sake.
Brussels Sprouts– once on my hated list too! During our honeymoon at a very fancy restaurant (a meal that was a wedding gift– great idea by the way) there was an entree with brussels sprouts. I steared clear even though the main dish sounded great. My husband decided he wanted the dish despite the brussel sprouts (“I don’t have to eat them”) so he ordered it. We both fell in love with brussel sprouts!
I sautee them with a little olive oil, until the cut surface starts to brown then I quickly steam them with juice from an orange, add orange zest and a little sherry.
The other night I carmalized onions with diced pancetta, then added shredded brussels sprouts (I cut them into shreds). It was awesome if i do say so myself. I’m making it again tonight and I am going to add the brussel sprouts a little earlier to see if they get a little carmelized themselves.
I gave up on a whole turkey years ago. I started making turkey tenderloins in the crock pot, rubbing a thick layer of fresh chopped herbs on each one. Last year I cooked the tenderloins in an oven bag and that worked very well. Even my nephew is ok with the thick green layer that coats each slice!
Here’s a funny mashed potato story. I used to haul out the big mixer, peel potatoes, whip them up to a beautiful, smooth, fluffy texture. My neice and nephew NEVER touched them. One year, my husband says, “why don’t you just leave them lumpy with the skins in it” just like a restaurant nearby does. So i did that. Boiled the potatoes, cut through the skins with a knife, and quickly hand mashed them. My neice and nephew ate them up! “These are the best potatoes ever Aunt Kirsten”. Go figure! You would think I’d learn. I put potatoes through a Foley food mill for my girl…and she didn’t like them. Let’s see how she likes the fast and dirty (ok, I do scrub them) potatoes at Thanksgiving!
Have a great Thanksgiving Andrea!
Andrea, I loved reading about the spin your family put on Thanksgiving. I do love traditional Thanksgiving foods, but the best part about Thanksgiving is being with family and friends — your family’s tradition sounds warm, wonderful and delicious! My (Vietnamese) mom makes a traditional turkey dinner, but we always request that she make Viet snacky things for us to eat during the day — goi cuon, cha gio, banh tom sweet potato/shrimp fritters, etc. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!
“Instead, she takes email and phone requests for our favorite Vietnamese foods.” –Do you think she’d take my email? 😉
My family does a similar idea just like Kim’s family during Thanksgiving dinner.
My mom usually cooks the traditional Thanksgiving meal, but throws in her Vietnamese style cooking here and there. Instead of the traditional bread stuffing, my mom would make a bean thread stuffing mixed with gizzards and other vegetables. It’s delicious!!
Also, she will have her egg rolls for us to snack on. I invited my boyfriend home for Thanksgiving one year and he thought it was cute how my mom incorporated a Vietnamese palate.
This year, I will be making my own Thanksgiving dinner with my bf (both in grad school now) since we’re both too far to fly home. I plan on making my mom’s egg rolls to make me feel more at home!
Not sure if you saw this article from an Australian Sunday newspaper that mentioned Viet World Kitchen food blog, fyi, link is here: http://www.noodlies.com/2010/11/sunday-life-sun-heraldsunday-age-71110.html
It’s so cool for you to share your Alternative Thanksgiving experiences. That’s the cool thing about the holiday — it is flexible. It’s also about enjoying the foods that are important to us, what we like to eat!
Thang@noodies: Thanks for posting on the Aussie newspaper shout out. I didn’t hear about till now. Greatly appreciate it!
One of my favorite things during Thanksgiving is stuffing. Of course, my mom makes it Vietnamese style. She use a typical seasoned stuff mix but add in shredded woodear mushrooms, mung beans, lotus seeds, and cellophane noodles for texture.
My mom is also a big fan of mashed potatoes and makes them every year. I remember years ago, she wanted to make gravy from scratch to accompany the mashed potatoes. Back then, she didn’t know how and decided to make them using teriyaki sauce, pan drippings, and cornstarch. It was incredibly salty so me and my brothers made sure to oversee the gravy making in subsequent years.
We usually do a traditional Thanksgiving meal every year, but every once in a while, we would change it up and do a completely different menu. We would do fried and steamed red snappers with a side of raw veggies and nuoc cham to roll with the rice paper. There would be eggrolls, stir-fried greenbeans with beef, canh made with chicken and rau muong.
I try the Martha Stewart recipe in cutting up turkey into four and roast in 450 oven for 1 hour for 12lb 15 I roasted 2 hours. It turn out great meat moist ever. Only thing you must have good cutting tool for turkey bone are thicker than chicken.
Janet
just want to say, your website and recipe is a life saver for me! i’m vietnamese and i don’t know a single recipe for viet food, until one day i did a search and your website pop up. so thank you!
p.s
i like the picture that comes with the recipe.
keep up the great work!
As one who has cooked many a big Thanksgiving feast, I think it’s nice now and then to have a small, low-key one. Thanksgiving always carries such stress with it as ya race to make a gazillion dishes all at the same time and to please everyone who sits down at your table. When it’s just the two of you, the pressure is off. And you can just sit back and really enjoy it all in a much different way. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your hubby. May it be as wonderful as can be! 😉
I would love your parent’s recipe for the sticky rice and chestnut stuffing. It sounds amazing and like something would make a eat any day, holiday or no holiday.
Thanks!
That’s the cool thing about the holiday it is flexible. It’s also about enjoying the foods that are important to us, what we like to eat.
Yes–I second Flora’s comment. Any chance of posting your family’s sticky rice stuffing recipe? It sounds divine, and right up my alley. And this post was a joy to read.
My Chinese-Vietnamese family roasts a turkey basted with a peppery five-spice and soy based marinade. It’s so much more flavorful than any ‘traditional’ turkey I’ve ever had.
I came upon the website while looking up recipes for garlic noodles and this post on the hybrid Thanksgiving is such a treat. And thanks so much for the explanation of that very funny photo!
My mother, ever the explorer when it came to the foreign American cuisine, learned about turkeys and stuffing at some point when I was a kid. While the whole family devoured the stuffing and relished it all, it was only when I was after college and ate stuffing at diners that I learned it wasn’t supposed to be so wet. I also recall my brother, at one point, taking a shine to cranberry sauce and plopping the whole thing out of a can, so that it stood, quite solid for being a jelly. Years later, I decided to do things the “right” way, a dry stuffing with chestnuts, cranberry sauce made out of scratch, a turkey that hadn’t been frozen.
Besides the sopping wet stuffing, the turkey and the stiff cranberry sauce, we almost always had some Korean dishes…whichever dish my mother most craved: chicken fried with red peppers; an elaborate recipe that involved neat julienned slices of cucumber and carrots laid out in an oval in alternating strips along with shrimp, and mushroom; fried Korean sweet potatoes; pan-fried whole fish; and much more.
This year, my mother called me to say she didn’t want turkey but couldn’t we get duck from Chinese restaurant nearby? And somehow, it seems better to just go with the flow rather than cook seven dishes from scratch, all just to fit into the American tradition.
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This post was more than interesting. Translating one country’s cutoms to another set of customs is always fascinating to me.