What to Do for Thanksgiving

Posted by ZenKimchi in Events & Holidays | 3 comments

For Americans, this is one of the harder times of living in a foreign country. It’s the most family-oriented national holiday on the calendar, and most of us are away from our families.

Don’t despair.

There are a few things you can do.

My first few years here, my friends held a weekend Thanksgiving party, complete with turkey. If you or a friend has an oven you can set up a little potluck meal. It used to be that you could only find a turkey if you lived on a U.S. military base or knew someone who could hook you up with that AAFES turkey.

These days a couple of places like Hannam Supermarket near Itaewon and Costco carry a few turkeys. Since they’re imported and heavy, they’re quite more expensive, like in the 40,000-60,000 won range for a whole frozen bird. Yet if you’re having a party, people can chip in some money to pay for it.

If you don’t know how to cook a turkey, sites like Slashfood and Serious Eats have great tips, almost too many tips, for cooking a bird. Also the Good Eats episodes (which you can find online somewhere) about turkey are good.

If you are a loser and have no friends (just kidding) or lazy, Suji’s in Itaewon has a Thanksgiving turkey dinner. The political organization Republicans Abroad also is having a turkey dinner, if you can stand hanging around Republicans and eating at the same time.

I’ll update this when I find out more options.

Does anyone else know of any places to buy turkeys or eat Thanksgiving dinners?

Joe McPherson is the founding editor of ZenKimchi. He is also dining editor for 10 Magazine and writes and consults for multiple publications. He is the only non-Korean judge for the Korean section of the Miele Guide--but don't ever call him a food critic.

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