Every year on Thanksgiving, I can count on my mother to tell the story of her first year living in Tijuana, when my dad, who was born in Mexico City, said to her: “Mami, I want you to make a traditional American Thanksgiving feast so we can show our friends here how your people celebrate.”
My Southern California-raised mom was six months pregnant with me and had to watch over my sister, then just 1 year old, when my dad requested his Turkey Day feast. So she sent him to San Diego for the bird while she stayed home in Tijuana to prepare the rest of the meal.
“They didn’t have turkeys in Mexico,” she said each time she repeated the story.
For years, I believed her.
In the not-so-distant past, Mexico didn’t so readily embrace American Thanksgiving. For my dad, it was just plain exotic. And as his youngest daughter, my half-sister Iridia, once explained, “In Mexico we do not consider the European conquest of Indigenous people a cause for celebration.”
Fast forward many years from the first telling of the story, and I’m standing in the kitchen of my dad’s house in Tijuana, where he lived with his fourth wife, Grace, and two kids, Memo and Iridia. And there was food. Tons of food! Leftovers in trays and roasting pans and cazuelas covered every inch of the counters and stovetop. Grace noticed me gawking at all the deliciousness and, I imagine, looking hungry. They threw a big family party the night before, she said, as she showed me around the feast: tamales filled with pork, roasted chiles and pineapple; big pots of stews and vegetables; and the remains of an enormous bird, worthy of a Norman Rockwell portrait.
“Is that a turkey?” I asked, incredulous, even though it was obviously a turkey.
For Thanksgiving, a mole-inspired turkey rubbed with spices — pasilla chile, cinnamon, clove and allspice — and basted with butter is roasted with fennel, oranges and herbs.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Today, many Mexican families on both sides of the border celebrate “American” Thanksgiving. And many restaurants near the border offer traditional Thanksgiving meals to their Mexican, American and Mexican American clientele. At Fauna in Valle de Guadalupe, named the best restaurant in Mexico in 2023 by the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, chef David Castro Hussong offers his regular menu on Thanksgiving, as well as a special holiday menu complete with turkey, potatoes and, of course, pie.
“We’re on the border,” says the Ensenada native and descendant of the family that owns the famed Hussong Cantina. “Thanksgiving is a big deal here. In my family it’s even a bigger deal than Christmas.”
Evidently what my mom meant in 1965 when she said they didn’t have turkeys in Mexico was that they didn’t have Butterballs in Mexico. Because turkeys are from Mexico.
Turkeys of Mexico
Wild turkeys from southern Mexico were domesticated over 2,000 years ago by the Aztecs and Mayas. Unless you go in for a heritage bird (certain varieties of turkeys that are also naturally breeding, raised outdoors with a long lifespan and a slow growth rate), the turkey you’re likely to eat this Thanksgiving is a broad-breasted white turkey, a Mexican American hybrid bred for fast growth and such a large proportion of white meat that the turkeys cannot mate naturally.
The Spanish brought the birds to Europe in the 1500s and gave them the name “pavo,” because their iridescent feathers were reminiscent of peacocks, or pavoreal.
These peacock-like birds or guajalote (their Nahuatl name) from southern Mexico are integral to many traditional Mexican dishes dating back to before the Spanish conquest.
A border Thanksgiving meal — mole.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
In Puebla, the bird is roasted and served with mole. Further south, in the Yucatán, it’s stewed and turned into several traditional preparations, including pavo pibil, in which the whole turkey is cooked in achiote paste and sour oranges; pavo en escabeche, where shredded turkey is pickled with sour orange juice and laced with pickled onions and chiles; pavo en San Simón, shredded turkey in a tomato-based sauce, served with fried plantains and slices of French bread. And then there’s pavo navideño, or Christmas turkey, which, stuffed and roasted whole, was essentially what Grace showed me in her kitchen, even though it wasn’t Christmas.
Now that Thanksgiving has shifted away from the pilgrims-and-Indians story and into a day focused on gratitude, the holiday has made inroads in Mexico. I’ve lived part-time in Mexico City for several years and each year when Thanksgiving rolls around just about everyone I encounter wishes me a “feliz Día de Acción de Gracias,” or happy Day of Giving Thanks.
For stuffing, make this holiday-worthy picadillo recipe with ground pork, spices, cubed potatoes, tomatoes, almonds, raisins and orange.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
But what never changes is the turkey at the center of what we’ve come to call “Turkey Day.” I’ve adopted Grace’s turkey-centered feast for this day of giving thanks. It’s a mash-up — like me, and like all of us “Americans” — of influences and components from different cultures. I’m grateful for the melding of cultures and experiences that I am. I’m grateful that Grace introduced me to this feast!
For this version, I rub the turkey in mole-inspired seasonings, including chile, cinnamon, allspice and clove, and roast it with oranges, fennel, onions, garlic and fresh herbs. Grace roasts hers with picadillo inside, and I occasionally do this at home, though for food safety considerations, I am recommending cooking the picadillo separately.
Holiday picadillo
My picadillo is seasoned with the sweet spices and studded with golden raisins, toasted almonds, minced candied orange and fresh thyme. (It gets better with time, so if you want to get ahead of a feast, making this two days in advance is a great way to do so).
The turkey is served with mole poblano, which Grace taught me how to make by doctoring a jar of Doña Maria mole; I thin the thick cacao-chile sauce with the drippings from the turkey for extra flavor.
The chocolate pecan pie is made with Mexican chocolate (which contains cinnamon) and loads of vanilla. Speaking of gratitude, this meal makes me grateful for all the foods Mexico has shared with the world that make this meal possible: pecans, chocolate, chiles, tomatoes, vanilla …
Whatever you’re eating, wherever you are, as Hussong reminds us, “Thanksgiving is all about spending time with the family. Being together.”
This year, on either side of a border, those of us with the luxury and freedom to sit down in the safety of our homes, with family and friends over a celebratory meal and a Mexican American turkey, have a lot to feel grateful for.
This recipe for pecan pie — baked in a tart shell — features just enough Mexican chocolate for added depth of flavor, and isn’t too sweet.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Get the recipes
Time 4 hours plus 1 day to dry-brine the turkey
Yields Makes 1 (12- to 15-pound) roasted turkey
Time 1 hour 15 minutes
Yields Serves 8 to 12
Time 10 minutes
Yields Makes 6 cups
Time 2 hours plus resting time for the dough
Yields Makes 1 (9-inch) tart
