In case you were wondering, no Italians do not celebrate Thanksgiving. Most people look slightly puzzled when we mention it. Needless to say, we had no idea what to expect this year for Thanksgiving; we were told that in the past, the restaurant had put on a Thanksgiving dinner for the group, but we didn't know if they would do it for us. Last Monday, Matteo told us that Mauro (the owner of the restaurant) would be putting on a great feast for us on Thanksgiving. It was to be a dinner, so we were on our own for lunch with the option of finding something to eat, or fasting in preparation for the immense amounts of food we would certainly soon be given.
Thursday morning we went to class as usual (apparently this is the “assimilation with local culture” part of the day) and then we had our usual cleaning in the afternoon, but all day there was this sense of odd expectation. There were more phone calls than normal and during internet time at any one moment there were at least 3 different people talking to someone back home. For some people this wasn't their first holiday away from home and family, but it was for me. In a strange way I am very thankful that we do not have a “traditional Thanksgiving day” in that we change what we do every year. This made it much easier to be away when I knew that not everyone would be getting together – now if it had been Christmas...
At 6:30 there was a flurry of activity as everyone began to get ready for dinner and the excitement factor was upped even more. There was almost an unspoken agreement that we needed to look slightly nicer this evening for dinner since they were going to such lengths for us. Right at 7:00 (an hour earlier than normal) we walked into Locanda where they had set up our two tables beautifully. We also had some guests with us: Carissa's (a girl from Gordon) parents were there, our two professors, Matteo and his family, and Alessandro and his family. This meant that we had some variance in ages including 5 children. Sitting with these families made the evening even more wonderful because in some odd way they reminded me of my family. Even though we don't usually have any small children at our Thanksgiving, children remind me of families, home, and the holidays. It was a beautiful thing to see these families interacting with their kids – who are completely crazy! - and talking with us.
The food. Everyone was very interested to see how this whole food idea would pan out and let me reassure you now, it turned out very well. First we were served bruschetta with prosciutto, and then an individual portion of lasagna, then potatoes, and then they brought out the turkey. And a glorious turkey it was! This bird was massive, I'm pretty sure it was larger around than any of the kids at dinner, and tasted wonderful (please don't ask me how they made it because I have no idea – I think it involved rosemary in some way). They brought out raspberry jam, because you can't get cranberry anything here, and served us the turkey. For dessert Becky (a girl from Messiah) enlisted a group of us to make apple pies with her to bring to the dinner a taste of the US. We served these with some gelato and we were all quite content and full. Then Enya (the cook, Mauro's wife) said she had one more thing for us all. With some trepidation we awaited the arrival of even more food, unsure of where we would put this food. And then she came out of the kitchen carrying what looked like little baskets of heavenly delight. They were oranges carved out with fruit put inside and topped with panna and they were delicious! We all thanked Mauro and Enya profusely for all their hard work and for making us feel at home away from home during the holidays.
And thus, our Thanksgiving was quite wonderful, indeed.
1 commento:
Thanks for describing your feast. It sounds like you had a wonderful time. I agree with you about how we change what we do at Thanksgiving and it made it easier to have it without you. But we did miss you much, (I think Breanna most of all)
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