Talking Points, Thanksgiving 2016

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Happy Thanksgiving! 感恩节快乐！

We have much to be thankful for, including the many of you who attend our events, read our newsletter and web magazine, or watch or documentaries and presentations online. We’re grateful for the many partners who aid us in our efforts to inform public discussion about the U.S.-China relationship. Some of these are institutional backers, such as the Freeman Foundation which underwrites our teacher training program, and others are individual donors whose gifts, large and small, make the institute’s work possible. Each of you is essential to our efforts. Thank you.

Some previous Thanksgiving editions of Talking Points have featured Thanksgiving-themed recipes developed by noted Chinese American chefs. If you're still figuring out what to make tomorrow, you may appreciate these suggestions from Sylvia Wu (click here for an article/photos from her 100th birthday), Ming Tsai, and Martin Yan.

Madame Wu and family (Palisades Post)	Ming Tsai with his mother, Iris	Martin Yan

This year, Eastday, a state-owned Shanghai news website, has come up with a “Thanksgiving with Chinese characteristics menu.” Reporter Bao Yongting writes that the adjustments for Chinese stomachs begin with the bird. The turkey is a monster, she notes, to be filled with various things. Turkeys, though, are hard to come by in China and even though it’s hard to match the fragrance of a roasted turkey, Bao suggests a lemon chicken option with a vegetable stuffing. Pumpkin pie is replaced with pumpkin rice balls shaped like little pumpkins. Instead of cranberry sauce, Bao’s got a hawthorn sauce. Sounds tasty, right? Enjoy these photos and click here to give the recipes a try.

Back in 2011, we noted the rise in turkey consumption in China, including the establishment of a U.S.-style gourmet turkey restaurant in Beijing and the enduring popularity in Taiwan of Chiayi turkey rice (嘉義鶏肉飯). Chiayi turkey rice is still going strong, but Dianping, a restaurant review site, reports that the Beijing restaurant is

no more. China is now America’s second largest export market for turkey. That 2011 Talking Points also noted, however, that Chinese were getting into raising turkeys. Earlier this year an article from the “China Chicken and Egg” website sought to encourage Chinese poultry farmers to raise the birds, arguing that the meat is nutritious, that the profit potential was great, and noting that the Ministry of Agriculture had included it in its “China Spark Program” (星火计划) to modernize agriculture. Most Chinese, though, have yet to taste turkey.

No matter where you are, no matter who you’re with, and certainly no matter what you’re eating, we wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving. Please take care and feel free to write to us at uschina@usc.edu, to comment on our Facebook page, or to tweet us @usc_uschina.

Please support the USC U.S.-China Institute with a tax-deductible donation. We are eager to continue our efforts to inform public discussion of the multi-threaded and always changing U.S.-China relationship. We need your help.

Best wishes,

The USC U.S.-China Institute

 -- a program of the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism

china.usc.edu

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