Where the turkey is called chompipe and other Thanksgiving stories

BOSTON — Many of us at GlobalPost have had adventurous Thanksgiving meals prepared, against the odds, while abroad. And sometimes we've given up on the adventurous preparations and just spent time with the ones we love, giving thanks. See below for tales of Thanksgiving in Spain, France, Nicaragua, Russia, Bangladesh, Italy, Zimbabwe, Germany, Jerusalem, Switzerland and Belgium.

Emily Lodish on turkey at 30,000 feet:

Turns out Swiss Air is lenient when it comes to traveling with frozen poultry.

I know this because in 2003 I called a nice woman over at Swiss Air to ask her that very question: “What would you do if, say, a traveler tried to board with some frozen turkey?” “Hold on,” she said, barely muffling the phone receiver as she inquired of her coworker into any existing policies regarding poultry. It was OK, she said, so long as the poultry — turkey in this case — was fully wrapped. “No problem,” I said.

It was all part of our plan to import Thanksgiving to one of my dearest friends, Elisa, who lives in Barcelona. Spain’s second largest city boasts many things — Gaudi architecture and a lively nightlife — but it does not brag easy access to a turkey. So, another friend, Mike, and I had planned to fly from New York with turkey in tow. We had stuffing planned, pumpkin pie on the mind and we’d been told cranberry sauce wouldn’t be hard to get around Gracia, where Elisa lived.

The plan was to package our bird in a cooler with an ice pack or two, which, based on preliminary calculations, would keep her frozen to frozen-ish for the duration of our transcontinental flight. The idea was to arrive in Barcelona just as the turkey completed defrosting, which was, conveniently, going to be Thanksgiving morning. We’d pop her right in the oven — after removing the giblets, of course, and shoving some rosemary up her keister.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly until we got to the Barcelona baggage claim with nary a bag in sight. “Your bags are in Zurich,” we were told. “What about our turkey?” we asked. “Was your turkey in your bag?” “Yes.” “Then, your turkey is in Zurich.”

Our turkey was in Zurich, where we met our connecting flight, and there wasn’t a lot to be done about it. Mike and I were distraught at the prospect of coming up short for Thanksgiving dinner, displeased at the prospect of handling rancid poultry and just plain bummed out that our delicate ballet of turkey-related fun had been so badly bungled. “How come she gets to see the Alps?” Mike wanted to know.

We dragged our sorry selves to Elisa’s pad to think what to do. We checked in periodically with the airport, to see if our bags had arrived, explaining each time how time was of the essence where the turkey was concerned. It was, maybe the fourth time we called, when the answer was: “The turkey has landed.”

Indeed, it seems that Mike and I had underestimated how chilly the belly of the plane gets, and as a result had a still half-frozen bird on our hands.

And give thanks we did for our tasty, well-traveled bird.

Mort Rosenblum in Paris:

Back in 1979 — when all that France knew of Le Sanksgeeveeng was a chestnut Art Buchwald column about “Merci Donnant,” featuring Captain Kilometres Deboutish — a friend and I decided to cook a major turkey.

We dispatched guests on a scavenger hunt days before. Pumpkins were easy; cranberries tough; marshmallows as scarce as white truffles. Everything ready, we looked again at our apartment oven. It could have handled a partridge in a pear tree. Our turkey was out of the question.

A neighbor across the hall had the solution, obvious to anyone French: Go see the baker downstairs. Having just moved in, we didn’t know him. That didn’t matter. At 4 a.m., Monsieur Martin happily popped our 10-pound bird into his 10-ton oven.

For that, and so many other reasons linked to crispy crusts and pain au chocolat, my Thanksgiving list still includes French bakers.

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