Turkey, Jellyfish and Thanksgiving

My family and I celebrated Thanksgiving in a way I hadn’t experienced before.  The cooking started at noon and the whole family pitched in to prepare foods that we had never served together before for the holiday.  Green bean casserole, turkey, stuffing, sushi and two pies were all squeezed onto the table that night.  There was excitement in the air as we feasted.  For most people, though, this is pretty normal.

The Thanksgiving menu is pretty typical for most American families.  But for me, it’s always a unique experience. You see, my family is one of mixed heritage; my mom is Chinese and my dad is Caucasian.  Usually, when Thanksgiving comes around, my Chinese grandparents eat with us and they cook.  For almost my whole life, I’d see them come over at 3:00 with practically a miniature farm/aquarium in their grocery bags.  When they cooked, the air would be filled with the aromas of lobster, crab, sea cucumber, jellyfish, pork and other delicacies.

But this year, my usual Thanksgiving cooks were in China, leaving me and my family to fend for ourselves.  My father immediately jumped at the idea of having a “normal” Thanksgiving meal.  He made a list of the dishes he used to eat during Thanksgiving when he was a kid.  Of course, my mom added a couple of her own (sushi and Chinese sticky rice stuffing) and we got ready to brave the unknown.  We were on a new frontier in the land of holiday dinners.  The biggest question that we all shared was, “Okay, we’re having turkey.  What do we do with it?!”  Were we supposed to fry the thing?  Maybe rotisserie?  Maybe barbeque?  We pondered this looming question for a while, thinking and brainstorming.  In the end, we decided to bake it.

The dinner was a complete success.  Everything was delicious and I’m glad we ventured out into uncharted waters. This experience has given me a mini-epiphany.  I’ve realized that even though most of Thanksgiving is focused on the big dinner, there’s a hidden purpose behind it.  The food doesn’t matter that much.  The only consistency during Thanksgiving is that Americans everywhere get together.  The purpose is to unite.  I know it fits very well into the “cliché” category, but hey, it’s a revelation to me.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/esthereggy/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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