Cháo Bồi (Vietnamese Porridge with Seafood)

Whenever people ask what my family eats for Thanksgiving, I'm somewhat reluctant to answer, fearing that we Nguyens would appear unpatriotic.

While we've embraced many cultural aspects of our adopted nation, we go rogue come late November. We've lived in the States for nearly 50 years, but certain foods are not fully part of our holiday orbit. After roasting giant supermarket-sale turkeys in the late 1970s, my mom permanently eighty-sixed them in favor of chickens (prized meat in Vietnam) stuffed with sticky rice, shiitakes, roasted chestnuts, and a glug of Cognac. Potatoes were best fried, baked, roasted, or simmered in saucy dishes—never mashed. (Why would you need mashed potatoes if there's sticky rice?) Until recently, she shunned brussels sprouts, thinking they were defined by the overcooked canned orbs that we were served at the refugee resettlement camp when we first arrived in the U.S.

At midlife, I certainly don't live and cook under my mom's control, but I have also never cozied up to conventional Thanksgiving. When I was in college and living with my brother in Los Angeles, we curiously cooked a box of commercial bread stuffing and were disappointed. When my boyfriend of Irish, German, and American heritage invited me to his family's Thanksgiving, I immediately said yes. As it turned out, his people preferred to dine at Lawry's in Beverly Hills, where everyone ordered prime rib and rounds of martinis. (I followed suit because, honestly, I was still a prime rib virgin in 1990.)

I married that boyfriend, partly because he understood and accepted my family's traditions. My father passed in 2021, and for as long as my mom remains alive, we'll be at her home for Thanksgiving to feast on favorite Viet dishes. She'll spoil us with piles of fried cha giò imperial rolls and platters of herbaceous goi (composed salads). And we'll slurp up cháo bồi, a rice porridge laden with seafood and silky tapioca pearls (recipe at right), and, before the meal is done, we'll want dibs on the leftover soup. (That's never a problem because she will have made a triple batch.)

My mother's cháo bồi is a light, savory porridge of shrimp, crab, and mushrooms suspended in a silky soup of rice and tapioca pearls. The rice grains are parboiled and then simmered until their ends split and "bloom" for a soft texture. For a handsome finish, halve the shrimp symmetrically so they cook into pink-orange curls.

Our Thanksgiving concludes with wedges of fresh Fuyu persimmons and mooncakes. These sweets reflect the season: The fruit is harvested from my generous neighbor's trees, and the cakes connect us to Teˆ´t Trung Thu, the mid-autumn festival, an important East Asian harvest celebration that typically occurs in September. It signals a time to rest, consider nature's bounty, gather with loved ones, and feel grateful. - Andrea Nguyen