[Culturechat] Swiss perceptions of Thanksgiving

[Vance Roy]

Thursday, the local paper had a column on Thanksgiving in the USA, It 
was called "Travel Fever and Turkey out of a Bottle".

Well, I knew that millions of people hit the airports and roads like so 
many lemmings every Thanksgiving holiday, but the turkey in a bottle 
made me stop and read it.

Sure as expected, there are reports on how Americans love their 
turkeys, have all sorts of recipes for them, call turkey hotlines for 
help, etc. 90% of Americans ate some 43 million turkeys yesterday. W's 
turkey got a reprieve to a petting zoo (bet he didn't have a peanut 
butter and jelly), so they say. After the turkey millions of satiated 
Americans slept in front of TVs while parades and football games took 
place. The wives were resting up so they could hit the stores early on 
Black Friday. I really take exception to their characterization of 
pumpkin pie having the consistency of a concrete block. I am going to 
have to hurt somebody about that. Otherwise, the rest rings pretty 
true.

However, I digress. It seems that the Jones Soda Company (didn't 
googlize them, so I don't know where they are located) has come out 
with a turkey flavored soft drink! Gag and retch, can anyone think of a 
more nauseating idea?

Our Swiss Thanksgiving was pretty traditional except for the BBQ sauce. 
I smoked a 14 pound turk which cost me 64 CHF at Migros (about 50 US$ 
for those of you that got them in the USA for 60 cents a pound). We had 
sweet potatoes, dressing, gravy, cranberries (about 6 $ a pound here), 
and pecan pie for dessert. Since Albert and Berit like a BBQ sauce that 
I make, on their turkey, we had that too. The meal was a bit expensive, 
but it comes once a year, and our Swiss friends like it too.

No one waddled home hungry.

Vance Roy
gigli.saw@dplanet.ch
http://homepage.mac.com/fredch

"Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool"
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