Un Grand Diner – Thanksgiving in France

The briskness in the air, the changing of the leaves, the gathering of family – fall is my favorite season, and correspondingly Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. 

Traditionally, my family and I travel up to the “Hosey House” for a giant dinner at my aunt’s house which is nestled in the woods in Northeastern Pennsylvania.  It always includes a ridiculous amount of delicious food and amazing company in a quintessential Thanksgiving setting.

However, this year all that has changed.  One of the rules of the IFC (the organization that sponsored and allowed me to go on this trip) is that I can’t come home to the states during holidays as they want me to have a full cultural experience and take part in the holiday traditions of the French. 

I totally agree with this policy, and I am looking forward to experiencing how the French celebrate Christmas.  But the French don’t have Thanksgiving…. 

BTW, they don’t have Halloween either, but that didn’t bother me as much.  Honestly I would have forgotten Halloween altogether if I wasn’t reminded by my family back in America sending candy.  But I love Thanksgiving, so I decided I would bring Thanksgiving to the Frenchies.

For the French, however, instead of a break for Thanksgiving they have a break similar to our Veterans Day, where students have off from school.  So my family and I packed our bags and headed west to Biarritz for a long weekend.  This was two weeks ago. 

Biarritz is a cute little town known for its architecture and blue, red, and green roofs.  From the beach you can see Spain and the Pyrenees Mountains.  And yes, when I say beach, I mean the Atlantic Ocean, and we went swimming in November.  The water was cold but the weather was beautiful, and I got to try surfing for the first time; it was a cool experience but rather difficult to actually get up, and once I was up, I had trouble keeping my balance.  

Anyways, three other families joined us there and everyday we’d picnic on the beach, and the kids played in the sand, water, or tanned (a favorite among the teenage girls).  And usually before dinner, around 6 or so, everyone did their “sport” – tennis, swimming, running – everyone got active. 

Biarritz has a lot of really neat cliff walkways that follow the coast, overlooking the sea, so my host parents and I decided to run to the light house and back. (Of course I didn’t know that would be an hour and half run before I agreed to going).  It was a wonderful weekend, and heading back to school and work on Monday was dreaded by everyone.

While in Biarritz, we talked about how I planned to prepare a Thanksgiving feast for my family.  Well everyone was curious because no one had ever had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.  So by the end of the weekend, my dinner went from five people to fifteen people (What did I get myself into?).

From the stuffing to the cranberry sauce to the turkey to the pumpkin pie, I introduced my host family and our friends to a traditional Thanksgiving meal. 

Of course, finding all the ingredients in the first place was hard (thankfully my mom mailed a few key ingredients and the recipes).  The French don’t normally eat turkey, just sometimes for Christmas, so that was another problem, but we did manage to find a turkey weighing 5kg (about 11 pounds).  Another hassle was converting all recipes to the metric system.... But in the end, dinner was a success. 

We had our big dinner this past Friday night, rather than the traditional Thursday.  I had school until six that night, so as soon as I got home I put the turkey in the oven and got to work. Luckily for me though, three of my friends came over to help, so in the mist of frantic chopping and peeling, mixing and stirring, mouthwatering aromas reminded me of home and created a nostalgic setting. 

Somehow we managed to pull it all off, and everyone was eating dinner by 10:30pm. (It seems late, but for France, that’s pretty normal for a dinner party). This was my first time actually making a full out Thanksgiving meal, and I have to say, it was pretty delicious.

We had une dinde (turkey), la fasse (stuffing), une purée de pommes de terre (mashed potatoes), les carottes (carrots), les haricots vertes et maïs (green beans and corn), sauce à la canneberge (cranberry sauce), gravy, un crumble de pommes (apple crisp), et une tarte de citrouille pour le dessert (pumpkin pie for dessert).

The pumpkin pie was definitely a new culinary adventure for the French, and everyone’s compliments were followed by “C’est bizarre!”  But that’s how we do it in America. 

I have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.