Thanksgiving Culture

The other day as I was on facebook–probably wasting time when I should have been doing homework– I noticed a picture my friend posted on her page. It was a picture of “arroz con dulce” and as the caption she wrote, “starting thanksgiving early =)”. She is Puerto Rican and I knew she ate Spanish food a lot, but I was unaware this was her traditional Thanksgiving dinner. When I think of an ideal Thanksgiving supper, I think of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberries, and apple pie. That is just the way I grew up and how I got to know Thanksgiving. Out of curiosity, I asked her if this was really what she had on Thanksgiving because I was simply unaware. She responded by saying yes and that this is a traditional Thanksgiving meal for many Spanish families. I don’t know if you would say I was ignorant for not knowing that there were different Thanksgiving meals for different cultures, but I was definitely surprised when I found that out. I know every culture has their own cultural foods, but I sort of thought that Thanksgiving was a national meal in which everyone ate turkey.

I was pretty amused by the whole idea of eating another Thanksgiving dinner. I tried picturing me and my family having that type of meal for Thanksgiving and it made me laugh…not because of the food itself, simply just because it is a completely different culture than the one I’m used to so anything else would feel weird and artificial to me. I actually love this cultural variety that we have in New York though. From house to house, there is uniqueness that we don’t get to see anywhere else, and being able to see these cultures and learn about them is rewarding in many ways.