A Sephardic Thanksgiving Dinner

Growing up in a mixed Sephardic/Ashkenazi home, my siblings and I took many traditions and rituals from each half of our ancestry. It was common to use Yiddish words when complaining, and I placed a hamsa below the crib of each of my children (to ward off the evil eye). We even had a term for our combined backgrounds—Ashkephardic.

My two halves mostly fused seamlessly throughout the different aspects of my life—aside from the food. Sephardic flavors, specifically Syrian recipes from my father’s family in Aleppo, dominated our holidays, Shabbat dinners, and everyday family meals. Of course, when visiting my Ashkenazi grandma in her home, we shared kasha and kugel. But in our home, other than Saturday morning bagels and lox, Ashkenazi foods rarely made an appearance.

Except for one day a year. On Thanksgiving, there was no hummus or garlic on our dining room table. My father and his spicy, Sephardic cooking stepped back, while my American-born grandmother and mother stepped forward. Sweet potatoes and marshmallows replaced kibbeh hamdah and mujaddara. There was stuffing, mashed potatoes, and turkey. There was gravy from a box, and cranberries from a can. It was a treat to cook and eat these “new” foods, taking a break from the ethnic tastes—which others might have found exotic—that we were used to.

These days, I’m a grown mother of two, and spend too much time figuring out what to cook for my family. Now that my father is no longer with us, and the hosting of the holidays is up to my siblings and me, I thought about why we separated our two backgrounds on this holiday for so long. It felt strange to me, at this point, to completely leave our Sephardic heritage out of Thanksgiving. Maybe, I thought, we no longer have to. When I gave it some thought, the flavors we love to use in Sephardic cooking make total sense for a festive, fall, Thanksgiving meal. Cinnamon, cardamom, and cumin. Dried herbs and fruit. I set out on a mission to try and figure out a way to infuse my Middle Eastern heritage into my family’s Thanksgiving traditions.

My first thought was to connect with chef Einat Admony. I’d met Admony through her delicious restaurants—Balaboosta and Moondog HiFi—and knew she was half-Persian, half-Yemenite. Her husband is of French descent, so I thought she might have ideas on how to combine cultures for the holidays.

“Thanksgiving is the one time of year I cook with butter,” said Admony. “I didn’t grow up cooking with, or eating butter, so this is the one holiday where I indulge because of my husband’s French background.” When I told Admony about my past Thanksgiving experiences helping my grandma place marshmallows on top of mashed sweet potatoes, her face scrunched up in disgust. “Marshmallows aren’t food,” she said while I laughed.

We talked about what her Thanksgiving meals look like these days, at her home-cooked meals where many backgrounds, cultures, and traditions are present. “People are waiting for specific Thanksgiving dishes like potatoes and gravy, so I take those traditions and spice them up. People think they can only make food taste delicious by using a ton of fat,” she said. “No, you can make delicious food without using cream and butter at all.”

For Admony, turkey isn’t something she cooks too often. “People say, ‘Oh turkey isn’t dry,’ but for me, 90% of the turkey I eat is dry, so at least let me have some amazing sauces on the side to give it some flavor,” she said. To infuse Thanksgiving dinner with some Middle Eastern zest, Admony suggested making a Persian-style cranberry-pomegranate fesanjoon sauce to accompany the turkey, or as a play on traditional cranberry sauce on the side. (Recipe below.) “Thanksgiving is about a lot of sweet ingredients,” she said. “For me, I have to have balance, so that the entire meal doesn’t feel like dessert.” She suggested using some chiles and Aleppo pepper for balance.

Next, I reached out to Jasmine Einalhori of Chi Chi Eats. Growing up in a Persian household, and now cooking and catering for all different cultures, Einalhori is well versed on the various flavors and tastes of the Middle East.

Einalhori spent most Thanksgiving holidays with her aunt in Orange County, California. While her aunt would cook more traditional American Thanksgiving dishes, the rest of their family would supplement with what she called “Persian dishes gone Thanksgiving.”

“We have funky ways of putting a Middle Eastern twist on Thanksgiving dishes,” she said. “In Persian tradition, there’s a dish called tu-deli (Persian stuffed chicken). It’s a rice dish with spiced onions, cumin, nutmeg, cinnamon, paprika, and lots of dried fruit. So, because I never had real stuffing before, and because we were used to tu-deli, we’d stuff our turkey with Persian rice.”

Like Admony, Einalhori believes that balancing flavors is key to putting a Middle Eastern spin on traditional Thanksgiving dishes. “Marshmallows and sweet potatoes will forever be foreign to me,” she said. “I also believe that a sweet potato shouldn’t supplement a potato, because to me sweet potatoes are more of a dessert.” While some Sephardic sects use sweeter flavors like cherry, tamarind, date, and pomegranate, Einalhori prefers to ensure her dishes combine the savory with the sweet.

To spice up Thanksgiving dishes, Einalhori encourages those cooking to experiment with vegetables: “When people ask me what my favorite thing to cook is, I actually think it’s vegetables (more than meat), because you can change the vegetables a lot more by how you cook them, and you can spruce them up using herbs, dried fruit and nuts, but still keep the authenticity of the dish.” Her eyes perk up when she thinks of the perfect Middle Eastern Thanksgiving recipe: eggplants with pomegranate herb chimichurri. “Eggplants are a super common Middle Eastern vegetable to cook with,” she said. “If you roast or fry them, add some herbs, and top them with pomegranate seeds, all of a sudden it feels festive without losing the traditional flavor of what it is.”

Lastly, I knew I had to reach out to Leetal Arazi of New York Shuk. Arazi and her husband, Ron, handcraft such Middle Eastern pantry staples as spices, spreads, and sauces. Like me, Arazi is half Sephardic and half Ashkenazi. She grew up in Israel, and moved to New York around 10 years ago. “I didn’t grow up celebrating Thanksgiving, so we don’t have the sentimental value of doing things a certain, traditional way,” she said. “So, we’re just going to do what we do with all of our cooking, which is bring a Middle Eastern flair to everything we make. And now that we live here—any holiday involving food and bringing our family and friends together? Sign us up!”

Arazi’s background is Turkish, Iraqi, and Czech, while her husband, Ron, is Lebanese and Moroccan. “Everything that we try to do with our flavors is helping people integrate them into everyday recipes,” said Arazi. “And with Thanksgiving, it’s the same. Maybe it’s adding sumac to cranberry sauce, or marinating the turkey in a dry rub of shawarma, or even adding ras el hanout or kafe hawaij to pumpkin pie. These small additions that upgrade the dishes is our new Thanksgiving tradition.”

While Arazi can think of many Thanksgiving recipes that would benefit from a Middle Eastern spice flair, one specific, old family recipe comes to mind. “Around the holidays, my aunt Cheryl would always make a special eggnog recipe, which I always loved,” she said. “And once we created the kafe hawaij spice, I knew it would go perfect in the eggnog. So we tried it, and the flavors of the cardamom and cinnamon all worked so well together.” These days, the spiced up eggnog has become a staple dish of the Arazis between Thanksgiving and Hanukkah. “I’ve even gifted it a few times in a beautiful carafe.”

For those simply looking to add some flavor to their traditional Thanksgiving dishes, Arazi encourages those cooking to experiment with spices like sumac, preserved lemon, ras el hanout, and kafe hawaij. It can be anything from adding sumac and preserved lemon to a salad dressing, or adding za’atar to potatoes, or adding kafe hawaij to sweeter dishes like pumpkin or butternut squash recipes. “I realize that I take for granted how I incorporate these Middle Eastern flavors into everything I cook,” she said, “and I truly think many Thanksgiving dishes would benefit from a little bit of spice.”

During our conversation, I told Einalhori that Thanksgiving was the one day you wouldn’t find hummus on our dining room table. “Why?” she asked. “In the past, I’ve made hummus and, in the middle, added butternut squash with spiced cinnamon and nutmeg. You can have a hummus dish at the table. Just add a fall vegetable and it becomes festive.”

After speaking with these three chefs, my mind and menu definitely expanded. I no longer see cooking for this holiday in such a binary way of American or Sephardic dishes, and had many new recipes to add to our Thanksgiving feast. While I still may sneak in some marshmallows to our meal, I’ll also be reaching for my Middle Eastern spices, herbs, and flavors. And I just may bring a special hummus back to the table, in honor of my late father.