Untraditional traditions

By Jena Levy

Sophomore Sarah Lipman has a very special Thanksgiving tradition that resulted of an incident that was not so special.

Her parents grew up with two different religious backgrounds. Her mother is Catholic and her father is Jewish, and the two families do not get along.

When she was 7 years old, her uncle, her mother’s brother, did not invite their family to Thanksgiving dinner. Her father thought it was his fault they weren’t invited so to cheer him up, her mother made his favorite meal: lobster and crab cakes, Lipman says.

For some families, Thanksgiving does not mean turkey. They’ve substituted the traditional bird for different foods as the centerpiece of the table. They are not protesting this tradition, just creating their own. And tradition is what creates the sentimental value of this holiday. Since every family is special and distinctive, a Thanksgiving dinner must reflect each family.

When Lipman’s brother was asked to draw a picture of his Thanksgiving dinner for his kindergarten teacher seven years ago, he drew the clambake.

“He drew my whole family, all five of us, with five lobsters on the table. The teacher didn’t believe him and said that wasn’t a Thanksgiving dinner,” she says. “But that’s our Thanksgiving dinner.”

Sophomore Carly Bergstein has a family Thanksgiving with all the traditional trimmings, except turkey, she says. Due to the picky eating habits oh her family, her mother makes chicken cutlets because she thinks no one will eat turkey.

“I don’t even know if I like turkey,” Bergstein says.

Thanksgivings without turkey can also be the result of lifestyle choices. With vegetarians more popular today, Tofurky, a turkey supplement, is their chosen meal on Thanksgiving.

Tofurky, billed as “American’s Leading Turkey Alternative,” was created by Turtle Island Foods and was first marketed to the U.S. in 1995. As of January 1, 2006, they had sold 882,310 Tofurky’s, according to their Web site. Tofurky is popular for its similarity in taste and texture to real turkey.

“It’s delicious,” says senior and Tofurky enthusiast Danielle Shadduck. “It’s moist and flavorful. There is a gravy that goes with it and it makes a great Thanksgiving dinner.”

New ways of cooking your turkey have also become popular traditions. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, deep-frying, grilling and smoking a turkey have become the new and trendy ways to cook your Thanksgiving turkey, with deep-frying being the most popular.

A poll commissioned by LouAna Peanut Oil and Cajun Injector Marinade shows that of 1,000 adults surveyed, 49% of adults have eaten fried turkey, and 28% plan to eat fried turkey this holiday season.

The top two reasons why people choose to deep-fry their turkeys are because it drastically cuts the time it takes to cook a turkey. It takes approximately 45 minutes to deep-fry a 12-pound turkey, compared to the three hours it takes to oven-roast a turkey. And second, people who eat deep-fried turkey brag of its juicier and richer flavor.

Senior Chloe Gallo’s family started deep-frying their turkey three years ago when her father got a new gadget that he was excited to use, she says.

“I was skeptical at first because I’m not very big on fried foods, but it tasted so much juicier and we didn’t have to wait forever for dinner,” she says.

Senior Katie Harber said she never had a better Thanksgiving than the year her grandfather deep-fried their turkey.

“First, he injected it with Cajun spices and then plopped it in the deep-fryer. We all started laughing because we thought it was going to be a disaster, but it was so good,” she says. “He hasn’t deep-fried it since, but my sister and I still always beg him to do it. He always says ‘Maybe next year.’ ”

In addition, people will bring the traditional foods of their ethnicities to the Thanksgiving table. Food writer Joan Nathan says that Italian Thanksgivings will include lasagnas and a bread stuffing that has crumbled-up sweet Italian sausage. A Lebanese Thanksgiving would include hummus, stuffed squash, stuffed grape leaves, an okra-and-lamb dish served over rice, and always turkey.

Elissa Sinatra, a senior at McGill University, combines the Italian traditions of her family with American Thanksgiving every year. They used to serve both traditional Italian food, such as lasagna, bread stuffed mushrooms and tiramisu, along with the Turkey dinner on Thanksgiving, she says, but it became too much to eat.

“Now we eat American Thanksgiving on Thursday, and an Italian feast on Friday. We call it ‘Saucey Friday’ because all we spend all day making my Grandma’s special homemade tomato sauce,” says Sinatra.

Senior Sonia Dasgupta, who is of Indian descent, combines American Thanksgiving with the Indian foods her family loves for Thanksgiving. They have chicken makhni, which is chicken in a creamy tomato sauce that has Indian spices; saag paneer, which is spinach and cheese, naan or puri which are two types of bread; and biriyani, which is similar to Indian fried rice, she says.

The Thanksgiving feast seems to be changing as rapidly as we devour the joyous feast on Thanksgiving Day. One thing has always stayed the same with the celebration of this holiday though, and that’s tradition.

Lipman’s mother can relate. “My mom still makes cranberry sauce and stuffing though,” she says. “She needs some resemblance of the Thanksgiving dinner she had when she was growing up.”

For Lipman, that will be lobster and crab cakes.