This is what a Latino-infused Thanksgiving looks like

*This is circa 2014. I liked it then, thought I’d repost this year. Thanksgiving is tradition, but in many Latino homes it’s also a time for improvisation and reinvention – delicious improvisation and reinvention. Carnitas on Thanksgiving? Why not. VL

By Leslie Téllez, Quartz

I make my living writing and showing people the beauty of Mexican food, but once people learn I’m Mexican-American, they inevitably think I grew up with my mom and grandma making tortillas in the back room. That was not my story.

My mom speaks Spanish and knows how to make flour tortillas, but she made them constantly growing up and had no desire to make them again. My dad, a smart Chicano guy from Los Angeles, doesn’t speak Spanish, although his mother and father did. Until I went to college on the East Coast—when people asked me, “Where are you really from? and “You weren’t born in Mexico, but your parents were, right?”—I had no idea I was anything other than American.

Our Thanksgiving table usually looked like this: turkey and ham on the table, sometimes a canned ham, sometimes a Honeybaked. We had mashed potatoes and yams and occasionally a cranberry salad that my mom made with sour cream, Jell-O and walnuts. (It was really, really good.) We had brown-and-serve rolls and frozen pies warmed in the oven.

Click HERE to read the full story and see the recipes.