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A Southwestern Thanksgiving

 

 

When the Plymouth colonists sat down to the first Thanksgiving dinner in 1621, legend has it that their new neighbors, the Wampanoag, brought much of the food:  deer, wild turkeys, fish, beans, squash, corn, cornmeal bread with nuts, succotash (beans and corn) and berries.  If a Thanksgiving feast had been celebrated in the Southwest at that time, a lot of the food would have been the same, but the participants would have been much more accustomed to one another.

 

The truth is that the Thanksgiving celebration in New England was by no means the first interaction between Europeans and American Indians:  On the other side of the continent, Spanish adventurers had crisscrossed Arizona and New Mexico in the 1540s, searching for the fabled Seven Golden Cities of Cibola; much of the Southwest had been claimed for the king of Spain in 1598; and Spanish settlers had founded Santa Fe around 1610.  So by 1621, European explorers and settlers had been interacting with the indigenous Zuni, Pima, Navajo, Hopi and Apache for decades.

 

The result was a dynamic interchange of culinary cultures.  The settlers brought sheep and cattle, planted fruit trees, introduced wheat and, most significantly brought the chili pepper to the region.  Although native peoples already used the wild chiltepin to season their foods, the cultivation of chilies from southern Mexico, along with tomatoes and avocados, transformed the cooking of the area.

 

That flavorful cuisine continues to evolve today:  Talented chefs apply sophisticated cooking techniques to local ingredients; farmers cultivate new crops from heirloom seeds; markets stock a wider variety of products; and home cooks are more adventuresome than ever before.

 

This spectacular menu below takes its cues from all of those changes and influences.  Although Thanksgiving dinner based solely on southwestern flavors might seem like a huge break with tradition for most people, a look at the menu will convince any doubter that it’s not.  All the classic dishes are here, each with a refreshingly different accent-and each one classically American.

 

I had a great deal of fun researching and putting together this menu.  The recipes come from various issues of Bon Appetit, Gourmet and Cook’s Illustrated magazines and the Epicurious web site (www.epicurious.com). 

 

Please join Evie and myself on Thursday, November 28th for the 18th annual Lovitz-McCabe Thanksgiving Feast.

 

Date:                    Thursday, November 28th, 2002

Time:          5pm

Place:          Haddonview Apartments

                   East-916

Phone:        609.898.9820/856.833.1777

 

 

 

A now – A Southwestern Thanksgiving Menu

 

 

·        Spicy Pumpkin Soup with Mexican Cream and Toasted Pepitas

 

(Gewürztraminer)

 

·        Achiote Butter-basted Turkey with Ancho Chili Gravy

·        Chili-Corn Corn Bread Stuffing

·        Medley of Zucchini, Chayote and Yellow Squash

·        Cumin Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes

·        Cranberry, Orange and Cilantro Salsa

·        Refrigerator Cumin Rolls

 

(Pinot Noir)

 

·        Pears Poached in Tequila with Prickly Pear-Raspberry Sauce

·        Lemon Bizcochitos

·        Chocolate-Bourbon Tart with Currants and Orange Custard Sauce

 

(Muscat)