I lived in Tunisia in the fall of 1979, a year when American Thanksgiving fell on the heels of the Muslim New Year. A few weeks earlier, hostages had been captured at the U.S. embassy in Iran, two time zones east of us, setting the world on edge. Ripples reached us on that southern shore of the Mediterranean.
Entertaining had been on my American roommate’s mind when she found her apartment in Tunis. She had many colleagues and friends at the language institute up the street, where she taught. I was a newly arrived undergraduate. She couldn’t believe her ears when I told her I had learned how to roast two 25-pound turkeys per weekend while cooking at the historic hotel in the Minnesota town where I grew up.
“Can you cook a live one?” she asked me. “I mean, go to the market and pick one out,” she said. “They’ll behead it and pluck it…I think…”
“Sure,” I shrugged. I figured that if my Gramma Viola could butcher her own chickens on the farm, I could certainly figure it out. I wanted the apartment so badly that I had to say yes. Besides, it seemed so far in the future.
Seven weeks later, the holiday appeared like a kind of harbor on the horizon. Geopolitics heaved, leaves fell, and the cold rains commenced. Among the half-dozen new Tunisian and American friends I had made, the little group of us shared not only bureaucratic disappointments, financial setbacks, and culture shock, but a miscarriage and a far-away father’s unexpected death. We needed Thanksgiving.
Our apartment didn’t have a dining room—just a plain, high-ceilinged room occupied by bookshelves and a set of painted lawn furniture. Nevertheless, as a central location, our place was chosen for the meal.
Cooking it was another matter. Our kitchen consisted of a shallow sink with only cold water, a cupboard full of mismatched dishes and cookware, a marble slab for a counter, my roommate’s small new refrigerator, and a two-burner gas stove with an oven no bigger than a large toaster. The turkey would have to be roasted in the oven of our friends’ apartment up the street.
Turkey, dressing, and gravy were my assignment—plus a pumpkin pie, which I had figured out how to make by then. In the market I had discovered pumpkins so big the vendor chopped off chunks of orange flesh with a machete, weighed it by the kilo, and I took it home to cook it down for hours, which had the benefit of warming the apartment. To make the crust I had learned to substitute olive oil for lard or shortening; to roll it out, I used an empty olive oil bottle turned on its side for a rolling pin, which I could not find in a suq or store anywhere.
I looked everywhere for turkeys. Dinde is the French word, which made me think of Yankee Doodle Dandy and Ben Franklin’s proposal that the wild turkey be our national bird.
“Est-ce que vous avez le dinde?” I asked at every market I passed, to be met with a shrug or motion, no. A Tunisian friend assured me that turkeys probably would not arrive in the market until the week of Thanksgiving when those smart vendors knew Americans would be looking for them. Unlike sheep for Aïd, turkeys are not taken home to live for a few weeks before the feast.
Wild rice, I learned quickly, did not exist in Tunisia. Ris sauvage made me sound crazy. In fact, my American friends had no idea what I was talking about either and had never heard of wild rice dressing. It had not occurred to me that this native American staple was Midwestern. I wrote home with pleas to send a cup but none arrived. I went over to La Passage market and got white rice instead, and a pound of European butter.
I didn’t know the French words for the spices I needed, much less the Arabic, so I stood in the markets smelling everything. Thyme. Sage.
I bought a baguette and cut it into pieces and made my own croutons in our toaster-sized oven.
On the morning of our feast, we found turkeys at the central market, far too small, no big showy tails, just red waddles.
“Celui ça qui est le plus grand,” I told the vendor. The biggest one. He scanned the motley flock, pointed toward one of them, and I nodded. He asked me a question and I struggled to understand. “Coupez le tête,” I said plainly. “Aussi les pieds.” Cut off the head. And feet. I think he was trying not to laugh because it was a bad translation. The vendor asked me something else I couldn’t understand.
“Plucked?” my friend translated hoarsely, her head down.
“Oui, s’il vous plait,” I nodded.
It was strangled mercifully quickly, its feathers stripped. It happened so fast I couldn’t believe the vendor was handing me a large bundle wrapped in pewter-colored butcher paper, heavy and still warm. Every turkey I had ever prepared had come to me ice cold, the giblets in a damp package within. I handed him my dinars and we headed home. I summoned Gramma Viola as we walked, her no-nonsense, practical confidence. This is a basic task, dressing out a bird. You can do that.
In our cold-water sink I washed and gutted the small turkey, tenderly removing the familiar parts, gizzard, heart, liver, the bitter crop that must not break; stomach and entrails. The giblets were simmered. Onions and celery were chopped, rice cooked, dressing assembled. I stuffed the turkey and we carried it up the street to our friends’ modern-sized oven. For five hours it roasted until the leg joints swung loose. When the turkey came back to our place, I made gravy smooth as cream.
Everybody arrived. One went to work assembling a huge salad. The couple from the far suburb had brought two kilos of green peas, which we shelled and steamed as we peeled potatoes, boiled and mashed them. The couple up the street brought yams in orange juice and sugar. My roommate, who was swamped grading exams, furnished croissants and wine. No wild rice or cranberries.
In Tunis, we were seven that night, five American women and two Tunisian husbands, modest pilgrims of the 20th century, thankful for friendship, food, and shelter. Perched in a circle on makeshift furniture, we ate slowly in the candlelight—tender meat, dressing, potatoes, and gravy, freshly shelled peas, yams in brown sugar and orange juice, elaborate salad, croissants, pumpkin pie with whipped cream and coffee.
I remember my Tunis Thanksgiving vividly! So much like yours. Thanks for bringing it back. I miss the souk, the Algerian cigarettes, but mostly my friends and that time. Happy American Thanksgiving. There is nothing like being in another culture to make one understand what it is to be American.
Posted by: Sue | November 23, 2012 at 12:15 AM
An absolutely terrific story, and what a wonderful memory. Despite all odds...
Posted by: Kate | November 23, 2012 at 07:07 AM
Great memory, Gayla! Nice to see this piece develop. Brings back memories of my first Thanksgiving away from family.
Posted by: Paula Moyer | November 23, 2012 at 07:47 AM
Well written, Gayla. Recreating a traditional Thanksgiving so far away from home was a real challenge. Both the meal and the gathering of friends sound very memorable. It's always interesting remembering long ago events and who we were when we were living them.
Posted by: Bruce Nelson | November 23, 2012 at 08:03 AM
What wonderful memories of Tunisia Gayla! I could almost taste and smell all the food you made! I imagine your deft fingers busy preparing and cooking the small turkey. Your article made me very happy and longing for more from you and about you. Thank you so much!
Posted by: Nadia | November 23, 2012 at 08:40 AM
What a wonderful story. I really enjoyed it. I have to say I would have no idea how to clean a turkey, but if the occasion ever arises, I will remember your description. My Aunt Esther used to catch a chicken, wring it's neck, pluck and clean it and fry it up and that was just for lunch!
Posted by: Shari Sunday | November 24, 2012 at 07:27 AM
Lovely, Gayla. You paint such vivid pictures!
Posted by: Mary Moga | November 24, 2012 at 07:34 AM
So much more detail than I remember from the first written version I saw. Also makes me wonder which German holiday I would re-create with such fervor if I were in such a very different culture at the time. Beautiful!
Posted by: Inge Steglitz | November 24, 2012 at 09:01 PM
Yes, I am making stuffing from scratch, but I don't plan on stuffing the turkey. You could send some snow down here, but I don't think everyone else will be happy about it! I'm hoping there will be a big storm while we are home for Christmas but not when we are trying to get there/leave. Crossing our fingers!
Posted by: Jane | December 12, 2012 at 05:49 PM
What a great memory! Remember the teeny tiny oven? And making marshmallows and whipped cream by hand (with no whisk or egg beater)?
Posted by: Jennifer DeCamp | November 29, 2013 at 04:32 PM
Stumbled upon this story while searching Google for something. What a charming story. But also it described a historic background for the time and place. May all of you who were present at that Thanksgiving continue to share precious holiday memories with one another...
Posted by: Cathy Ramer | November 29, 2020 at 01:19 PM