First, I must apologize. I am a bit behind on Blogging these days. But I am back at it and wanted to share a few blogs about some great things that happened last fall here in Korea. One of those wonderful experiences was to have a Traditional Thanksgiving Meal here in our home for non-Americans.
We have been talking about Thanksgiving food with some of our non-American friends for 3 years, and it was finally time to have them to our house for a traditional American Thanksgiving meal.
I planned out every detail of how I could prepare this meal with just one small oven and a crock pot. Several of the Belgian ladies came over to the apartment the day before the meal and helped me chop cranberries, make butterhorns (an Yvette Fischbach Tradition in the family) prepare pie crusts, and make the filling for 2 pumpkin pies and a pecan pie. They had never had any of these food before, so it was a learning experience for them as well. I baked the pies on Thursday. (technically, Wednesday in the USA) They turned out great.
Friday morning I put the first turkey in the oven so that it would be ready to take out and cook the “Turducken” later. What is that, you ask? It’s a big turkey, deboned (except for the legs and wings) and then stuffed with a duck that has been previously deboned and stuffed with a small deboned chicken. It also had some cajun stuffing packed in there between the meats. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but the Belian families really wanted to have Turducken because they had heard so much about it. I was able to secure one already prepared, in the frozen state. So we cooked a tradional turkey and then a turducken.
Andre did a beautiful job of carving both of the turkeys.
We also had a fresh cranberry/orange/apple/pineapple salad, sweet potato souffle, broccoli casserole, and more stuffing (as well as gravy). It was all so delicious.
Everyone was pretty excited to see how the food was presented. And then we all dug in!
Our friend Randy from Belgium had to have his picture taken with the chef! (how sweet)
They were all so thrilled. Everyone had seconds of their favorite, and then after dinner, while sipping on some wine, we sat around the living room and I asked everyone individually to tell me what their favorite food was. Turducken did not come in first, I can say, but we were all happy to have had the chance to try it. I think everyone loved the fresh cranberry salad and also the 2 vegetable casseroles. And we took a vote on cool whip vs. the spray can whipped topping, and they all loved the cool whip. Andre’ was happy.
It was a with great pleasure to have had these people in our home for a Traditional American meal. They were very grateful, and we were all very stuffed!!!
maryafischbach/Korea 
Wonderful chapter, Mary Ann and Andre, well done. Uh…a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey?? Never heard of this. Sounds weird.
I had first heard about a Turducken in Scranton, PA. Thought we should give it a try at least once. This one was frozen, so it probably wasn’t the best one. Don’t think I’d spend the money again to do it. Regular Turkey is just so much better.