It is that time of year again - time for turkey dinners, vats of mashed potatoes and slices of pumpkin pie. Thanksgiving is one of the few truly American traditions, celebrating the friendship between early Pilgrim settlers and Native Americans with an annual feast of stuffing and green bean casserole. But a few years ago, my family decided to break away from the norm and try something different for Thanksgiving: Chinese food.
Every year for Thanksgiving, my family and I pile into our car and drive to Maryland to spend the holiday with my uncle's family. My uncle's wife is Chinese, and when she was young, her family moved from Taiwan to Canada and then later to the United States. Both my uncle and aunt are excellent cooks, but my aunt's mother, Sheila, can really work wonders in a kitchen. That year, she was preparing a feast for us with recipes she brought from Asia, meaning that this Chinese food was not the greasy paper containers and fortune cookies characteristic of Americanized Chinese fast food, but rather a genuine form of these treats. I could hardly wait to taste this cultural spread and try something new.
We arrived at their house the day before Thanksgiving, greeted by my little cousin and the family's two cockapoo dogs. After unpacking and catching up, we began eating.
Wednesday was jiaozi night. Jiaozi are Chinese dumplings filled with ground meat and vegetables. Mountains of these delectable, homemade, steamed or fried dumplings covered the table. Think Marco & Luca's on the Downtown Mall, only much better.
Sheila made more than 200 dumplings. We couldn't eat them fast enough before another batch would appear. The kitchen was bustling with activity: My aunt was at the counter, busily making more potstickers, while Sheila hurried from stove to cooktop, checking on the dumplings frying and lifting pot lids to see if the water was boiling yet. By the end of the night, I had lost track of how many jiaozi I had eaten. I was so stuffed with potstickers, I didn't know how I was going to survive Thanksgiving the next day.
When I first saw our Thanksgiving dinner table the next day, I was not really sure what I was seeing. A giant electric wok filled with Sheila's homemade chicken broth replaced the usual turkey. An impressive array of meats, noodles, vegetables, tofu and sauces surrounded the wok. We were having a hot pot, which has since become a family favorite. Hot pot is sort of like a Chinese version of fondue: place whatever it is you want to eat into the wok, wait a minute while it cooks and then scoop food out with a wire scoop. Then, you can dip your cooked treats in a sauce, which typically consists of a wide mix of ingredients such as soy sauce, nam pla (fish sauce), sesame oil, garlic and ginger.
Into the simmering broth went slices of chicken and beef tenderloin, squid, tofu, fish balls - which are made of pressed fish meat - loads of veggies, anything and everything. Soon we had a bubbling concoction of a variety of foods floating in the broth, transforming the hot pot into a mismatched-looking soup.
Hot pot is an active meal, and one that brings every person at the dinner table together. We were standing up, trying to nab our snow peas and noodles before they overcooked, laughing and enjoying this warm, fun meal on a chilly November night. More so than any turkey could have done, the hot pot created a close family atmosphere. As we gathered all around the heat-radiating wok, I felt that even though we were not eating what is considered traditional Thanksgiving food, we had captured the real essence of the holiday.
Our only "authentic" Thanksgiving dish was pumpkin pie for dessert - but even without the stuffing and mashed potatoes, it did not seem like I had missed out on Thanksgiving. Coming together for a hot pot that night and jiaozi the night before fostered a real sense of family - what I think Thanksgiving truly aims to accomplish. Since then, we have reverted back to turkey and the traditional sides for our Thanksgiving spread, but we still reserve the night before for Sheila's Chinese cooking - beginning a new tradition of our own.
Although there is nothing wrong with the conventional holiday foods, sometimes people become so caught up in tradition that they forget the real meaning behind the rituals. Thanksgiving is not Thanksgiving because you eat a turkey dinner. Our hot pot meal is one of my fondest holiday memories because of the fun we had together as a family, eating delicious food and celebrating Sheila and my aunt's culture. So this holiday season, I dare you to try something new, and break out of the conventional mold to discover Thanksgiving beyond the turkey.
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