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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer at WNYC. Now a call in on how you plan to add your personal or cultural culinary twist to your Thanksgiving dinner. What do you cook for Thanksgiving that isn't one of the go-to mains, sides, desserts? Maybe foods you grew up eating in your immigrant family, or if you grew up abroad, anybody have a Thanksgiving dish that you make every year or make this year that fits into that category? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Maybe you'll even inspire some other people to get cross-culturally creative when they hear your dish. Especially since this is a holiday, it's so easy to forget, for many people, that are supposed to celebrate migrating to America and being welcomed by the locals.

For example, here's a story in the New York Times. For Arab Americans, it's not Thanksgiving without Hashweh. Hashweh is the Arabic word for stuffing. It's a spiced rice with meat and yogurt. Hashweh can be a stuffing, but it can also be served on its own, we read. What will be on your family dinner table this Thursday that incorporates whatever your own culture is. 212-433-WNYC or tweet @BrianLehrer. There was also a New York Times cooking video called How Samin Nosrat Makes Thanksgiving Less Boring.

Samin Nosrat, a chef and cookbook author, she suggests three condiments that add exciting flavors to the mix; a fried sage salsa Verde a cilantro date chutney, and an herby fried shallot and breadcrumb crunch. Sounds great, I want to eat right now. How about you? What do you make sure to have on hand and make Thanksgiving more interesting or exciting or add a touch from your cultural background or national background, whatever that is? By the way, it doesn't have to be just food. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

I mean that it doesn't have to be just food. You can shout out any Thanksgiving tradition you may have if you've found a way to celebrate the holiday that doesn't involve bitter disputes over politics at the dining table. Where maybe you've adopted a Thanksgiving ritual that acknowledges some of the violent origins of this holiday with respect to native peoples. Let us know how you do Thanksgiving your own way, food or else-wise. We'll take your calls and tweets right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to your calls and tweets on how your culture of origin, whatever that is informs your Thanksgiving plate. Zeyad in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Zeyad, thanks for calling in.

Zeyad: Hey, Brian, thank you very much for having me. I was telling the person that I came to this country 50 years ago as an Arab Muslim and we immediately embraced the holiday of Thanksgiving because we thought, "Oh, wow, giving thanks to God. That's at the core of our faith as well, so this is great, let's all have a wonderful meal together." I grew up with eight siblings and I never saw a turkey under 30 pounds until my oldest brother started moving out of the house like 15 years later because we had such large feasts. You're right, Arabs did use something called Hashweh.

Some people didn't use yogurt, they did rice minced lamb or minced beef, parsley, tomatoes, and they stuffed the turkey with it and it naturally based inside and a really amazing basted rice comes out of that, it's steaming and it's so wonderful. That's the other thing, I never knew that people used breading as stuffing for a turkey because, in my culture, we used predominantly rice till I was like a teenager and I went to my buddy's house and I was like, "What's that you got in there?" They were like breading. It's really funny how cultures have intermingled with this holiday and it's really universal for immigrants who come here, they do it their own ways.

Brian Lehrer: What a great story, Zeyad, thank you. Please call us again. Marianne in Kerhonkson, you're on WNYC. Hi, Maryanne.

Maryanne: Oh, hi, Brian, thank you for taking my call. To the prior caller's point, each culture does in their own way. My immigrant Italian grandparents, I don't believe ever, ever cooked turkey in their lives. I really don't know anyone who is in Italy who eats turkey on a regular basis, but anyway, we always had a turkey for the traditional American celebration, but the main course was usually a beautiful dish of freshly made ravioli. That was always a highlight of the meal. Along with that, is the Italian cheesecake or cannolis for dessert. Not so much [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: I wonder if there's such a thing as turkey ravioli or what did you put in those raviolis traditionally?

Maryanne: Cheese and maybe some parsley and with the cheese or possibly some spinach or something like that. At least my grandmother never made any meat ravioli that I recall. Cheese ravioli to compliment the turkey.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead. Cannoli. and cheesecake, Maryanne, thank you so much. Happy Thanksgiving. Oh, we talked with the first caller about different kinds of stuffing, it's not always bread. I think Suzanne in Randolph has another story like that. Hi, Suzanne, you're on WNYC.

Suzanne: Hi, Brian, thank you for taking my call, I love the show. My husband and I have been married for about 15 years and he is Italian. His family is from Avellino and his

grandfather and grandmother came over as adults. He has always been, and since then, we have always been stuffing our turkey with scrambled eggs and pepperoni. It's a bit hard to figure out what the tradition is or why.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.

Suzzane: It's the only thing that, for years, that our son would eat besides the bread on the table because that was his favorite thing, but I haven't been able to find anybody else who does it?

Brian Lehrer: It's the all-protein turkey dish, right?

Suzanne: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: The other caller was saying, well, our carbs are rice, not bread, but you're talking about eggs and pepperoni. Vegans wouldn't be happy, but it's all protein.

Suzanne: Correct.

Brian Lehrer: Suzanne, thank you very much. Cameron in Great Neck, you're on WNYC. Hi, Cameron.

Cameron: Hey, Brian. A first time caller, a longtime listener. I love your show.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Tell us about your turkey plate.

Cameron: We're a Persian family and generally, we like to incorporate Persian dishes as well as the turkey and the traditional things. Usually, there's a lot of, kind of like the Arab tradition, but we have a lot of rice dishes with different types of rices. We have Lubia Polo. Polo is rice. We put carrots in one, we put beans in the other, we put different types of rices. Then we have this dish called Gormeh Sabzi, which is basically a green stew that it's like a staple of the Persian culture. We've always been celebrating it that way.

Brian Lehrer: Say the name of the green stew again.

Cameron: Gormeh Sabzi. Gormeh means stew and Sabzi means green, green stew.

Brian Lehrer: What do you put in?

Cameron: I don't know, I'm not the cook of the family. I just eat it, but it's spinach or parsley. The thing with Persian dishes is they take a very long time to prepare. I remember when I was growing up, my grandmother would start in the morning, and then it will be ready night. It was not something that they could just whip up. There's another one called Fesenjān, which is a sweeter stew. They basically take either one of those, the Gormeh Sabzi, the Fesenjān, and then they spread it on the rice and that's what they eat. They're both delicious, different textures, different colors, different aromas, but it's always been a wonderful tradition and thoughts of home.

Brian Lehrer: Cameron, thank you so much for your call, happy Thanksgiving. My producer immediately looked at Gormeh Sabzi on all recipes and it says it's the delicious Persian beef and kidney bean stew loaded with greens and herbs like spinach, cilantro, fenugreek, and parsley, so yes, I want that one. A couple of people calling in to talk about non-food Thanksgiving traditions that they have. Carolyn Ridgewood, you're on WNYC. Hi Caro.

Carolyn Ridgewood: Hey, Brian. I love your show and it's my first time calling in after decades of listening, so thanks for having me on.

Brian Lehrer: Glad you're on.

Carolyn Ridgewood: I'm a professional musician and I come from a family where we play music together at holidays, specifically Thanksgiving. That's the way that we loved to connect with each other. I'm a violinist, but my sisters play instruments and sing. Growing up, our mother played, when we were growing up, she played in a group called The Connotations, and they were five women based out of Ridgewood, New Jersey, and they all played nylon string guitars and sang all the hits of the day.

They would perform at churches and nursing homes and schools. We, growing up, learned all of their repertoires by sitting under the table and listening and playing percussion instruments, and then we would go out and perform with them.

Brian Lehrer: That is so awesome. Are there certain songs that y'all come back to year after year on Thanksgiving?

Carolyn Ridgewood: Oh, yes, just the hits of the folk era always worked their way in, but now our youngest sister, Linda, is a singer-songwriter, she has three albums out. We perform a lot of her originals and a lot of the current hits of today from the folk world too. We perform at festivals and things like that-

Brian Lehrer: That's great.

Carolyn Ridgewood: - during the summer and all that. It's at the heart of our family tradition to play music, and extended family too.

Brian Lehrer: So wonderful to play music together. Carol, thank you very much. Thanks for calling in, finally and happy Thanksgiving. Nancy in Westchester, you're on WNYC. Hi, Nancy.

Nancy: Hi, Brian. My call is about a table. My brother is the one all about Thanksgiving and as our family grew, he built an addition onto his house specifically to have a table big enough for everyone to sit at. We kept growing, we're 31 people now. The 31 people include three sets of twins, two in their 40s, two in their 20s, and two in their months.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. The story is that, besides the food, your brother loves Thanksgiving so much that he built a whole extension of his house for this one day of the year?

Nancy: Yes, that's the story.

Brian Lehrer: How many of those 31 are you having this year with COVID concerns and everything?

Nancy: We're going to have the 31. We're doing a show your negative tests or that you've been vaccinated-

Brian Lehrer: Oh, you are.

Nancy: - in order to come. We've all texted it.

Brian Lehrer: There you go.

Nancy: Because we're in different states also.

Brian Lehrer: Nancy, thank you so much, and happy Thanksgiving to you, happy Thanksgiving to everybody. We've got a couple more days yet before the holiday, but let me be one of the first to wish you that. The Brian Lehrer Show is produced by Lisa Allison, Mary Croke, Zoe Azulay, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Max Balton. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen works on our daily podcast. We have Juliana Fonda and Sham Sundra at the audio controls today. I'm Brian Lehrer.

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