Consider This from NPR - A Feast For A Few: Rethinking The Traditional Thanksgiving Meal

Episode Date: November 25, 2020

Thanksgiving is going to look different for many Americans this year. As the coronavirus pandemic rages, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning against traveling to see friends or family, or even gathering with people who do not live with you.But that isn't a reason to forego a delicious, sit-down meal.Three chefs share their scaled-down Thanksgiving recipes. These dishes — Anita Lo's turkey roulade, Aarón Sánchez's brussels sprouts with roasted jalapeño vinaigrette and Sohla El-Waylly's apple (hand) pies — are meant to serve up to four people.Find all three recipes here.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Iltafad Hamzavi lives in a tight-knit Muslim community just outside Detroit, Michigan. And as the U.S. is gearing up for an unusual Thanksgiving, his family has already had to rework a major holiday this year. Well, so that's Eid. Eid, which marks the end of the Ramadan fast. We all go to the mosque in the morning, and then we all bounce around each other's houses, and then we have a shared family dinner. Those are very large dinners.

That's the time when you see your cousins and your grandparents and relatives you don't often see at that time of year. Well, Eid was in May this year, and Michigan was in full lockdown. So Hamzavi and his Muslim neighbors of South Asian descent improvised. We had these desserts and we had these traditional syrups that we make in the morning. That morning, friends and family all shared syrup recipes with each other, calling dibs on which ones they wanted to make. And then they hopped on Zoom when they were busy in the kitchen. And so the process of making the food became the communal event. The consuming the food became the individual event. Yeah, pro tip, cooking together on Zoom is more fun than watching

people chew. So as you might expect, many of the families packaged up extra food to drop off at each other's doorsteps. That was actually one of the best things about Eid this year. We got more food than we ever do. And Muslim Americans aren't the only ones who've already had to figure this out. It really does, I think, improve the ambiance if you just get dressed up and put on some makeup. I can't recommend that enough. Irene Katz Connelly is a reporter for the Jewish newspaper The Forward, and she wrote a guide to virtual holidays based on what she learned celebrating Passover back in March. If you don't do anything else, you have to do this, like organize a practice Zoom call before the real thing. She says don't assume that your friends and family know how to use video conferencing like Zoom. Of course, we spent like the first 25 minutes talking about logistics and like people did not know how to mute.

And maybe the most important tip, keep big virtual gatherings short and sweet. Fatigue sets in way earlier than it would if you were together in real life. Consider this. Thanksgiving during a pandemic isn't ideal, but it can still be memorable. And rethinking the celebration can include rethinking the traditional holiday meal. From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. It's Wednesday, November 25th. Since the 1980s, hip-hop and America's prisons have grown side by side. And we're going to investigate this connection to see how it lifts us up and holds us down. Hip-hop is talking about what we live, trying to live the American dream,

failing at the American dream. I'm Sydney Madden. I'm Rodney Carmichael. Listen now to the Louder Than a Riot podcast from NPR Music. Where we trace the collision of rhyme and punishment in America. It's Consider This from NPR. This Thanksgiving, there's only one hard and fast rule. Don't travel for a large family gathering, according to the CDC.

And sure, that can be a disappointment. But maybe it can also be an opportunity. No big feast means no expectations. Maybe this can be the year you don't make that traditional family recipe you never really liked that much anyway. And if there are only a couple people at your table, maybe you don't have to roast an enormous turkey. We asked three chefs to help us reimagine the Thanksgiving feast for a smaller group. Our first guest has written an entire cookbook about wonderful food you can cook just for yourself. Chef Anita Lowe suggests that you stick with the turkey, just reinvent it as a turkey roulade.

It's like a flattened turkey breast that you roll up and roast. Kind of like a jelly roll, but instead of cake, it's turkey. And instead of jam, it's whatever you decide to roll it up with. Exactly. So what are you going to roll it up with? Well, I thought we would do some ingredients that are good this time of year. So I was taking some maitake mushrooms, also known as head of the wood mushrooms, along with some sunchokes, which are also known as Jerusalem artichokes. It sounds extremely fancy. And I think of fancy as being difficult. Is this

a tough dish to make? Not at all. I mean, you're basically making sort of some sauteed mushrooms with some things in it, and then rolling it up in a breast and cooking it. I mean, it's not that much harder than making, you know, a stuffing and a turkey. Your second cookbook was focused on meals for one. It was called Solo, Easy Sophisticated Recipes for a Party of One. For people who might be inclined to go a little bit more basic when they're not cooking for a crowd, like if you don't have anyone else to impress, what's the argument for actually making the effort? Well, there's a couple of reasons. I mean, you know, you count too. And at the end of the day, you are what you eat. I mean be the first time you've tried cooking some of the classic dishes on your own. And if that's you, Anita Lowe says, don't be intimidated.

Approach the challenge this way. Focus on the ingredient. A lot of Thanksgiving dishes are really, really simple, just sort of roasted. So don't go crazy. Maybe just buy good ingredients and treat them simply and don't overcook them. And we're good. Now, for me, Thanksgiving is all about the side dishes. But with a smaller crowd this year, maybe you don't have to do green beans and sweet potatoes and five other things. So, Chef Aron Sanchez has a suggestion that pulls together

a few delicious elements of the Thanksgiving table. He has restaurants in Kansas and New Orleans, and is perhaps best known as a judge on Food Network's Chopped. We have a signature dish at our restaurant here in New Orleans, which is some crispy Brussels sprouts that have butternut squash, pomegranate, and a very bracing roasted jalapeno vinaigrette. I love that because it's acidic enough to work with like heavy mashed potatoes and stuffing and things like that. And it also sounds substantial enough that it could work as

a main dish if you want to go that route. Absolutely. Yeah. If you have somebody that's a vegetarian coming over to your Thanksgiving feast, this is something I would definitely throw at them. And actually, you can make it vegan if you wanted to, but just omitting the cotija cheese. Or I suppose you could throw some chorizo on top and make it not vegetarian at all. Exactly. And then you could put some crispy chorizo and really call it a day. I also feel like this jalapeno vinaigrette could go on all kinds of things besides just this Brussels sprout squash pomegranate dish. Oh my God, you are absolutely right.

It has like the roasted jalapeno, which kind of subdues the heat a little bit. Then you're adding the lime juice and the cilantro and then kind of emulsifying that with really good olive oil. It's just, you can't really beat it. I tell people all the time, like that vinaigrette, if you just want to simply roast like a whole cabbage, you want to roast some squash and just drizzle it on top by itself. It's really versatile. And if you're overwhelmed by the idea of all that peeling and slicing, Chef Sanchez says give yourself a break. Look, here's the deal.

I'm all about convenience. It's, you know, the chef saying it's work smarter, not harder. You know, you can go to, you know, big stores and they sell butternut squash already diced, you know, and they have the pomegranates already picked for you. They have cut Brussels sprouts for you. So go that route if you're worried about the time it's going to take. All right, time for dessert with Sola El-Weili. She writes a column for Food 52 and is currently filming a web series called Stump Sola,

where she's asked to create crazy food challenges. So we gave her one of our own, Thanksgiving dessert for two. And yes, one correct answer is eat an entire pie. We won't judge you. But Sola El-Weili came up with something that might be even better. Individual apple hand pies. I don't have a problem eating a whole pie over a few days, but the great thing about these is that you can make them and have them in your freezer,

and then have like hot, fresh apple pie whenever you want. Oh, that sounds so good. To make a hand pie, can you downscale a regular pie recipe, or does your recipe call for something different? Do you have to do something special to make a hand pie work? Well, because it's smaller, it's going to bake a lot faster, so we're going to use a pre-cooked filling. And also, we need that filling to set up a little bit thicker than you would find in an apple pie. Otherwise, it all just kind of bursts right out of there. So I found that

Granny Smith's work the best. They have a higher amount of pectin than like a Fuji apple or a Honeycrisp. So it sets into a nice thick gel without having to use a ton of starch, which can get kind of gloopy. She cooks the peeled chopped apples with apple cider, brown sugar, spices, and cornstarch until it gets nice and thick. And once that cools down, she spoons it into triangles of store-bought pie crust. The great thing with the store-bought crusts is that they're already circles. So I thought it'd be really cute to cut the circle into quarters and then fold up the pie dough around the filling. So it's like a little wedge. So it feels like you're having a slice of pie. I love

the idea of having a freezer full of hand pies. Can you just pop them in the oven straight out of the freezer? Just straight out of the freezer. You can also do it in a toaster oven if you don't want to heat up a full oven. And it's great because you can eat your Thanksgiving meal and then throw your pie in after you're done eating so you can have it like nice and warm and piping hot. Now listen, all three of these recipes nod to the traditional Thanksgiving feast. But Sola El-Weili says this year of all years, you should feel empowered to abandon the turkey, the squash, the pie. She told me her meal on Thursday night will be whatever she feels like eating that day, and it will still be special. I think you should eat whatever you want to eat, but just like eat it with some intention,

set the table, say what you're thankful for, and it'll feel like a holiday. You can find the full recipes for Anita Lowe's turkey roulade, Aaron Sanchez's brus Brussels sprout salad, and Sola El-Wehli's apple hand pies in our show notes. You're listening to Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.