Thanksgiving in Rome

We have celebrated Thanksgiving in Rome since we first got here and by now, it’s a family tradition.  As it’s not a holiday, we always celebrate Thanksgiving lunch on Saturday. This enables me to recover from a fun but long day of getting up at 6am to prep the turkey to clearing up after the lunch which usually ends at 5pm.

To put together the Thanksgivings meal, I usually plan several weeks ahead of time as I can only some ingredients from a specialty shop and on top of that, I need to the turkey from a butcher’s. Here in Rome, that’s the only place I’ve been able to purchase a whole turkey.  Not to disappoint you but I haven’t been able to find Butterball in the supermarkets.

Thanksgiving in Rome: Turkey Dilemma

I have ordered turkey from the same butcher shop every year but this year, we decided to order it from a butcher’s closer to our house.  When I went to pick it up Friday morning, I was told the turkey order didn’t arrive.  I was freaking out as the one thing you can’t do without for Thanksgiving is the turkey.  No turkey, no Thanksgiving!

I called my husband and he said he would call the butcher we always order the turkey from to see if they have any.  I was so desperate I even told him that even if it wasn’t a whole turkey, it’s ok.  I mean, we had already bought all the other ingredients and invited the family.

He called me back and told me that they had a whole turkey and when he came back that evening with the 6kg turkey, he told me how we were fortunate to have it.  A lady had ordered a turkey but when she came to pick it up she said it was too small as she had 20 guests.  She requested a bigger turkey and that’s how we ended up with this “smaller” turkey.  I am sure thankful for this lady!

Other Dishes

As for the other ingredients , I was able to buy cranberry sauce and canned pumpkin from Castroni in Via Cola di Rienzo but I didn’t find cornbread.  I often get cornbread mix but as I wasn’t able to get my hands on any, I resorted to researching the recipe online.  It’s actually easier than I thought as it’s easy to find cornmeal here in Rome. It turned out really good and I will share the recipe later this week.

We also had the usually mash potatoes, mushroom gravy, cream corn and stuffing with chestnuts, mushroom and pancetta.  What’s new in this year’s menu were crispy cream-braised fennel (I left out the potatoes as we were already having mash potatoes) and pumpkin ricotta pound cake.

Crispy Cream-Braised Fennel

The reason why I decided on the pumpkin ricotta pound cake instead of pumpkin pie is because every year, the pumpkin pie is left almost untouched.  It’s usually only eaten by me (and my sister when she is here).  My husband’s family just can’t seem to get into it!

However, sometimes I wonder if it is just because they are already stuffed when they get to the dessert.  This year, my assumption was confirmed – they just don’t like pumpkin pie as the pumpkin ricotta pound cake with creme anglaise faired better!

Pumpkin Ricotta Pound Cake with Creme Anglaise

Unfortunately this year, I wasn’t able to take as many pictures as I was busy carving the turkey and setting up the table. In addition, my nieces kept me busy as I played with them and totally forgot to take pictures of the stuffing! As always, we had leftovers but Thanksgiving without leftovers isn’t Thanksgiving, is it?

Every year, I wish we could invite more friends to experience Thanksgiving with us but with the growing family (now at 11), it’s hard to sit everyone at the table.  The other option is that we could have Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday with friends and lunch on Saturday with family. At the moment, I can’t imagine prepping two meals in a week.  It’s just too laborious!

For sure we have will Thanksgiving in Rome again next year and maybe if I plan ahead we will be able to do something with friends too. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, in whichever way you decided to spend it.  Apart from all the food, what were you thankful for?