An Italian Thanksgiving menu

Just like with Christmas, our main food holiday, I like to keep things simple.

Ciao,

you might be wondering why I—an Italian—am writing a Thanksgiving newsletter. Probably my Italian readers would consider this yet another example of the process of Americanization that has been taking over the Italian culture since World War II. Movies, politics, values, holidays, fast food, even Santa Claus… I’ve already written about Halloween here—and how the carved pumpkin was a scary tradition even during my grandma’s childhood, an example of Fall rituals that would help men give meaning to the liminal space between two seasons and two worlds. But Thanksgiving? Why?

In today’s letter, I’m telling you why I love the idea of hosting a Thanksgiving dinner and I’ll also be sharing some of my favourite seasonal recipes to celebrate. Make them for Thanksgiving, Friendsgiving, Christmas, or when you want to fill your house with the laughter of your friends. And remember, no stress!

This letter is too long for the email format (I had many recipes to share) so click at the bottom to read it in the browser or download the Substack App where you can read all your favourite newsletters without crowding your mailbox.

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On Sunday, November 26th we will attend a much coveted Friendsgiving lunch in a local organic vinery with Italian and American friends, a mingling of cultures, food traditions, and accents. There will be grown-ups, kids, and dogs, a lit fireplace and their wines. Everyone will chime in for lunch, something I really appreciate as this makes you feel an active part of the celebrations.

I will bring an apple strudel, to be served warm with a drizzle of custard dotted with vanilla seeds. I can picture in my mind the long table crowded with friends, the jug of vanilla custard passed around, the smell of cinnamon and baked apples wafting through the air. This image makes me genuinely happy.

We also hosted a Thanksgiving dinner in our studio seven years ago, welcoming our international friends and roasting a huge turkey with Italian herbs and spices. Far from assuming I can thoroughly understand the true spirit of an American Thanksgiving, with its food rituals and traditions, I embraced the occasion of meeting around a table with friends, something we Italians are known to be very good at. And a fall gathering, what a joy: my most favourite season to be in the kitchen, surrounded by squash, chestnuts, mushrooms, apples, and nuts.

During our cooking classes, we often talk about our mutual food traditions with our guests, exchanging recipes and ideas. I make no secret of my desire to participate in a real American Thanksgiving one day.

Just like with Christmas, our main food holiday, I like to keep things simple.

The time of multiple-course heavy menus designed to impress is over. It might be because I’m getting older—I’m 42 now!—, and I’m no more able to eat as I used to do in my thirties, or because I feel the need for seasonal menus with a clear purpose, fewer dishes, and plenty of vegetables.

Those years are gone, along with the rush, the exasperation, the expectations. Choose dishes that can be prepared in advance, or frozen, use your pantry as an inspiration, cook lots of vegetables, and, most of all, try to have fun!

Before delving into my menu ideas, I’m curious to know what you will be cooking for Thanksgiving, if there are recipes that you make year after year, or if you like to experiment.

Appetizers

Autumn panzanella salad

You can make an autumn panzanella salad with pan-fried butternut squash and carrots, a handful of meaty olives, and caramelized red onions to add a sweet and sour touch. When it comes to dressing the salad, opt for a lighter apple cider vinegar that won’t steal the show to freshly pressed extra virgin olive oil, olio nuovo, that will release all its peppery aromas when it comes in contact with the hot vegetables.

Get the recipe from the blog archive.

Otherwise, from the newsletter archive:

• Sausage and stracchino crostoni. Crostone is an open-faced toast with a generous topping of fresh sausages and stracchino cheese.

• Cheese and Egg Balls Stewed in Tomato Sauce. A recipe from Cucina Povera for the Abruzzese pallotte cacio e ova.

• Pittule Salentine, fried dough balls from Salento. That of pittule is a very soft dough, actually more similar to a leavened batter, enriched with the most Mediterranean ingredients you can imagine.

Sausage and stracchino crostoni | Crostoni salsiccia e stracchino

Pittule Salentine, fried dough balls from Salento

Pallotte Cacio e Ova from Abruzzo - Cheese and Egg Balls Stewed in Tomato Sauce

First course. Well, it has to be fresh pasta…

Sagne ‘ncannulate

Sagne ‘ncannulate could be translated as curled tagliatelle, but forget the iconic paper-thin ribbons of fresh egg pasta. Sagne, just like orecchiette and any other type of Southern fresh pasta, call for a simple, poor dough made just with semolina flour and water. They have a thicker, chewier texture than egg tagliatelle, and call for robust sauces, as they deliciously absorb the dressings. The recipe for sagne ‘ncannulate is free for everyone in the newsletter archive.

Have you seen the exclusive recipe we shared on Wednesday for paying subscribers? Cappellacci, homemade plump-bellied pasta parcels stuffed with roasted squash and chestnuts, with three sauces to accompany them.

Otherwise, from the newsletter archive:

• Saffron tagliatelle with artichokes. I fell in love with the recipe and the flavour combination: saffron and artichokes are a marriage of love.

• Butternut squash and ricotta crepes. These butternut squash and ricotta crêpes might look quite daunting, but the good news is that you can prepare the required ingredients – crespelle, besciamella, butternut squash and ricotta filling – in advance, and bake the crespelle before dinner.

• Chestnut flour tagliatelle with porcini and sausages. I cannot think of a dish that best represents an Autumn day in the Tuscan countryside than these chestnut flour tagliatelle dressed with porcini and sausages.

Saffron Tagliatelle with Artichokes

Butternut Squash and Ricotta Crêpes

Chestnut flour tagliatelle with porcini and sausages

Main course. The Italian way with turkey

Stuffed turkey breast

It is a juicy and tasty meat. It makes me reach for a slice of bread to mop the sauce left at the bottom of the pan, made with extra virgin oil, white wine, melted cheese and meat juices. In short, for us who do not have the tradition of roasting a whole turkey to celebrate a festive day, the turkey breast is the most convenient choice: a lean, cheap and versatile cut of meat.

As you will see in the recipe, I prefer cooking the turkey breast on the stovetop rather than in the oven. I can better control the cooking time, which is shorter, and, above all, the result is a juicier stuffed turkey breast.

Get the recipe from the blog archive.

Otherwise, from the newsletter archive:

• L'arista alla fiorentina, Florentine style pork loin. In Tuscany, the word arista refers both to the meat cut and to the recipe, usually served during Sunday meals, both in winter and in the summer.

• Baccalà alla fiorentina. Be it from Florence or from Livorno, in my take on this recipe, baccalà is first fried with thick slices of potatoes, then stewed in a rich tomato sauce.

• Butternut squash parmigiana. You proceed as in the most classic of parmigiana: crisp, baked slices of squash, a good tomato sauce, pieces of mozzarella torn with your hands and heaping tablespoons of Parmigiano reggiano.

L'arista alla fiorentina – Florentine style pork loin

Learn how to cook Stanley Tucci's cod recipe that moved Robert Downey Jr. to tears

Side dishes, my favourite

Fennel gratin

Fennel is quite an unassuming vegetable. Try roasting it with olive oil, lemon juice, and garlic for a surprising side dish full of character and flavour.

Get the recipe from the blog archive.

Otherwise, from the newsletter and blog archive:

• Cauliflower flan - Velvety and smooth, this flan is usually a crowd-pleaser. Even those who usually do not like cauliflower will gladly ask for a second serving.

• Cavolo nero salad with walnuts, orange, and honey. The orange and the chestnut honey, which is not overly sweet, tame the bitterness of cavolo nero, while the walnuts provide a nice crunch and a nutty flavour. Even my mum, who is usually quite sceptic about new recipes, is now making this salad on repeat.

• Deliciously overcooked stewed French beans. Now please trust me and forget to look at your watch, cook these French beans (or green, string, snap beans) for about an hour, on the lowest flame, with other vegetables and some chopped tomatoes.

Cauliflower flan - Lo sformato di cavolfiore

Pumpkin tart. Excerpted from Cucina Povera by Giulia Scarpaleggia (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2023. Photographs by Tommaso Galli.

Desserts

Italian Pumpkin Tart

When Fall comes, big rust pumpkins and honey butternut squashes dot the vegetable gardens and tumble from market crates. Pumpkin is one of those vegetables that put to the test the inventiveness and creativity of home cooks and bakers at the peak of its production. It lends creaminess to risotto or, fried into slices, turns a frittata into a filling meal. It could also be carved to create a morte secca, a scary face lit on the night before Ognissanti, All Saints Day, on the 1st of November. That was also the time to make pumpkin pie.

Even Pellegrino Artusi, the father of Italian cuisine, had a recipe for torta di zucca gialla, Italy’s version of pumpkin pie. The pumpkin is grated, drained, and cooked in milk, then mixed with sugar, finely minced almonds, butter, breadcrumbs, eggs, and cinnamon. The batter is poured into a pie shell and baked into a pudding-like filling encased in a buttery crust. You can find the recipe for torta di zucca gialla, pumpkin tart, in Cucina Povera, page 281.

Otherwise, from the newsletter archive:

• Coffee & extra virgin olive oil cake. It calls for simple ingredients, from your pantry. It has the scent and flavour of a time-past cake, one your grandmother would make, to keep in her kitchen cupboard.

• A vintage torta al caffè, coffee cake. Buttery, with a distinct aroma of coffee, this is my dad’s favourite cake.

• Torta di verdura coi becchi, A sweet Swiss Chard cake.

• Torta caprese, an accidentally gluten-free almond chocolate cake.

Torta di verdure coi becchi - a [sweet] Swiss Chard Tart

Is coffee and extra virgin olive oil a good combination?

A vintage torta al caffè, coffee cake

Torta caprese

Check also my recipe for pinolata senese in

Domenica Marchetti

’s newsletter, Buona Domenica.

Giulia's Pinolata Senese