Last week I was walking home and stopped short when I saw some turkeys running around in the street! The only other time I had heard of turkeys existing in China was when a Peace Corps Volunteer had ordered a turkey to be sent to his home in Sichuan from a Beijing business catering to foreign ex-pats. The turkey arrived the morning of Thanksgiving still alive (unexpectedly!) on his doorstep. So imagine my surprise when I saw these turkeys running around just 2 blocks from my apartment.
There were five turkeys. The owners said they raised them for fun, not to eat. But when I went back this week, only three were left, the other two sold to Americans living in town for just over $50. I am not that committed to turkeys on Thanksgiving to purchase one.Instead, my friends and I decided to celebrate Thanksgiving in China with a frozen chicken. I like to cook, but I don't really cook much meat, especially not roasts, and especially not roasts in a toaster oven. I saw the workings of a disaster in the making. But my friend Jonathan came all the way from Beijing to help. His help came in handy when it came to defrosting the chicken to find that the head and claw feet were still on the bird.
(Sorry for the graphic details). Aside from be-heading the chicken, we had a few minor incidents involving opening a can of pumpkin pie mix without a can opener and blowing fuses by using the toaster oven too much.We also found a little mini-keg of black German beer for the special occasion. The problem was the directions for getting the beer out were all in German and the process was not as simple as it looked (so we thought). We thought we had to pump the bottom spout. We each took turns scraping our fingers to pump the keg. But only a small amount would trickle out. At one point, we joked that we would be thankful if we made it through the evening with no trips to the emergency room.
I don't know if anyone has ever used one of these things, but.....
The next day Jonathan, determined to get the rest of the beer out of the keg, figured out there was an air hole on top. No pumping necessary. The beer poured out smoothly.In any case, we had a great dinner. [Sorry, we could not fit the cooked chicken on the table, but it turned out surprisingly well].
It was a fun holiday in China. But I have to say how nice it will be to be back in the US for the rest of the holiday season. [I will be in CO Dec 16 and 17, then Pittsburgh until New Years-you should know how to find me].
6 comments:
For a true cross-cultural experience you could have tried Peking Turkey...
I'm glad you had a good Thanksgiving! I'll have to try doing Thanksgiving in a toaster oven some year. And, I like your hair! Cute bangs!
If you are free when you are in CO, let me know. I will be here!
I remember I invited one of my Chinese friends and one of the teachers from Hong Kong to my first Thanksgiving. I made apple pie which worked out well, but I tried to make mashed potatoes, which turned out to be a disaster. Rather than making plain mashed potatoes, I wanted to use my mom's recipie which called for sour cream. I decided to substitute creme fraiche (which I attempted to make from whole milk). Then, I made the mashed potatoes. Everyone insisted I wanted white potatoes. So I bought what looked like white potatoes. But it turns out China has these potatoes that are white but taste like sweet potatoes. Of course I didn't discover this until after I added the creme fraiche. I think it was probably the worst tasting thing I ate the entire time I was over there. And of course I felt like Vitti and Lulu were basing their opinions of Western food on this meal. I was mortified. And then we had chicken - and my friend Lulu didn't know how to eat it. And we drank the Tibetian Ice Wine, which I was quite fond of by the end of my trip. But the lone hit of the evening, was green bean casserole. Which I was able to make after trips to Carrefour, Walmart, the Japanese grocery store, as well as the big, fancy Chinese mall downtown. I remember this because none of the stores had the ingredients that I thought they should (i.e. the Japanese place had campells soup, but walmart did not).
After that I pretty much gave up trying to make western food in China. Though I did use my toaster oven to make pumpkin pie the next year. However, the pumpkin was from a fresh one, and ended up tasting like sweet potato pie. My Chinese room mate liked that, but my Austrian classmate was totally grossed out.
Anyway, your story made me laugh. They didn't have turkeys in Dalian around Thanksgiving, but surprisingly at Christmas, it was really easy to buy smoked turkey at all the Chinese grocery stores.
Awesome. I'm putting a link to your blog on my own blog... You do better with the whole 'humorous storytelling' thing
Oh my god, that's the funnest Thanksgiving story I've heard so far
Look how easy it is to roast a turkey in a toaster oven, according to this promotional photo from Black & Decker:
http://www.blackanddeckerappliances.com/product-176.html
Why would anyone ever need another appliance?
I will be seeing you real soon back here in Boulder - I'm looking forward to it.
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