Thanksgiving I: Challenges of Preparing the Food

Beverly slaves away, trying to fix dinner for 10 people in a tiny apartment in a foreign land.


She doesn't give up.

You can't buy bread crumbs here, and it's too humid to leave bread out overnight, so she made her own, by cutting and then drying the bread in the oven.

One thing we can buy here is delicious avocados, for making guacamole (which you can't buy here).

The adventure begins with spices and sauces. Some things are the same, others are different.

We found frozen turkey breasts in our local supermarket.

Peru has a huge selection of potatoes, so picking the type that would work for mashed potatoes was an adventure. The ones here on the right worked great. The sweet potatoes (shown on the left) were fabulous, but Peru doesn't have brown sugar, so we used a crude cane sugar and marshmallows to make candied yams.

Here's the serving table with the pre-dinner snacks, including nuts, fruit jello, candy, chips, drinks, guacamole, chip dip, and salsa. This was the first time the missionaries had enjoyed most of these things since coming to Peru. It was the first time the two Latino missionaries had ever had some of the food.

The serving table with the main course, including rolls, ham, turkey, yams, green beans, potatoes and gravy, etc.

We topped everything off with wonderful pies that were purchased at the local bakery: lemon (lower left), apple (top center), and pecan (lower right).

We spent many hours planning and preparing the meal, and many hours cleaning up afterwards, but it was worth it. The elders loved it (see the post above).