My family never observed Thanksgiving until I was a teenager.
Although they were no strangers to the grim after-effects of colonization, my Indian immigrant parents weren’t taking a principled stance with Indigenous tribes to mourn the European settlers’ arrival in North America and the land theft, systemic persecution and genocide that followed.
They just thought turkey looked gross.
My dad had a change of heart in 1986 during a trip to England, when he took a bite of turkey that his medical school classmate prepared.
Once back home, my dad suggested we give the quintessential Thanksgiving staple a try on the actual holiday.
Turkey meat is inherently dry and bland by South Asian standards, but it has potential, he told my mom, convincing her that she and our close family friend, Anwari Aunty, could easily elevate the bird’s flavor with their culinary skills and some desi seasoning.
Soon after that fowl proposal, the Hussain household forayed into Thanksgiving, clutching the fancy cutlery that we eschewed for our eat-with-hands Indian dinners.
Because my family members were Johnny-come-latelies to Thanksgiving and make merry with spices Christopher Columbus failed to discover, I can appreciate that there is no one way to mark the occasion.
Mick, my vegetarian husband, and several vegan in-laws are also a reminder to us carnivores that gobbling down turkey isn’t mandatory on the last Thursday of November.
My older sister’s husband, who is repulsed by any kind of white meat, even skips the standard sides for an entire Indian spread with a lamb or beef entree. And my brother’s twin tweens are served special Cornish hens with a peanut-free stuffing to keep their allergies in check.
While the cooks in our family are more than happy to accommodate dietary restrictions and preferences for our relatives and friends, there is one Hussain tradition we will not budge on — the time we eat Thanksgiving dinner.
Thanksgiving dinner for us has always hovered around 8 p.m.
I never expected a masala-tinged turkey on a menu offered by my in-laws, who are mostly of German and Irish descent. But I was taken aback at the hour we started feasting the first time we got together for Thanksgiving.
It was so early, by the time we drove back to Chicago from Michigan, we still had minutes to spare before my family set the table in the north suburb where I grew up.
Mick often points out that my family is among the outliers, as most Americans eat their Thanksgiving dinners in the afternoon, so they can graze on leftovers and gather around the TV to watch football, a sport I could do without any time of the year.
The majority of respondents in a recent marthastewart.com poll did say they believe a Thanksgiving meal should begin between 2 and 3 p.m. The least popular time is after 6 p.m., according to Stewart’s following, which, I’m willing to bet, tends to skewer less Brown (and Black).
All jokes aside, I am grateful that Mick and I frequently hang out with both sides of our families just for the heck of it. Also, Thanksgiving dinners aren’t annual one-offs that end in shouting matches — not that we aren’t loud and shy away from confrontation.
Less than a decade before I met Mick, my two sisters did get into a tense fight in the days leading up to our dad’s last Thanksgiving.
He had just been diagnosed with cancer that October and informed us that he didn’t want to scale back on Thanksgiving, because he didn’t know what the next year would bring. As we made plans, my sisters began arguing over what dishes to make. Their voices started to tremble and tears rolled down their cheeks.
“Why are they crying?” Daddy asked me, even though both of us were very well aware that their sobbing was less about frustration over food and more about the possibility that he might not be in our lives for much longer.
I think part of the reason my family continues to go big on Thanksgiving is to honor the man who prompted our clan’s festivities in the first place. Maybe we aren’t eating in the daylight like most of the population, but the memories, old and new, shine bright.
Rummana Hussain is a columnist and member of the Sun-Times Editorial Board.
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