Thanksgiving Dinners Inspired By Ethnic Cuisines

Every Thanksgiving, I sit at the family table – which has included such fare as chapchae, steamed rice, and Peking duck – and imagine all the other melting-pot meals taking place across the country. Thanksgiving is the quintessential American holiday, and what better time to celebrate the diversity of our cuisines?

For some families, no holiday table would be complete without lumpia, kugel, or fattoush alongside the turkey and mashed potatoes. Others experiment with fusion fare – chorizo in the stuffing, hoisin sauce in the cranberries. Sometimes these multicultural touches are necessary to appease the older generations (grandpa can't imagine a meal without kimchee); other times it's the happy result of welcoming new family members and friends from different backgrounds. I just love hearing about how each cook and family makes Thanksgiving their own, and at the same time wholly American.

What ethnic-inspired dishes do you enjoy at Thanksgiving?

Dishes pictured above:

• Spiced Roasted Turkey with garlic, ginger paste, and toasted spices (Gourmet)
• Smoked-Oyster Sticky Rice Stuffing in Lotus Leaf with oysters, mushrooms, and Chinese sausage (Gourmet)
• Puerto Rican-Style Turkey with curry-and-chile-spiced marinade (Food & Wine)
• Pumpkin Flan with cayenne-spiced pumpkin seeds (Gourmet)

More inspiring menus:

• Asian-American Thanksgiving (Food & Wine)
• An Indian Thanksgiving (Epicurious)
• Italian-Infused Thanksgiving (Bon Appétit)
• A Mexican-Inspired Thanksgiving (Saveur)
• Thanksgiving with a Korean Twist (Real Simple)

(Images: Marcus Nilsson/Gourmet; Marcus Nilsson/Gourmet; Tina Rupp/Food & Wine; Romulo Yanes/Gourmet)

Comments (6)

I have to ask why we don't actually ever go back to what may actually have been consumed during the first Thanksgiving (which of course, was neither one celebration, nor in November). How about a return to our Native American culinary history? Instead of "ethnic" cuisine, how about our only true Native cuisine? Because what we eat now does not reflect the foods of those who were here long before the Europeans. Just a thought.

I want that pumpkin flan at my Thanksgiving table this weekend.

We are making traditions at this very moment. Pumpkin pie and football is just as American as venison and maize. The world is constantly changing, for better or worse. It's good to remember the past and be excited about the present - especially if it involves flan!

the link to the real simple korean thanksgiving menu actually takes you to the italian bon appetit menu. can you guys fix this? i'm super curious (and am sure many other are too)

@freefloatingsoul Sorry, the link is fixed now.

@baker_d - Traditional Thanksgiving foods don't reflect Native influences? Turkey, corn, sweet and white potatoes, cranberries, pumpkins and squash - these are all foods that are native to North and South America and did not exist in Europe before the Spanish took them back in the 16th century.

As for the original Thanksgiving - written record indicates that it included seafood, venison, wild fowl (possibly including turkey, but no written record identifies it) and corn. Northeastern tribes did not eat potatoes (though tuckahoe, a tuber cousin of arrowroot, was consumed in times of hardship and was used to lighten cornbread) and the corn would have been dent or flint corn (not sweet) and dried and ground into meal. There may have also been wild fruits and squashes as well as wild alliums like onions. But that is merely an educated guess, as these are not mentioned in the written record.

So really, we should be eating venison, eel and shellfish, wild game birds, and unleavened corn cakes and fire-baked squashes for Thanksgiving!

@vintagejenta, I always thought lobster was probably eaten then too, which admittedly sounds really awful to eat on Thanksgiving today! It would be fun and tasty to make some kind of corn and wild onion stuffed squash...