Thanksgiving 2007, Mexican-Uruguayan Style

[As part of my backlog catch-up series, this excerpt is taken from a recent email]

Thanksgiving 2007 was the first I have spent away from my family. It was also the first Thanksgiving I decided to host the feast, for 30 people. Being that large, frozen turkeys are seasonal things, and that Mexico doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, you can imagine the process I had to go through to track down an early-Christmas bird. Trusty Wal-Mart came through for me with a huge frozen turkey and 4 cans of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce. Several of us scoured the city in search of pre-made pumpkin pie, canned pumpkin or even fresh pumpkin in vain, but soon realized our Thanksgiving desserts would have to feature apples instead.

I took the day off from work and went shopping that morning for all the fresh fixings I would need to prepare a feast. That was when I realized that Mexico has a serious lack of prepared foods, so my roommate, Jess, and friend, Neeti, helped prepare cornbread, candied yams, and stuffing from scratch. We weren’t sure if we could count on our gas supply to cook the turkey for the whole day in the oven, so we had a bit of a dilemma. Some of my Mexican friends informed me that it was typical practice for bakeries to offer to cook a Christmas turkey for a small fee since many people don’t have large enough ovens. Given that it was neither Christmas nor are there bakeries near my apartment, I had to get creative. I asked the Uruguayan restaurant below my apartment if they would do me the honor of cooking my turkey for the Día de acción de gracias, and offered to pay them. They agreed, told me that their oven was hot enough to cook my 19-pound bird in 2 hours, and sent me on my way. Good thing I didn’t listen to a word they said, because the turkey was ready about 7 hours later, just in time. The nice señores meseros talked their boss into lending us two tables and sets of chairs from the restaurant when we also realized that we didn’t have enough space to put 30 people for a sit-down Thanksgiving feast. Fulbrighters, friends, family and coworkers we wanted to introduce to our tradition showed up in full force.

The whole thing went off without a hitch (barring the piñata in the stairwell incident) and it was truly a Thanksgiving for which to be thankful.