Thanksgiving in Turkey
23 Nov
I wrote a draft of this post nearly three years ago while living in Istanbul, when I felt unexpectedly nostalgic for an American holiday that had always meant little to me beyond the stuffing and pie. I like to tell myself it’s because I’m constantly reminding myself what I have to be grateful for, rather than confining it to a particular day, but I’m not sure that’s totally true. Anyway, missing Thanksgiving made me eager to latch onto ritual of any sort, even if it wasn’t my own.
I don’t know how to slaughter a turkey. I have no clue how to kill a sheep. I’ve never heard the choked bleats of a dying lamb, and I can’t even imagine the process of turning a furry or feathered animal into the various shanks, chops, thighs and breasts of the butcher’s sinewy world. I figure it begins with a quick slit of the throat, but I really don’t like to figure such things at all.


Obviously.


