Why We Eat Turkey: The Buchwald Explanation How to celebrate Thanksgiving as an American living abroad presents either serious homesickness, a cooking quandary (where to get the turkey, or an oven big enough to handle it) or an opportunity to skip the whole bird, stuffing, potatoes (sweet or mashed) and mince-pie extravaganza. The question of how to mark the holiday as an expat, however, could easily be topped by the question of how, exactly, to explain the historical circumstances being commemorated. The longtime columnist Art Buchwald, who wrote about expat adventures in Paris for the New York Herald Tribune (which became the International Herald Tribune), had a field day with the topic, taking care of both quandaries. On the fourth of November, 1953, his "Europe's Lighter Side" column was a Frenchified fractured fairy-tale explanation of the day, le Jour de Merci Donnant, populated with Pilgrims (Pèlerins) and Indians (les Peaux-Rouges) in le Nouveau Monde. Every year on the Jour de Merci Donnant, parents tell their children an amusing story about this first celebration of the Pèlerins. It concerns a Capitaine named Miles Standish (known in France as Kilometres Deboutish) and a young, shy lieutenant named Jean Alden. Both of them were in love with a flower of Plymouth called Priscilla Mullens (no translation). The vieux capitaine said to the jeune lieutenant: Go to the damsel Priscilla (Allez très vite chez Priscilla), the loveliest maiden of Plymouth (la plus jolie demoiselle de Plymouth). Say that a blunt old captain, a man not of words but of action (un vieux Fanfan la Tulipe), offers his hand and his heart, the hand and heart of a soldier. Not in these words, you know, but this, in short, is my meaning. In subsequent years, further genius struck: If Americans were going to have the same meal every year, why not serve up the same column on Thanksgiving? Voila! Tradition was born. The column ran every year for decades, with sly introductions freshening up the fare. The "Merci donnant" column was not the first time Buchwald relished the cultural perplexity the holiday engenders abroad. On Nov. 27, 1952, he wrote about the momentous decision of the proprietor of the august Parisian restaurant La Tour d'Argent to serve turkey instead of duck to please his American patrons, thereby prompting his chef to threaten to quit. How did Buchwald spend that Thanksgiving? This column takes leave of Paris tomorrow and instead of turkey we expect to eat cous-cous in Marrakesh, Morocco. The occasion is the opening of a new casino, and we've been assigned the important task of chaperoning 35 chorus girls from the Lido nightclub who will dance at the opening. No one has ever done this before and we haven't the slightest idea how it's going to turn out. Are you an American abroad? How are you spending your Thanksgiving? New York Herald Tribune, Paris, Nov. 27, 1952.