An Unforgettable, Untraditional, Idyllic Thanksgiving

When your parents immigrate to this country as mine did, chances are you don't ever really have a "typical" holiday. Well, I take that back. At least we always had a typical Florida Fourth of July: beach, rain, cook-out, rain, pray for end of rain and fireworks if no rain. Not so for other holidays.

It's that time of year when everyone reminisces about their idyllic Thanksgiving holidays. The ones that always get me are from people who live "up north;" the cold, crisp weather maybe snow for sledding, maybe some friendly flag football. The descriptions are always amazing and I have these beautiful storybook-like pictures in my head of what it was like to have family gathered around the table, mom bringing in the trays of food, dad carving the turkey and grandma always at the ready to help the little ones with their needs. Those are the same pictures I had in my head growing up in Florida with parents that embraced America, its holidays and all that they stood for but didn't really embrace the food.

Until I was in sixth grade, I always considered the Thanksgiving celebrations in my house spectacular. Holidays, regardless of what the actual celebration was, always meant that puerco asado would be part of the menu. Puerco asado or roast pork is a mainly Cuban tradition for either Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve but many immigrants serve it for other significant holidays, one of them being Thanksgiving. The significance of this meat dish is that it is time consuming to make. First, naranjas agrias or sour oranges have to be squeezed and the sofrito (a seasoning base of spices, onion and garlic) has to be prepared. These two ingredients are combined to make up the marinade for the pork meat. The meat will marinate for 24 hours then will slowly cook over the course of the day in the oven or the outdoor pit that has been specially dug up for the holiday.

But then I came to the realization, or so I thought, that puerco asado and yuca (cassava) and arroz con frijoles (rice with beans, specifically white rice and black beans) were not part of the American notion of an idyllic Thanksgiving. I wanted an American Thanksgiving like my normal American friends at school, like on TV - you know - like the Pilgrims. What kind of people were we serving these immigrant type foods on the most "American" of holidays? I made my case to my parents like only a good litigator could. I showed them my history book and recounted the story of the Pilgrims, the Indians and was especially attentive to stating the details around the foods served.

We lived in America and we needed to have an American Thanksgiving. Mind you, turkey is a North American bird so my parents who are from Latin America had no idea what to do with a turkey. "What do you do with a turkey? Do you cook it like chicken? Does it pair with yellow rice?" No, no I explained. You stuff it and cook it in the oven. Then you mash potatoes and make green beans with almonds in it and finally, you bake a pumpkin pie. "Stuff it with what? Why would you mash perfectly good potatoes? Since when do you cook green beans with a nut? And how can you make a pie out of a squash?"

It was no easy task but the Thanksgiving of my sixth grade year was the most idyllic I've ever known. The turkey was raw. The stuffing tasted like cardboard. Apparently, you can't mash perfectly good potatoes in the home of Latin immigrants. Almonds do not soften when you bake them even if it is with green beans. But at the very least, pumpkin pie is something that the Sara Lee brand carries.

You are probably wondering what the scoop is with the Sara Lee brand pumpkin pie? The Sara Lee brand is an eye-catcher because it literally translates to "Sara reads." It's a brand name that can be read in Spanish. So we at least had pumpkin pie. You know what else we had? We had puerco asado, yucca and arroz con frijoles. Thank goodness for the kindness of neighbors.

The puerco asado, in particular, has become one of my favorite holiday foods; perhaps one of my favorite foods (period) because we only get it at holidays. If you are so inclined to scrounge around for sour oranges, here is the recipe for puerco asado. We actually had a sour orange tree in our backyard but we still had to scrounge because the neighbors from two to three blocks away would come and pick the oranges off our tree!

Idyllic Thanksgivings are hard to come by. When you get one, hold on to it. You don't know when another one will come your way. Happy Thanksgiving! Happy "Every" Holiday!

Receta de mi abuela para (my grandmother's recipe for) Puerco Asado

- Pernil (pork leg) about from 8.5 to 10 pounds
- Freshly squeezed juice of 4 to 5 sour oranges (should be about a cup but can be a little more)
- 1 small head of garlic Large onion chopped
- 1 TBSP cumin
- 2 TBSP Oregano
- 2 TBSP Black Pepper
- Salt

Cut the pork leg along the outer skin layer enough to allow spices and marinade to seep into the meat. Generously salt the leg by hand; don't just pour the salt over but actually apply the salt directly to the pork leg. Place pork leg into same broiler pan you will cook it in. Once you apply the spices and pour the sour orange marinade, you won't want to transfer the meat.

With the mortar and pestle crush/mash the peeled garlic with a teaspoon of salt and two tablespoons of black pepper; a paste should form. Apply the paste into the cuts of the pork leg, as you did with the salt. In a bowl combine the juice with the cumin, oregano and chopped onions and drizzle over the leg; don't pour because you will wash away the applied spices. Let pork marinate overnight - 24 hours is preferable.

Set oven at 250°. This is a slow cooking recipe it will take at least four hours but maybe longer. Intermittently, check on the leg and take a baster and squirt the leg to keep it moist and cooking in the marinade and spices. It might be a good idea to keep pork slightly covered with some aluminum foil, then remove foil after the third hour of cooking.