感恩节是关于食物的节日

感恩节是关于食物的节日

Forget friends and family! Without the traditional meal, it feels like any old dinner party.

忘记朋友和家人!没有传统的食物，它感觉像往常任何一个晚餐聚会。

You know how every November the cooking magazines are full of articles on how you should shake up the traditional Thanksgiving meal and make it new and exciting? Out with the boring mashed potatoes, in with the roasted smashed potatoes with chermoula! Forget a green salad – what about glazed leeks with pine nut salsa verde? And who wants to roast a whole turkey? Why not braise the turkey legs or serve a ham instead? (Yes, Bon Appétit, I'm looking at you.)

你知道每年11月的烹饪杂志上都满是关于如何改变传统感恩节大餐的文章吗?拿着无聊的土豆泥出来，拿着烤土豆泥进去。忘了蔬菜沙拉吧——绿松仁韭菜沙拉怎么样?谁想烤一整只火鸡?为什么不把火鸡腿炖一下，或者用火腿代替呢?(是的，祝你胃口好，我正看着你呢。)

Public Domain. Unsplash / element5 digital

I used to think these ideas were great and wished my family would add some inventiveness to our Canadian Thanksgiving dinner – until this year, when we did. In fact, we reinvented it so much that it wasn't even Thanksgiving dinner anymore. We ate chicken with a Parmesan panko crust, basmati rice pilaf, roasted carrots, and a lettuce salad with roasted beets. For dessert we had bourbon pound cake with ice cream. In other words, it was like any other nice meal I'd have at my parents' house.

我曾经认为这些想法很好，并希望我的家人能给我们的加拿大感恩节晚餐添加一些创新——直到今年，我们做到了。事实上，我们对它进行了大量的改造，以至于它甚至不再是感恩节晚餐了。我们吃了鸡肉配帕尔马面包皮、印度香米饭饭、烤胡萝卜和烤甜菜生菜沙拉。甜点我们点了波本一磅蛋糕加冰淇淋。换句话说，它就像我在父母家吃的任何一顿美餐一样。

We had to do this out of necessity. My mom and siblings run a wood-fired pizza company that usually shuts down at the beginning of September, but this fall, they stayed open until Thanksgiving (the second weekend of October in Canada). Its last day of operation was Saturday, and we have our traditional Thanksgiving meal on Sunday. My whole family was so exhausted from pizza-making – and coping with the death of a grandparent the previous week – that they had no energy left for a feast. Hence our 'lazy' Thanksgiving, made with ingredients we already had.

我们是迫不得已才这样做的。我妈妈和兄弟姐妹经营着一家用木材烧制的披萨公司，通常在9月初就关门了，但今年秋天，他们一直营业到感恩节(在加拿大，感恩节是10月的第二个周末)。周六是它营业的最后一天，我们在周日享用传统的感恩节大餐。我们全家都因做披萨而疲惫不堪——前一周还得应对一位祖母的去世——以至于他们都没力气吃一顿大餐了。所以才有了我们的“懒惰”感恩节，用我们现有的食材做的。

© K Martinko – Getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner 2019

As usual the meal was delicious and the company delightful, but it wasn't until after the weekend that I was left with a sense of loss, as if something were missing. That's when I realized that, for me, Thanksgiving is very much about the food, and not just the lovely people who share the dinner with me. It's my one chance to taste dishes that I don't eat at any other time of year, and that is precisely why it's so special. Mashed potatoes with gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, the fresh free-range turkey from a friend's farm – I need these things in order for it to truly feel like Thanksgiving.

像往常一样，这顿饭很美味，和大家在一起也很愉快，但直到周末结束后，我才有了一种怅然若失的感觉，好像少了什么似的。那时我才意识到，对我来说，感恩节更多的是关于食物，而不仅仅是那些和我一起分享晚餐的可爱的人们。这是我在一年中任何时候都不会吃的菜，这是我唯一的机会，这也正是它如此特别的原因。肉汁土豆泥、馅料、蔓越莓酱、南瓜派、朋友农场的新鲜放养火鸡——我需要这些东西，才能让感恩节有真正的感觉。

In other words, don't let food magazines push you to change something that's already fabulous. They're just doing their job, but there is nothing wrong with cooking the same thing year after year; maybe, like me, you need it to feel like the holiday is complete! It's just one meal out of 365, after all, so who cares about repetition?

换句话说，不要让美食杂志强迫你去改变一些已经很不错的东西。他们只是在做他们的工作，但是年复一年地做同样的东西并没有什么错;也许，像我一样，你需要它来感觉假期是完整的!毕竟，这只是365顿饭中的一顿而已，谁在乎重复呢?

So, this is my plea to you not to give up on traditional Thanksgiving this year just because you're tired or stressed or feeling like you should. And you can be sure that I'll make a big deal out of Christmas dinner, just to compensate for having missed out on the Thanksgiving that I never realized I loved so much. Never again!

所以，我恳请大家不要仅仅因为疲惫、压力大或者感觉应该就放弃感恩节。你可以肯定的是，我会在圣诞晚餐上大做文章，只是为了弥补我错过了这个我从未意识到自己如此热爱的感恩节。再也不会!