The French seem to be continuously fascinated with our national holiday. It is such a novelty to them which I find kind of strange considering that to Americans, it is an old and traditional holiday that has been around forever. Forever for the US though is only yesterday for the French given the relative ages of each of our countries. Being a newcomer to Paris and probably not the first American the French have encountered makes it weird to me that Thanksgiving is still such a foggy notion on this side of the Atlantic.
One of the pervasive stereotypes arises immediately. Une national holiday all about American cooking??? What do you eat - hamburgers? This is meant as a joke of course because everyone does seem to know that we all eat turkey. The rest of the meal remains shrouded in varying degrees of mystery. Our national menu sounds exotic to the frog and snail eating crowd over here - cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, few have tasted such things. Goes to show you the power of cultural differences.
And the presents, aren't there presents, don't Americans always buy presents?? I admit, I enjoy poking a hole in the obvious reference to our materialistic society and explain that Thanksgiving is all about enjoying a traditional meal with family and there are no presents involved. In fact America devotes 2 work days and the weekend towards this holiday.
What??? Zeez Americans cook le meal et eat a famille a la table? Incroyable! And so Francais!
Exactly.
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