In general, we eat the typical local food when we travel. Eating like an American when you travel just isn’t worth it for multiple reasons. First, it never really tastes like it does at home. Sure it may look like a chicken nugget- but for whatever reason, it will never taste like a chicken nugget, and it will leave you sad. Second, it’s very expensive to eat like an American. For the most part in a city, you can find the box of strawberry jello at the specialty store, but it’s gonna cost you. And spending 10x what you would at home for some jiggly jello just isn’t worth it. Lastly, as the wise Anthony Bourdain once commented, eating like an American abroad is exactly how you get sick. Markets and restaurants know how to handle and cook their local cuisine, they have been successfully cooking seafood for centuries, you will be fine! But throw a little cup of cottage cheese in their kitchens, and you probably need to get ready for a long night. So we eat local, now we are not complaining! We are in Spain after all, and on the Mediterranean coast on top of that- the food is world-class. Eating local olives, ham and cheeses are delicious, cheap and no one gets sick. It would be kind of like staying in Paris, and deciding to dress like the locals... sacrifices must be made. Here I am Lord, send me!
But then Thanksgiving.... those pilgrims never made it to Spain (the Spanish Inquisition didn’t exactly market well to those seeking religious freedom) and turkey, cranberries, and green bean casserole are pretty much exclusively North American. Thanksgiving was gonna take some effort, of which I was fully willing to give. Jake mentioned briefly that he thought we could just skip it this year. We didn’t talk for the next 3 hours, because he apparently doesn’t know me at all. I knew it would be a challenge, but I had a secret weapon, my mom. She has lived in enough countries that she makes room for a can of cranberries and pumpkin in her suitcase, without even being asked. The pavo (turkey) was trickier, custom agents are sticklers for poultry for some reason, but we have been in Valencia for a few weeks now and we have been on the hunt. We were able to order this big girl at the market downtown. You know, just like we get them back home at IGA.
We are still in the western world (hats off to my friends trying to pull off Thanksgiving in Asia) so we could find most of the other stuff in the stores. But the next challenge was reading all the directions in Spanish. Last night as I was making the chocolate pie with a chocolate flan mix (cause I never found chocolate pudding mix) and I had a thought. This should be the final project for any Spanish class. Just a box of something with Spanish directions, and see how it turns out. If it is edible you pass. It took me a little bit to figure things out, but I did eventually without looking anything up. Although there was some help from the Spanish grape juice... it’s amazing here, suddenly the exact measurements just don’t seem quite as important.
For the record: wow, the chocolate flan was much better than pudding in the pie anyway!
Some differences to Thanksgiving were very welcome. For example, I am quite sure this is our first one in which we could eat outside, the markets were open all day when we forgot the bread, and we were already on a strict siesta schedule, so even if the turkey’s tryptophan didn’t work, we were all out cold anyway after dinner. However, the important basics of Thanksgiving were still recognized today. A shared meal with the people you love, thankful for each other and the abundance of blessings that we hold. I’m sure we could have pulled off those essentials without a pumpkin pie, but why chance it?
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