Thanksgiving in Barcelona

How To Shop for a Homemade Meal In Spain With Only Slightly Less Discomfort Than Actually Returning To America To Spend It With Your Family

Ah yes, Thanksgiving. 

The holiday that is reminiscent of returning to your hometown, running into your high school ex at the football game and avoiding conversation with that one uncle at dinner time. Best known for ringing in the Christmas shopping season. A day as American as the apple pie that marks its completion.  

Also that wonderful time of year for expats in Barcelona where the Spanish quaintness of having to go to a different shop for every morsel of food becomes a test of paciencia.  

Second only to finding a groundhog on February 2nd, Thanksgiving meal shopping can send American expats into a mega-grocer withdrawal spiral.  It’s all so charming when you’re doing your daily shopping - going to the panaderia for bread, carnicería for meats, and a slew of specialty stores in between for spices and obscure items.  But try finding ingredients for the extensive Thanksiving menu and it becomes little more of a pursuit. Pecans? ¿Que?  Sage? ¡Imposible! 

So putting together a homemade traditional turkey and fixins in Barcelona is going to be a test of stamina no doubt.  If you are cooking your own Thanksgiving meal at home in Spain you will visit (from a made up statistical source) no less than three shops - dare I say four or even five in a smaller city - to obtain all the exotic American ingredients needed to complete this holiday feast.  And if you happen to reside in an aldea then you may just have to take some serious creative liberties with your menu. 

But for those who attempt this brave culinary feat in the capital of Cataluña, perhaps in an effort to impress your spanish friends with a meal of excessive proportions, there are three crucial ingredients that always seem to be the most elusive when planning Thanksgiving dinner in a foreign land.

The turkey, the cranberries, and the pumpkin.  

Even in a country as divided as ours we can all agree that these are staples of the iconic American meal, and missing any of them would make this dinner just a little bit wrong. There are of course ingredients that are notoriously difficult to find year round as well (maple syrup and brussels sprouts come to mind) but since they are not what most would call Thanksgiving “staples” we will look at just these indispensable ingredients, where to get them and what to substitute when you can’t find the original. 

And to those who say, ¨¡Viva España! ¡Do without these things, you’re in Spain!¨- please let the rest of us have our one day for nostalgic overeating of nap-inducing poultry and strangely specific sides.  If you want to substitute jamón and olives, be my guest but let the rest of us wear sweatpants. 

First and foremost, the Thanksgiving guest of honor…

THE TURKEY

Never mind finding the herbs to make a brine worthy of Rachel Ray’s 30 Minute Meals, whole turkeys are not really a thing in Spanish cuisine.  A turkey breast maybe, or one of those thin plastic containers with 5 slices of pavo (which locals think is enough meat for 5 bocadillos but that is another post). But even in the States I can’t remember sitting down to a full turkey meal any day other than Thanksgiving, so I guess being able to find one in Spain during holiday time is a kind gesture to us immigrants. 

If you’re going for the whole turkey raw you’re gonna have to do it with a little bit of time.  Nobody is going to have an aisle full of birds ready for the Thanksgiving week grocery frenzy that we are used to over the pond. Bigger grocery stores, especially ones that cater to expats (meaning pricier shops) will carry them - Carrefour sometimes has them, El Corte Ingles stocks a few however if you search “pavo” on their website it comes up with cat food - but your best bet is a butcher. 

So how to buy a whole turkey from a butcher in Barcelona?  Most won’t keep them on hand - they have to be ordered anywhere from a day to a week ahead of time.  If your local butcher doesn’t normally stock them it’s worth asking before doing a meat scavenger hunt - they usually can get one with a little notice. 

For some reason halal butchers always know a guy that can get them one the next day, but larger butchers like Carnes Serrano (an establishment next to la Boqueria and the only reason I’ll go anywhere near there anymore) have their own far and do a couple kills a week, so you may have to pre-order your Thanksgiving bird at least a few days in advance.  If you just got squeamish reading that last sentence remember you’ve probably enjoyed at least one vermut sitting under a ceiling of drying, old pigs legs.  And if you haven’t then what are you even doing in Spain. 

If you did not plan your turkey purchase con antelacíon, there’s always at least one or two butchers in every central market that will overcharge you and your thick American accent  “¿Oon pah-voh en-tear-oh pour favor?”  They will have a few displayed  in the window, just pick the prettiest and pay the euros.  Whole turkeys already cost a wing and a leg more than in the U.S.A. so suck it up and get your act together next year.

A few more things to keep in mind: a Spanish turkey is weighed in kilos, multiply this by 2.2 to get your pounds.  If you still aren’t sure how much turkey you need, each guest will eat around 200 grams of meat, maybe more if they're glutinous, less if they are European. A raw 6 kilo bird which cooks down to about 4 kilos will feed 10 to 15 people, depending on your crowd.  If you’re going for the full mom-meal-that-feeds-an-army-for-a-week, you can get turkeys up to 8 or 10 kilos if you shop around a bit. 

Also, your raw bird most likely will have all the giblets and some feathers, as they are not industrial.  A good pair of pliers can help yank those pesky plumas and a sharp knife to remove the neck and tail.  

Finally, if you’re looking for a turkey baster in Spain that doesn’t involve Jeff Bezos your best bet is Chinese Bazar. In a pinch just use a ladle, I’m sure that’s how the forefathers did it.  

THE CRANBERRY SAUCE

Cranberry Sauce is another delicacy that is really only enjoyed the last Thursday of November in America, so it’s no surprise that this is near impossible to find anywhere outside of Thanksgiving time in the land of the free and the home of the brave. 

Whether you're looking for whole cranberries (casi imposible) or the can-shaped variety reminiscent of purple mountain majesty, either will really only be found in the before-mentioned guiri shops and of course only at turkey time.  They latter can be purchased from Taste of America for 100% increase of stateside prices, but totally worth it as I will never stick my nose up at the unique taste and texture of jellied cranberry sauce.

But you’re reading this because you are going for the whole homemade American in Barcelona food experience.  From what I understand they only grow in the bogs of North America and finding them fresh in Spain is out of the question.  Frozen cranberries are really the only way to go, which are even more difficult to find than turkeys, but again they can be found in limited numbers at the usual spots.  

However: a sneaky little trick that nobody wants to talk about is that you can buy dried cranberries - I believe the scientific name is “Craisins”- and soak them in water overnight to use in any googlable recipe as long as you decrease the sugar.  Oddly enough these are readily available at most supermarkets in Barcelona. Godspeed.

PUMPKIN PIE

Literally only enjoyed at Thanksgiving and basically non-existent in Spain, the homemade pumpkin pie is possibly the most sought after of all the holiday delights.  

While every person at the table has their favorite plate no one can deny that this dessert or some version of it - cheesecake, latte or personality trait -  makes or breaks a true American traditional Thanksgiving meal.  Even foreigners who don’t enjoy our bizarre gourd-based tart are immediately sus.

Of course if you want the canned pumpkin pie go for it. As you’ve probably guessed they’re available at the same big grocers aforementioned or Taste of America.  But we want to make pie from a real pumpkin, which is definitely not a thing in Cataluña. Oh you might find them here and there at the specialty produce markets, but we’re here for a good time not a long time.  So we’re gonna make this quick and simple, people in the back listen up. 

Butternut squash. You can find these little weeble wobbles everywhere and when you roast ‘em, mash ‘em and mix ‘em with Starbucks spices nobody knows the difference.  I wish everything was this simple. You are very welcome. 

So there you have it, the Thanksgiving trifecta at your fingertips in sunny Barcelona. Even if you don't make another dish outside of these three and just mash up some bravas I dare say you can still call it a complete meal, sort of. The only thing missing is politics and family drama, but even some heated debates on Catalan Nationalism will do the trick to complete your American in Barcelona Thanksgiving meal experience.