How does an American family celebrate Thanksgiving in a foreign country, which does not recognize the holiday? You start planning well in advance. You spend many countless hours in the grocery store looking for and asking for ingredients because they do not have the same name as what we are used to. For example, corn starch is corn flour and powdered sugar is icing mixture. You can not find canned yams, molasses, mini-marshmellows or a turkey over 5 to 6 kgs (10 to 12 lbs). Nor do they sell Jimmy Dean sausage, which is a staple for Grandma Nellie’s stuffing. Don’t even think about trying to find canned pumpkin. That is unheard of as is making pumpkin pie or pumpkin bread. Pumpkin is not served sweet! It is served as a soup or is roasted, but definitely not sweet. So how did I solve my delimma? A trip to the local butcher to order an 11kg turkey (roughly 23lbs) and to explain the type of sausage I needed to make Grandma Nellie’s stuffing. He came through, even offering to thaw my “massive turkey” in his refrigerator for me because “surely I don’t have that kind of space.” A trip to the USA Food Store provided the canned pumpkin, canned yams, molasses and mini-marshmellows. Costco had their usual pumpkin pies, which we were shocked and happy to find.
So on Saturday, November 27th we celebrated our Thanksgiving with two American families that are over in Australia with Heinz, an English family and an Aussie family. With a prayer of thansgiving being said we sat down to a meal of turkey, Grandma Nellie’s stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, candied yams, green beans, a crock pot of different root vegetables and fresh dinner rolls. We had pumpkin pie, chocolate pie and apple tarts for dessert.
We had a wonderful day with new friends celebrating a great American holiday!
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