Latinx Files: The Thanksgiving (or Sansgiving) recalentado

Hi folks, it’s Fidel. I’m on vacation, so this week we’re doing something we’ve never done before — tapping into our archives! Below is a reprint of the first-ever Latinx Files Thanksgiving-themed newsletter from three years ago. Because it was published during the COVID-19 pandemic, and because I apparently didn’t know the meaning of a word count, this version has been slightly updated and abridged.

I put out a call on Twitter earlier this month asking how you celebrated Thanksgiving. It’s quite clear that this traditional holiday is anything but for Latinx families.

The most common responses pertained to turkey, which my colleague Lucas Kwan Peterson put last in his Thanksgiving power rankings. Maybe he’d change his mind if he had it the way you guys normally eat it.

For those of you whose families hail from Puerto Rico, there’s pavochón, which is turkey seasoned like a lechón.

Salvadoran American respondents touted pan con chumpe as leftovers or the main course. If you’ve never had this delicious sandwich, you’re missing out.

For the Mexican Americans among you, el guajolote is served as tamales, pozole, mole or even birria. Like the pan con chumpe, these are eaten as the main meal or as leftovers.

Of course, not everyone is eating turkey for Thanksgiving. Some Cuban Americans eat lechón asado, some Argentine Americans go with churrasco, and there are Colombian Americans eating sancocho de rés — a beefy broth.

And then there are the sides, oh my! Who needs green bean casserole, regular ol’ boring stuffing or cranberry sauce when y’all are eating everything from mofongo stuffing, congri oriental, tequeños and pasteles en hoja? Oh, and tortillas instead of cornbread.

Some of you consider mashed potatoes a staple, but even they have a Latinx twist, whether they have chile relleno or green chiles.

Not all Latinx Thanksgiving traditions involve food. A few of you mentioned eating dinner very late, the next day or in some cases not at all. I can relate. Growing up, celebrating this holiday was a rarity for my family. When we did have it, it was usually thanks to the kindness of friends or extended family inviting us into their homes.

Regardless of how you celebrate this year, I hope you are doing it safely, and if you can’t be with your family this year, here’s hoping you can next Thanksgiving.

Thank you to those who responded to my call-out, and those reading this. I appreciate you.

Meet our readers: This is how Alejandra Ramos’ Puerto Rican family celebrates Thanksgiving

Alejandra Ramos

(Alejandra Ramos)

One of my favorite responses to the call-out, which made my mouth water, belonged to chef and TV host Alejandra Ramos. We spoke via Zoom last week to talk about her Boricua Thanksgiving, what it means to her and her family and how the pandemic is making them change it up this year. Her answers have been lightly edited for clarity.

The foods mentioned in your tweet sounded so delicious that I had to follow up. Tell me more about some of the foods found on your family’s dinner table.

It’s always been this very Puerto Rican-fied version of what we think of as a traditional U.S. Thanksgiving menu. We’ll have a turkey, but the seasoning for it is very much a sofrito-based marinade, like a marinade that’s essentially a cross between a sofrito and a brine because there’s a lot of salt in it. My mom and I marinate the turkey for at least two days, brush it off and then roast it. You’re still getting that roast turkey, but the flavors are very much like cilantro, lots of garlic, cumin, oregano and all the sorts of flavors we grew up eating.

And then the stuffing — my mom makes two. The first is a picadillo stuffing, which has ground beef, olives and sofrito.

She also does a mofongo stuffing, which uses the platano as the base instead of bread. You fry the plantains and smash them the same way you would make mofongo with chicharron, with garlic, with olive oil, salt, pepper, a little bit of sofrito and maybe a little bit of cumin. You mash it all together, but then it’s wetter than regular mofongo because of the sofrito. You bake it and it gives it a little crispy topping. It’s amazing. (You can find the mofongo recipe here.)

I grew up eating these two versions of stuffing, so bread stuffing to me is like, “What is this? Where’s the meat and plantains?” But interestingly enough, my brother — and I’m not sure how this happened, maybe he had it at a friend’s house when we were younger and he got into it — but he always asks for Stove Top stuffing, and every year my mom makes one batch straight out of the box, following the instructions to the letter, not adding anything to it. She makes one bowl of it, and nobody touches it. It’s all for him.

Aside from the delicious meal you just described, what else do you love about Thanksgiving?

Gratitude is a key tenet of our celebration, and we also go over the year that’s passed. It’s a look back at what we’ve been through, thinking of the good moments, those that have brought us together. My mom also adds a blessing for what’s to come ahead.

It’s also very much about having the ability to come together in the end, to have those little moments — especially as we’ve gotten older and we’ve moved away. My brother is a former Marine, so for some years he couldn’t join us for Thanksgiving, so being able to sit together at the table is a key part of it.

I’m a food person, but the food is the least interesting part to me. It’s really about the time of getting to be there and to hang out, and we’ll usually stay a day or two at my parent’s house to have those little pockets of time where it’s almost like being a kid again, where you’re just home and have those natural moments together where I might end up watching a show with my mom or playing a game in the living room with my brother.

It’s just about those organic moments together that we get less and less of as we get older as we expand our own lives. It’s a centering thing. It’s the beacon that brings you back home.

How will your family be celebrating this Thanksgiving?

This year I’ll be heading to my parents’ house as usual, although it’ll just be us for dinner because my brother, Gabriel, and his (as of this past weekend!) fiancée just got a second dog, which has made traveling home a little bit trickier for them with two large pets. Hopefully they’ll figure it out in time for Christmas! My husband is going to his mom’s dinner, but I didn’t want my parents to be alone so it’ll just be the three of us and my dog Jojo around the table for Thanksgiving. (I mean this literally because Jojo loves to sit on a chair too!)

Then this weekend, we’re all getting together with my husband’s family for my mother-in-law’s birthday, so that’ll be when we have the larger celebration. Thanksgiving dinner will be low-key, but I’m looking forward to a relaxed evening followed by a couple of lazy days reading and working on writing projects by the fire at their house.

It’s funny because in my industry we spend so much time on TV talking about Thanksgiving recipes and entertaining with this huge focus on “best this” and “best that,” but in reality, the actual best thing is whatever feels the most right for you and yours, even if that looks nothing like what’s on the cover of Bon Appetit.

(Jackie Rivera / For The Times; Martina Ibáñez-Baldor / Los Angeles Times)

Things we read this week that we think you should read

From De Los:

Will Jaime Jaquez Jr. be the next Latino basketball star?

There haven’t been many Latinos in the NBA in its 77-year history. Miami Heat rookie Jaime Jaquez Jr., a Southern California native of Mexican heritage, could be the latest Latino hoops star.

Creating my own holiday traditions without the toxic vibes

What does it mean to build your own Thanksgiving traditions without losing part of your identity? Column by De Los contributor Alex Zaragoza.

This small, Latino city took a public stance in support of Palestinians. Will others follow?

Cudahy is the first city in Southern California to support the Palestinian people of Gaza with a resolution that calls for a cease-fire.

They tried to Eurowash the Latin Grammys. Voters said otherwise

Thanks to a sweep by Latina artists of the four major categories, this year’s Latin Grammys proved who still dominates in the music industry. Column by Suzy Exposito.

From the L.A. Times:

‘Show up’ and campaign in Spanish: Rural Latino voters feel ignored by Senate candidates

As the state hurtles toward the 2024 Senate election, many Latino voters in rural California feel overlooked — more than even those living in the Bay Area or in Los Angeles.

A Mexican American professor who struggled with imposter phenomenon helps others overcome it

Angélica S. Gutiérrez faced many challenges growing up in Lincoln Heights and coped with feelings of inadequacy. Now she’s a national expert on imposter phenomenon, which often afflicts high achievers of color. This story originally appeared on L.A. Times en Español.

A failed recall heralds a new era for Latino politics in Orange County

Despite being outspent 8-1, a coalition of progressive groups in Santa Ana helped beat back a recall of a city council member who was opposed by real estate interests and the city’s police union. Column by Gustavo Arellano

Elsewhere:

ALERT: This is an emergency — but for English speakers only

Despite having the highest immigrant population in the country, only 21 out of 58 counties in California send out emergency alerts in languages other than English. Story by El Tímpano.