Turkey Quest

As our friends and family in America get ready for Thanksgiving, I have another thing for you guys to be thankful for – turkeys! Turkey is one of my favorite foods. Sometimes at home, I would make turkey at non-holiday times of the year just to get my fix. Last year, I simply skipped the whole Thanksgiving tradition, preferring instead to be caught up in the local Sinterklaas celebrations.

This year, I decided that Thanksgiving was a necessity. A few weeks ago, a couple that works with Dennis had us over to their house for a dinner of traditional Romanian food. It was fun to learn a little bit about their homeland by tasting the different dishes. We wanted to return the favor and what better way than with a traditional Thanksgiving feast. Having guests make it seem like it’s worth the work involved. And it was a lot of work.

The main difficulty was getting a turkey. Apparently the Dutch don’t eat a lot of turkey. At the specialty stores, I could get duck, venison, pheasant, and rabbit, but not turkey. Heck, I can even get horse meat at the grocery store. My grocery store does have a service where you can special order cuts of meat for parties and stuff. Knowing this, I carefully wrote a note with all of the details for ordering the turkey including my name and cell phone number. The guy at the meat counter said he would call me on the Monday to let me know if he could get it. When I didn’t hear anything on Monday, I asked my Dutch coworker to call the store for me. I figured she’d have better luck speaking to them in Dutch than I would struggling in Dunglish. She found out that they couldn’t get the turkey. Plan B was to call the restaurant supply store. We shop there for work occasionally and they have a large selection of unusual products. But they also could not get a turkey. I was beginning to worry that my Thanksgiving was going to feature a chicken. Plan C was hunting on the internet for a poellier (a butcher for poultry). We found one in the neighboring town and gave them a call. Lo and behold, they actually have turkeys! So, we ordered the turkey for me to pick up on Saturday.

Saturday morning, I jumped on the train to the next town. Dennis chose not to go along because he was on call for work and isn’t really allowed to be so far from home. But, I was armed with my google map so I would be able to find the poellier from the train station. It was actually not a long walk. Despite our phone call, I was still worried that they wouldn’t have the turkey for me. I was thrilled when they brought out a beautiful whole turkey and wrapped it in a couple layers of plastic. It was an 11 lb. turkey and cost me about $75 – ouch! No wonder the Dutch don’t eat turkeys. Not only are their ovens too small, but these birds are expensive! I packed the turkey into my backpack for the trip home.

As I was walking back to the train station, I noticed a rather large kitchen equipment store. I stopped in to see if I could get a roasting pan. Of course in a country that doesn’t eat turkey, you can’t get a cheap disposable foil turkey roasting pan! I ended up buying a Pyrex roasting pan with a wire rack that holds the turkey off the bottom of the pan and can be used to lift the turkey out of the pan. It had a nice oval shape, a spout to pour off the cooking liquid, and it looked like the right size. I briefly considered pulling the turkey out of my backpack to check the size, but I refrained. I did not refrain from buying a new 9x13 cake pan. I have one at home, but all the non-stick coating is peeling off. Yeah, I spent another $75 at this store.

Almost back to the train station, I noticed that this town has a market on Saturday morning. It’s really close to the train station, so it was really convenient for buying the produce for the meal. I got sweet potatoes, broccoli, apples, grapes, and pecans. At least this stop was cheap – only about $15. But the stuff I bought was so heavy my arms were falling off just walking the two blocks to the train station. I called Dennis from the train and asked him to meet me at the station to help Sherpa the groceries to the house.

Let the cooking begin! On Saturday afternoon, I made Pecan Tassies and cranberry sauce. Do you believe that I could get fresh cranberries, OceanSpray even? On Sunday I got up and started the stuffing – from fresh bread because you can’t get the premade bags of bread cubes. I cooked and cooked and the turkey came out beautifully.

Our friends from Romania came over and we explained the Thanksgiving tradition. Since it’s a harvest celebration, all the food goes out to the table so it looks like a feast! And with all the food served at once, everything gets piled together on your plate. For Europeans, this is rather disgusting. Europeans eat meals in courses, served separately and on separate plates. We explained this to our guests and they played along like great sports. They had their plates piled with everything!

Most of the food was completely new to them. Stuffing of course is pretty American, and doesn’t sound very appealing. Soggy bread anyone? Come on, it’s been cooked inside a dead bird! The stuffing got a thumbs up. Sweet potatoes got a mixed review. Waldorf salad with candied pecans was also popular even though they had to ask, “What are pecans?” Likewise the pecan tassies for dessert were totally new, but good.

Now, I have a week’s worth of turkey leftovers. This morning I had to refrain from eating turkey for breakfast – I wouldn’t want to have turkey three times in one day! MMM, turkey heaven…

Now that we’ve shared the foods from our home countries, we decided that our next outing should be to a restaurant so nobody has to cook. I think we already have our next adventure scheduled. Dennis and I mentioned our plans to visit the Christmas Market in Cologne Germany in a couple weeks and our guests thought that sounded like a blast. So they are making their arrangements (hotel and train tickets) and we’ll explore another country together.