Chinese Thanksgiving

As I write the title to this blog I can't help but chuckle because in China there is no such thing as Thanksgiving. Never in the history books did I read about pilgrims coming to settle in China...sorry. The closest celebration they have is their Mid-Autumn Festival, occurring the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month.

But despite Thanksgiving not being a traditional holiday, it still doesn't exempt Chinese Americans from celebrating the feast of Thanksgiving the last Thursday of November.

When I was very young living closer to my Chinese grandmother in Southern California we always celebrated Thanksgiving with an Asian flair. Instead of serving mashed potatoes, we ate white rice (which actually tastes really good with gravy on top if anyone every tries). We also were served yams, but not the sweet and candied ones. We ate yams with curry. I had no idea what the name was until later in life (I mistakenly assumed they were just scalloped potatoes).

After searching the web for glimmers of hope that other families do the same thing, I was pleasantly surprised. Many people offer menus and recipes hailing an even more Asian flair to traditional cuisine with such items including roast turkey glazed in teriyaki sauce.

If your family decides to step away from traditional this Thanksgiving, I recommend you venture into Chinese cuisine. You may be just as pleasantly surprised as I was.