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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC with you live on Thanksgiving. For our final call-in, we'll do something that's an occasional tradition on this show. What's on your immigrant Thanksgiving plate? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. If you are an immigrant to this country or from an immigrant family, what's on your Thanksgiving plate? 212-433-WNYC and you can add any other spin on Thanksgiving that comes from your cultural background, whether it's food or something else, but essentially, what's on your immigrant Thanksgiving plate? 212-433-9692.

About the food, are you mixing and matching turkey and pie with something from your country of origin or your country of heritage? Do you not do the American dishes at all, but have your own kind of harvest feast? Are you like when in Rome and you've adopted the turkey and cranberry sauce, and you're going to watch football this afternoon, and the whole deal? What's on your immigrant Thanksgiving plate? 212-433-WNYC.

Last time we did this was in 2018. Just to give you a taste, some from back then were, "My Taiwanese family likes to do hotpot. Always a big hearty meal in which overeating is not just encouraged but expected and perfect for everyone around the table to participate in." Another one, "My dad is Turkish and my mom is a Russian Jew, so for Thanksgiving we always have along with turkey, stuffed cabbage and spinach pies and baklava." A caller told us back then.

There's also a good article on DCist. You know Gothamist that we have, there's a thing in DC, DCist. They have an article this week, 'It Reminds You Of home': What Immigrant Communities In The DC Region Are Cooking For Thanksgiving. It starts with the story of Laila Faizi-Sohail, who comes from Afghanistan. It says she didn't cook turkey back there or mashed potatoes, she had never heard of pie, but that all changed when she moved to Northern Virginia in August of 2020, a year before the Taliban seized control of Kabul.

It says, yes, she is having an American Thanksgiving. Then there's another one, let's see. Sorry, I thought I was organized with this. Oh, yes. No, this is a little more about her. It says this year, she and her family are making their way over to her landlord's house for turkey and other traditional Thanksgiving dishes. This time, she says, they're bringing Uzbek manti, a traditional steamed dumpling. She's also preparing Uzbek palaw, a stewed meat and rice dish that's prepared for special occasions such as this. There's a combo US and Afghanistan Thanksgiving.

Another one is Lida Soleiman, who was born in Iran and has lived in DC. She says she's grown to love the staples of a Thanksgiving meal, especially turkey, but also bring some dishes from her Persian heritage. It says one of those dishes is Ghormeh sabzi, a traditional herb stew from Iran that's made from lamb or beef. According Soleiman, the meat is stewed with green such as leeks, parsley, and spinach. She then serves it with long grain rice that's been prepared with saffron to give it a golden color. That's sounds yum yum, going over to their house.

I'll give you one more. This is in that DCist article from Olena Napolitano. She was born in Ukraine, now lives in Springfield, Virginia with her husband and daughter. She says, "We believe that when you're in Rome do as Romans do. It has to be the traditional American dish." She also makes dishes from Ukraine, such as olivye-- if I'm saying that right, a traditional potato salad. Her family also prepares shuba, a savory cake with layers of salted fish, potatoes, carrot, and bright red beets on top. She says these dishes serve as a reminder of her friends and family in Ukraine as the war continues.

Those are a couple of examples. How about you? What's on your immigrant Thanksgiving plate? Immigrants from everywhere, immigrants from anywhere, you're welcome to call in. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 or tweet what's on your immigrant Thanksgiving plate @BrianLehrer. We'll take your calls and tweets right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to your calls with what's on your immigrant Thanksgiving plate. Prima in Ohio near Columbus, this says. Hi, Prima, you're on WNYC. We're in New York. I lived in Columbus for a year. Where near Columbus are you?

Prima: Oh, I'm about an hour out of Columbus. It's a small little college town called Ada, Ohio.

Brian Lehrer: Okay. What's on your immigrant Thanksgiving plate?

Prima: Well, I have coconut chicken curry. Instead of the mashed potatoes, I also make the curried Indian potatoes.

Brian Lehrer: The two kinds of potatoes, you put the American mashed potatoes and the curried potatoes on the plate, yes?

Prima: That's right.

Brian Lehrer: Which one do people go for more?

Prima: A little of both I guess, but they also enjoy my chicken curry.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much, Prima. Happy Thanksgiving. How about Alla in Oakland, New Jersey. You're on WNYC. Hi, Alla.

Alla: Hi, Brian. Thank you for taking my call. Happy Thanksgiving. We're a family from Kyiv, Ukraine. While we try to go with a lot of the traditional Thanksgiving dishes, something pickled always makes it to the table. There's always pickled tomatoes, pickled cucumbers, and pickled cabbage. They're always sprinkled in with the rest of the obvious guests.

Brian Lehrer: Sounds yummy. Are you doing anything special this year because of the war?

Alla: We're just getting together and making sure that all of our toasts, we're grateful for what we have here and we're thinking about family and friends in Ukraine.

Brian Lehrer: Alla, thank you very much. My thoughts with you and all of them. Kon in Yonkers, you're on WNYC. Hi, Kon.

Don: Hi, it's actually a d, Don. We are having a stuffed fish-- fish stuffed with crab meat, cocktails. We are doing quinoa, a [unintelligible 00:07:30], a coconut pound cake, and we will be doing our traditional drink of ginger beer and sorrel.

Brian Lehrer: Did you say ginger beer and sorrel?

Don: Sorrel. The sorrel is a flower that's almost related to a Hibiscus. It's brewed with cloves, cinnamon, lemon peels and they take that, brew it overnight, strain it, and then you add a little bit of corked wine to it for some people add rum.

Brian Lehrer: Cool. Thank you very much. Interesting for me who didn't know about that one. Harry in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Harry.

Harry: Hi, Brian. How are you doing?

Brian Lehrer: Good.

Harry: I'm from Jamaica. In the Jamaica, they mix the American Turkey along with oxtail, jerk chicken, jerk pork, curry chicken, rice and beans. I know someone mentioned sorrel. We also have sorrel. It's a tropical drink for most island, but we also add rum or without rum and ginger beer also. We always have a mixture of the American and Jamaican.

Brian Lehrer: Yummy. Being a fan of Jamaican food, it sounds-- I don't know, it sounds better than turkey and cranberry sauce to me.

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Brian Lehrer: Anything else that you do today? Any things that you do on Thanksgiving?

Harry: Within their own family, with your friends to be in America, being an American citizens, we're thankful that as a Jamaican and Caribbean folks, we are grateful to be living in America. We have family thing, so I'm going to say everyone bring dishes and stuff. Folks who are coming over maybe bring up the dishes or someone from another island say, Trinidad, they might bring roti [unintelligible 00:09:18]. Everything is mixed up and stuff. All folks bringing different things.

Brian Lehrer: Fun, Harry, thank you very much. Happy Thanksgiving. Dina in Manhattan. You're on WNYC. Hi, Dina.

Dina: Oh, hi, Happy Thanksgiving and happy Rosh Chodesh. Being Jewish and from Israel, we celebrate Rosh Chodesh was the head of the new month of Sagittarius. We're doing that this afternoon, saying blessings over the wine. Then instead of regular bread, we're going to have toasted pumpernickel with original Israeli hummus on top of it with steamed carrots and celery which is yummy. Instead of butters, margarine and oils, we're going to do that. Then actually, to be quite frank, we're going to do Asian chicken and broccoli as the main dish because we love Asian food too. That's it. That's what we're doing.

Brian Lehrer: Very yummy, Dina. Thank you very much. All right. We're taking your calls. We have time for a few more. What's on your immigrant Thanksgiving plate? No matter where you come from, are you combining something from your country of origin with what we think of as American Thanksgiving or how are you doing your menu? 212-433 WNYC or tweet @BrianLehrer. Nancy in Montclair, you're on WNYC. Hi, Nancy.

Nancy: Hi. Happy Thanksgiving. I just thought maybe this might be of interest that-- this is an old fashioned-immigrant community. We were all Belgians living in Detroit, Michigan. We had parents and grandparents who were immigrants. My dinner may have been the turkey and the mashed potatoes, but it was-- I remember it well, all of the men would sit down at the table and the women would serve them. Then when the men were done eating, the women would clear the table, and then the women and the children would sit down and eat. That was our Belgian peasant community there. I don't know if that happens anymore with immigrants, but I thought mine was interesting.

Brian Lehrer: Really interesting. Nancy, thank you so much. Jessica in Jersey City, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jessica.

Jessica: Hi, Brian. I'm thankful for your show. I just wanted to throw that one in there. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: Thanks so much.

Jessica: Also, this is my husband's first Thanksgiving. He's from Pakistan. We're doing a combination between the American Thanksgiving and more our Pakistani traditional dishes. We're doing the turkey and the cranberry sauce per my sister's request, but then we're also doing beef biryani and we're going to have some samosas and some cauliflower curry. Then my sister's husband is Jewish. We're also doing some cranberry and pumpkin hamentashen. It should be really fun and really good.

Brian Lehrer: That sounds all yummy and so diverse. If this is your husband's first Thanksgiving, what does he think about all this?

Jessica: Well, he's pretty politically and socially active. He has his various commentary on relation to our particular political situation, and also the political situations that are going on in South Asia as well. He's mostly right now getting the car washed, [laughs] and getting excited for cooking. I think he's probably going to be a bit overwhelmed when all the family descends on us, but I think he's excited.

Brian Lehrer: There's an old American Thanksgiving tradition getting the car washed so people don't come over and see the pigeon poop on the roof. [chuckles] Jessica, thank you very much.

Jessica: Exactly.

Brian Lehrer: Happy Thanksgiving. Alex in Los Angeles, you're on WNYC. Hi, Alex.

Alex: Hi, Brian. I'm also super grateful for your show and everything you do like so many other people who called in. My father is from Libya. I'm making a dish called Imbakbaka, which is a chicken pasta dish with a lot of cinnamon, and also jalapenos. It's very fragrant, very aromatic. It shows the commonality between Italian food and Libyan food because they're neighbors in a certain sense for better or worse.

We're making that and I'm also roasting a chicken with curry sauce and then doing some more traditional American Thanksgiving things like roasted Brussels sprouts and potatoes and whatnot.

Brian Lehrer: Do these things go like the American stuff and the Libyan stuff?

Alex: Sure. We're going to find out.

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Brian Lehrer: There you go. Thank you very much. I guess that's it. We don't really have time to do justice for another one to another one for another one with another one. We're going to leave it there and say that is our Thanksgiving show. It has been a joy for me to be on live with you this morning. I am thankful for all of you and we try not to take any listener for granted. Enjoy the rest of the day, whoever you're with and however you spend it. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Stay tuned for All Of It with Alison Stewart. What an afternoon lineup we have. Alison at 12:00, Terry at 2:00, Melissa at 3:00, and all things considered, starting at four o'clock, Thanksgiving in every day. Thank you all for your ears. Thanks one more time to our team Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, Esperanza Rosenbaum, plus Emily Löwinger, and Shweta Watwe, Zach Gottehrer-Cohen, who was about to produce our Daily Politics Podcast and Matt Marando at the Thanksgiving audio controls. Enjoy the day.

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