Thanksgiving in Honduras

 Honduras has a lot of holidays, but Thanksgiving is not one of them. We still managed to have a huge potluck dinner with turkey, stuffing, cranberries, and other traditional Thanksgiving food that is definitely much different from what is normally eaten in Honduras.

Allen had already bought a lot of food in preparation for Thanksgiving on our last trip to Tegucigalpa in late October. Our opportunities to shop for food are relatively uncertain and he wanted to be prepared for the upcoming holidays. Also, I think he was hungry when we went shopping!

There are two stores in Honduras that we can buy more typically American-type merchandise. One is called Mas X Menos Supermercado and the other is PriceSmart which is the Costco equivalent in Honduras. We loaded up from these two stores with bags of nuts, sugar, cinnamon, and many other things that you can’t buy at a normal grocery store here. Yes, it was a bit expensive, especially compared to local food, but Allen’s sweet tooth was speaking to him. Here is a list of just some of the necessary items:

·       Cranberry sauce
·       Seasoning for stuffing
·       Karo syrup, pecans, butter (pecan pie – Allen’s favorite!)
·       Whipped cream
·       Brown sugar, raisins, cinnamon, and more butter (cinnamon rolls, not necessarily for Thanksgiving).

I was greatly relieved when the volunteers decided to make it a potluck and a sign-up sheet was posted for the group. That meant that I could sign up for pecan pie and not worry about the rest. Allen signed up for turkey, but then found out that it was already covered so switched to brownies which he had been meaning to make for a while anyway from a brownie mix previously purchased at PriceSmart.

“We” made the brownies and pecan pie bars last Sunday since the kitchen was relatively free at the time and I knew that my Thursday would already be full with another all-day Padrino birthday celebration. The “we” was really me, with Allen providing a lot of extra instruction on the brownies. I told him that his instruction was not necessary for the pecan pie 😊 which was switched to bars due to lack of pie plates and greater ease of serving two types of bars to about two dozen people. As noted in the list above, we had whipped cream to put on both.

We ended up with over 20 people at our Thanksgiving fest which included the volunteers, family and friends visiting the volunteers, and some of the NPH leaders on the ranch. There was plenty of food and we were able to have it on the terraza since there is less rain now with the tapering down of the rainy season.  It was a beautiful evening and I was thankful for sharing it with this wonderful new community.




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