Who says that we can only be in one place at a time? Feeling the need to find a comfort zone in a foreign country, student Ilaria Corti, from Italy, talks about origins and traditions with other international students. All of this over a nice meal from their home country. For this first edition, she makes a Thanksgiving recipe from her American friend.

Like most people I know in Europe, I have learned about “Thanksgiving day” from tv series and movies. Because of this, the American and Canadian celebration has always shed an exotic but at the same time traditional impression on me. The USA are such a young country but still wereable to create a typical way of celebrating this national feast, initially created by Christian communities to express gratitude to God, on the tracks of the harvest festival.

Thanksgiving takes place every year on the fourth Thursday in November and the celebration in the country is huge, from family gatherings to street parades. Some American students told me that it’s even considered more important than Christmas, maybe also because it’s followed by the black friday, when everything becomes even more crazy. What is interesting about traditions is that even if time passes by, they can maintain certain unavoidable elements and at the same time, are still being shaped. I was talking tomy American friend Alexa and she showed me some pictures her parents sent ofwhat they had cooked on Thanksgiving Day.

Alexa lives outside New York, but has some southern Italian origins and between the classic roasted turkey and mashed potatoes I could recognise soppressata and provolone, two Italian kinds of salami and cheese. She explained that it’s not typically eaten by American people but her family was able to carry their mediterranean heritage inside this feast. Anyway, what Alexa really likes to eat on Thanksgiving is her mother’s mashed sweet potatoes recipe. For me this dish is a beautiful symbol of the United States, because there is a special ingredient that makes it different from any other mashed potatoes: marshmallows, melted on the top. More than sweet.

[kader-xl]Here it is, the recipe for 6 people:

 

6 big sweet potatoes
100 grams of butter
Milk
A table spoon of cinnamon
50 grams of brown sugar (If you would like a sweeter potato cream you can add some extra brown sugar to the mix)
A package of mini marshmallows

 

Heat the oven at 180°C.

 

Peel and cut the sweet potatoes into cubes. Place the potatoes inside a pot with enough water to cover them all and bring to boil for about 30 minutes. Drain the sweet potatoes so that some of the absorbed water is released. Put them into a pan with sliced butter, cinnamon and brown sugar. Use a masher to make a quite thick, plane cream that is possible to take with a spoon. If it’s too dry add some milk and mix it through the mashed potatoes to make them softer. Create a regular bottom layer of sweet potatoes cream and cover it with a single layer of mini marshmallows. Put the pan inside the oven for about 15 minutes, till the marshmallows start to get a little brown and melted. Ready and tasty!

 

This dish is a very good reason to celebrate Thanksgiving, don’t you think? [/kader-xl]

Read Ilaria Corti's blogs here