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Authentic Italian Meatballs

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Thanksgiving in Paris

My most interesting Thanksgiving was one I spent in Paris. As you can probably guess, the French don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. They didn’t have any Pilgrims landing on their shores.

My husband and I checked into our hotel in the middle of Paris. We got in the elevator to ride upstairs and saw a little notice offering us a Thanksgiving meal if we wanted to dine in their restaurant. At first I was extremely excited. I thought, “Wow, I get to eat Thanksgiving dinner!” Then I read the menu and my heart sank. All I could think was “YUK.”

The problem was the French tried to accommodate everyone from every region of the US when they planned their menu. They had a pineapple cake from Hawaii. Oyster stuffing from New England. They had sweet potato pie from the south. Sausages from the west…you get the idea. The menu was all over the place! I am really good at visualizing and tasting a menu in my head, and I could see this was going to be such a cacophony of flavors, none of it was going to taste right when you put them together on one plate.

So we aborted the idea of eating at the hotel restaurant and went out. We found a really beautiful spot, and had a wonderful meal. I had lamb for Thanksgiving. My husband had fish. We had a joyous time.

Surprisingly enough, my husband’s meal was closer to what the pilgrims actually ate at the first Thanksgiving than the meal offered at our hotel. In fact, most of our “traditional” Thanksgiving dishes were not eaten at the very first Thanksgiving.

 

Here’s an article by Cristina Duke about what the Pilgrims actually ate on Thanksgiving Day:
www.dvo.com/newsletter/monthly/2014/november/tabletalk4.html

You might be surprised.

For today’s recipe I’m giving you one of those things that you might serve to company over Thanksgiving weekend. Not everyone wants turkey every day, so here is a recipe for super-easy, authentic meatballs that are a BIG YUM once everyone’s turkeyed out.

Authentic Italian Meatballs

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