Festa del Tacchino | Donna in Piedmont
When we invited our friends over for our holiday called Thanksgiving in Italian it translates to Giorno d' Ringraziamento (day of many thanks) they were thrilled. I did all of the calculations for what looked to be a 20 pound turkey and didn't overextend myself on the side dishes; for John - squash with hazelnuts, for me - brussels sprouts with pancetta and to give thanks to the guy who deserves the most I would make Aldo's favorite version of potato... mashed.
The turkey was in the oven for about 20 minutes when all of the power in the house went out. It took another 20 minutes to find the circuit box that was thankfully circa late 20th century and flipped the switch. It took about five minutes for the stove to start to heat up before and the power went out again. After a few more trial and errors I isolated the problem down to the oven. Which for various reasons I had yet to use.
Home alone, I called John and said we might have to cancel our dinner, or quite possibly change roasted turkey to turkey soup since the stovetop was working fine. John who was already dreaming of roast turkey assured me that he would find a solution and said he would be home right away. As time was ticking away I was struck by the overall lack of stress. There were no high expectations with this crowd, a party in late November is welcome no matter what is served.
True to his word John came home promptly yet immediately ran the risk of ruining my calm demeanor by re-testing everything I had already tried before I called him. Biting my tongue while answering the door our savior Andrea the electrician who also happened to be Aldo's brother had arrived.
I moved my prep work and the turkey out of the kitchen while John and Andrea discussed the problem before to my shock and awe they started pulling the entire kitchen apart to try to get the back of the stove. I tried to again float the turkey soup idea but they weren't listening. I could tell John had been talking up the whole traditional roast turkey dinner thing so neither of them were willing to give up.
After several more power outages, Andrea figured out the problem and jury-rigged a solution which required stringing a wire across the room that plugged the oven into a wall socket for power. When he saw the look on my face he assured me it was safe as he packed up his tools to leave. We had lost about an hour but I knew we could make it up along the way.
In the end our long legged, small breasted turkey required far less time that his more busty American cousin and was ready promptly at 8:00.
When our friends arrived they asked all sorts of questions about the origins of the "Festa of Thanksgiving". If one chooses to accurately report historical events then try to translate them to a foreign language it could sound somewhat absurd. Forgetting Indians and Pilgrims I said it was a day to give thanks for all we have while John went in the other direction and talked about the abuse of the Native Americans by invading Europeans.
"And will you be serving a dish I have heard very much about.... the salad of bread, what is it called?" Marisa asked
We again took off another language odyssey "We call this bread salad 'stuffing' because it is bread and a mixture of various things depending upon where you come from and it is stuffed inside of the turkey to cook. But we no longer cook it in this fashion due to the fact that we were told it would make us sick." Based on that description she seemed relieved that I didn't make it.
I wonder what they say about us on their way home....
The rest of the meal came off without a hitch, I learned a new word "eroe" or "hero" which we dubbed both Andrea and John.
In the end the biggest difference between our Festa del Tacchino in Piedmont and our celebrations of Thanksgiving in America seemed to come down to expectation and enjoyment. No one had any expectations; hence we were free to enjoy a nice dinner of Ringraziamento.
...Italian, Italy, Thanksgiving, Festa del Tacchino