Russian Thanksgiving

The other day, Bostonist was walking with a friend, discussing Thanksgiving plans. Bostonist said we expected forty or fifty people at our mother’s house. Our friend’s jaw dropped to the ground.

That was when Bostonist realized that Russian immigrant Thanksgiving celebrations are not quite like traditional American ones. Russians in America, particularly the Russian Jewish immigrants who abound in the Boston area, have a lot to be thankful for: three-bedroom apartments, SUVs, and TJ Maxx, not to mention democracy and religious freedom. Pretty much everything we want to give thanks for is a direct consequence of the fact that we now live in the U.S. (This Bostonist arrived here as a child, with hordes of others, in the late ‘70s.) So Thanksgiving dinner includes a lot of giving thanks to America herself, with poetic flurries of gratitude for the sheer luck of living in this country. (Does this go on at typical American celebrations?) To express their gratitude, Russians like to give toasts. Many toasts. Sitting around and toasting America makes Russians feel so traditional, so American, they practically could be Pilgrims (if only they weren’t toasting with vodka).

Which brings us to Russian Thanksgiving food. We have turkey. We have pumpkin pie. We have cranberry sauce, although it is there mostly for decoration, like the lamb shank on the Passover plate. The cranberry sauce marks the holiday and is there to be eaten by the Americans who have married into the family. (One year, we brought a cranberry sauce, a strange midwestern concoction with Jello and pineapples, made according to a recipe from Mr. Bostonist’s Iowa-bred mother. It was, inexplicably, an enormous hit with the Russians.) We also eat homemade chicken liver pate made by Bostonist’s great-aunt, and an eggplant salad whose secret ingredient is ketchup, also made by this great-aunt.

Bostonist decided to fact-check some of our claims about Russian Thanksgiving with our mother. How many people are actually coming? Around seventeen. The Russian idea of “immediate family” stretches to include aunts, uncles, and cousins. In general, it is unthinkable to hold a family celebration with anything less than this unbreakable unit. The fact that Bostonist remembers it as forty should convey not that we are exaggerating, but that Russian Thanksgiving is very, very loud. Are we going to have that gourmet green salad with duck meat that we have at all family celebrations? Mama Bostonist replied, “Don’t be crazy. We have traditional, American Thanksgiving food. The duck salad is from a recipe from Jasper White’s book, Cooking From New England. We always have that on Passover!”

Contributed by Anna Shusterman