American Thanksgiving in Chile

The other day at school, one of the girls invited me to dinner.  Specifically, American Thanksgiving.  She was friends with an American guy in Santiago for work and being Dutch, she never experienced Thanksgiving.  So, her and I set out to make a Thanksgiving dinner with Chilean ingredients.  There was a lot of compromising to be made…

We called our adventure, Iron Chef Santiago.  Instead of a turkey, we settled for a chicken.  Stuffing wasn’t a problem, however, the spices (thyme, sage, etc…) were.  The American’s apartment only had salt.  One of his co-workers had garam masala at his place, so garam masala is what we seasoned it with.

Yams, not a problem.  The mashed yams with brown sugar and nuts still turned out great (but with walnuts cause there’s no pecans here)

Gravy and cranberries were impossible. No hope.

The pumpkin pie was an adventure in itself.  I went to the Mercado Central which is quite possibly one of the biggest fruit and vegetable markets in the world and bought something that resembles a pumpkin.  Pie crust? Another huge challenge.  I normally would have made pie crust from scratch but didn’t have the time and the kitchen of my homestay is the size of a closest.  But a metro, bus and 20 minute walk (each way) got me to this massive grocery store that sold pre-made pie crusts. (Santiago has a shortage of grocery stores)

So, in the end, I celebrated American Thanksgiving in Chile, on a rooftop overlooking Cerro San Cristobal with an American, 2 Brazilians and a Dutch girl.  For 3 of them, it was their first Thanksgiving ever, it was my first eating Thanksgiving dinner outside, on a rooftop and with a spoon (we had a shortage of forks…)