So it’s time, right, Signora?” said Piero, the veteran butcher at the S. Cosimato market where every year I order my Thanksgiving turkey (“but remember, we have to get a female turkey”, he always reminds me, “because they are juicer”).

“A few yards away at their fruit and vegetable stand, Alfredo and Marco assure me, without my even asking, that they can order sweet potatoes (the Italian version) and can prepare a pumpkin for cooking if I need it.



At Castroni, in Via Cola di Rienzo, the Mecca for foreigners living in Rome (people like me who love Roman and Italian cooking but who, from time to time, simply must have some goodies from home), there is always a Thanksgiving table where you can find the things you need: yams, pumpkin in cans, creamed corn, cranberry sauce, corn syrup and – of course – pecans. Innocenzi, the specialty grocer here in Trastevere where I live, also makes sure that these products are on hand at this time of the year.



It is obvious that this kind of attentiveness reflects the fact that so many Americans live in Rome. But I don’t think this is merely an economic calculation o n the part of Roman merchants. The Romans are particularly sensitive to other people’s holidays eveb when they cannot (as in the case of Halloween or Valentine’s Day) adapt them to their own uses. After all, our Thanksgiving is very rooted in American history.



Thanksgiving has only been an official holiday since 1863 (when it was declared such by Abraham Lincoln at the end of our bloody Civil War). Originally set for November 26, it is now celebrated on the last Thursday of every November. It is tied to the harvest festivities arranged by the 53 pilgrims who arrived in Massachusetts in 1621, and were taught some particular survival methods – planting winter corn and hunting wild turkeys – by the native Americans who had helped them to found their tiny colony.

*Journalist and blogger