Thanksgiving in China

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Not just because there is excess eating involved, but also the family and friends aspect. For the past 8 years living in NYC, the three times I was guaranteed to see all of my friends in Louisville were over Thanksgiving weekend, Christmas, and the lake house. Sadly, the past 5 years I have been unable to fly back for Thanksgiving. In those first three years I was able to have a wonderful feast with friends and last year I spent the holiday in Costa Rica visiting my sister with my parents. This marks the second straight year I am out of the country for this glorious holiday and for the first time away from both the meal and family. Thanksgiving obviously isn’t celebrated in China except by the ex-pats.

Thanksgiving is best celebrated at home with friends and family, good food, good drinks, and football on in the background. However, China makes that difficult on the most important account. I don’t know one person here that owns an oven. Everyone has ranges and microwaves. This means that it is impossible to make the vast majority of dishes served on Thanksgiving. Thus, my only choice was to go out for the meal. So when I found out 4 of my friends were having Thanksgiving dinner at the Old Chengdu Club I signed up to be the fifth.

My first reaction upon arriving to the Old Chengdu Club was the place exuded class. I was offered a choice of beer, red or white wine and chose the red. It was a wonderfully full bodied Cabernet Sauvignon that definitely fit under the good drinks category from above.Although the dining table was littered with reminders that I was in China, it was set up beautifully and had ample supplies of bread and spreads. So far two of the check marks good friends and good drinks were met. This seemed to be shaping up to be a satisfactory Thanksgiving.

However, I was horrified when I finally got a look at the menu. Not only were there no sweet potatoes, but none of the other sides that I love. I may be in the minority on this, but I could have Thanksgiving without the turkey as long as I have the sides. At my household we have sweet potato casserole, broccoli casserole, potatoes au gratin, Mashed Potatoes with turkey gravy, homeade stuffing cooked in the turkey, a cranberry dish, and the turkey. These would be the staples for me. As my annual Thanksgiving consists of three families, one of which was vegetarian, we also have some non-traditional dishes each year that are always good. This menu consisted of four courses (also a problem because Thanksgiving in my mind is really just one massive course that can involve any number of plates, but all the food should be on the table the entire meal).

The first course was a minuscule portion of smoked salmon with peach salsa served with baby lettuce and sticky balsamic. The salmon was on top of an egg like pancake and had sour cream. The salmon was beautifully fresh and really overpowered the rest of the dish, which was fine. I absolutely would’ve eaten more of these had that option presented itself. Instead, I immediately began to worry about the amount of food that we were going to be served and attacked the gorgeous bread tray. This tactic was immediately rewarded as the bread was perfectly made (no small feat in China). The fresh pesto spread, along with the olive oil and balsamic vinegar that were available were what I would expect at an upscale restaurant in the US, and vastly surpassed what I would expect in China. My friend and I devoured slice after slice of bread mostly so we could eat the pesto, and secondly because we were skeptical we would receive enough turkey.

The second course was hot vichyssoise, which I discovered is a French style soup made with potatoes and leeks. This dish was good, but again I would’ve much preferred any of the normal potato dishes served on Thanksgiving, much less a French dish. This dish was followed by two speeches about what Thanksgiving means. The first was by a man from Calgary with an intense Western Canadian accent, which prompted my two Canadian friends to ask worriedly if thats how they sound? I assured them they didn’t, but was too distracted by the fact I had just learned Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving at all. I had assumed my Canadian friends, along with the Aussie, were just coming along for the ride. Apparently Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October, obviously our 4 day weekend of excess is dramatically better. This revelation was followed by a stereotypical American man. His belly was sticking awkwardly far out over the table and he went on and on about his life and had typed up some remarks about the original Thanksgiving. On to the main course!

Two birds were wheeled out and carved in front of us. As expected the plates were not generously filled as they were going for presentation over abundance. The stuffing was apple sausage and sage and served with grilled vegetables made up of peppers and red onions. A scoop of cranberry sauce and of brown gravy were stingily applied to the plate as well. Not too surprisingly the turkey was dry and the gravy was quite bland. The cranberry sauce teamed beautifully with the stuffing, which was the highlight of the main course. Thankfully they allowed for refills and after a workmanlike three plates of the main course it finally started to feel like Thanksgiving.

The dessert plate promised pumpkin pie and an apple puff slice. The dessert was the breaking point for my friend and I. He had verified prior to agreeing on the venue that they would have pumpkin pie, although he should have demanded a sample first. The first three courses had been decent and the wonderful Chilean wine and bread had sort of made of for the elements that were lacking. However, to call what was served to us pumpkin pie is atrocious and an affront to pumpkins everywhere. The first clue that it was an imposter was the yellowish color instead of the burnt orange. When someone across the table inquired if we had been served a quish I knew there was a problem, but decided to give it a try anyway. The flavor was that of squash not the advertised pumpkin (one of my favorite flavors). There was no cinnamon or all spice flavor and a complete and utter lack of whip cream. The apple puff slice served with warm caramel did its best to make up for its plate mate, but this was a devastating end to an otherwise forgettable meal that would’ve been saved with a solid slice of pumpkin pie.

Thankfully, the next day I was able to enjoy real pumpkin pie served by Peter’s Tex-Mex along with the Patriots Lions game. Saturday, I was lucky enough to receive a slice of pumpkin cheesecake, which was the highlight of the weekend.