One of the questions that Materans are bound to ask, on first meeting me, is da quanto tempo stai in Italia (How long have you been here)? You would think that after four months I would be accustomed to this question, but no. Every time I have to count the months. Have I really been in Matera for four months? October, November, December, January, and half of February.
At this juncture my conscience emits a discreet cough. And have you really let four months go by without updating your blog?
I left you all in the suspense of not knowing if I would succeed in procuring a turkey for Thanksgiving Dinner. Doubtless you have since moved on to other things, and ceased to wonder if I celebrated Turkey Day with a whole turkey or only slices, but humor me as I recommence from that point.
Readers, I was obliged to eat sliced turkey on Thanksgiving Day—and not for any fault of the local butcher. So convinced was I that whole turkeys were not to be had before Christmas that I waited until two days before Thanksgiving to order sliced turkey. (Just to show you how entrenched the notion is that whole turkeys are eaten only at Christmas: yesterday I went to a cinema club showing of Uomini contro femmine—Guys Against Girls—an Italian comedy. In one of the film’s many couples, the man is exasperated because his wife’s family celebrations always coincide with soccer championships. After a day at work, he comes home to find his wife making dinner for yet another gathering. She asks him if he bought the turkey, and he snaps, Ma che, è Natale (with a sarcastic overtone that ma che gives sentences: is it Christmas)?) I then discovered that an Italian family, also celebrating Thanksgiving but with American friends, had ordered an entire turkey two weeks in advance. Oh, well. I duly ordered twelve fette di tacchino, to be collected Thursday afternoon.
That same day I had scoured the largest supermarket in town, l’Ipercoop for the requisites of Thanksgiving Dinner. Maple Syrup, not to be had. Cranberries, otherwise known as “red blueberries,” nowhere in sight. Pecans for a pecan pie, no. Gravy, niente. And perhaps most devastating of all, in my opinion, no pumpkin purée with which to make pumpkin pie. Sure, you can have pumpkin pie if you are willing to buy an entire pumpkin and pulverize its insides, but with eleven people to feed during my first time ever cooking Thanksgiving Dinner, I was not about to try. In the end, I resolved on the following menu: candied almonds, turkey, mashed potatoes, cornbread, green beans, and stuffing.
Thanksgiving Day I came home from school around two o’clock and ate a feverish lunch while my housemates ate their usual three-course meal, unaware that 3,000 miles away millions of Americans were starving themselves in anticipation of the gourmandizing to come. What with the three courses and then washing-up I was not able to claim the kitchen until after four o’clock. And I did not stop cooking until nine o’clock. My housemates chipped in, chopping onions, mashing the potatoes, and dicing the celery. Their help was not the only Italian influence on the meal: For the stuffing I used Materan bread, the pride of the city. To roast the turkey and simmer the ingredients for stuffing I used olive oil. Later that evening, we would drink prosecco and eat a cake brought by one of my guests.
Halfway through the preparations, my family called, and we skyped for an hour, as all the while I crumbled the bread for the stuffing. My dad tormented me with descriptions of the chocolate walnut pie that my sister had made. And if I remember correctly, there was also the traditional pumpkin cheesecake in the offing. Readers, you don’t know what I suffer at the thought of that pumpkin cheesecake.
By 9:30 all of the my guests had arrived. Eleven girls crammed around a table meant for seven. Because our plates were so small, I had to make another concession to Italian culture by serving Thanksgiving Dinner in courses, rather than serving each guest a plate loaded with turkey, stuffing, the works. Course one was turkey and stuffing. Course two was cornbread, mashed potatoes, and green beans. Afterwards we poured the bubbly, accompanied by the brindisi. At Italian celebrations, it is customary to deliver a toast of a rhyming couplet. As hostess, it was my lot the brindisi, though I gave it in English, the better to find rhyming words. I made the brindisi twice, once at the beginning of the meal, with the prosecco, and once with the spumante. I only remember the second toast: “Lauren-Claire does declare, this Thanksgiving was good to share.” Insomma.
We ate and chatted until after one o’clock. I don’t remember what happened to the dishes. (You all know how that most pressing question of the day, that political tension that begins to surface as the last piece of pumpkin pie is cut, the last napkin crumpled by the plate: who will do the washing up?) Perhaps my housemates and I washed the dishes the next afternoon, as the next morning I was due to teach la prima ora (at 8:15). At last, to a chorus of Auguri! Buon Ringraziamento! Buona notte! I accompanied my guests to the door, and I was left with the thought that Turkey Day was over and Turkey Week was not to follow. No Thanksgiving Dinner, round two. No turkey sandwiches. No turkey soup. Oh, well. Maybe Christmas would yield the entire turkey.
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