The UK is quietly (and enthusiastically) adopting America’s most food-centric holiday: Thanksgiving. According to recent retail data, searches for “Thanksgiving” in the UK jumped by 440% year-on-year (Ocado) and supermarkets are stocking more US-style ingredients and Thanksgiving-specific products than ever before. Meanwhile, more than half of Gen Z and millennials say they’ve already attended a Thanksgiving meal in the UK, and 16% plan to host or attend one for the very first time this year.
Of course, social media has played a huge part in this shift, with TikTok tablescapes, “Friends-style” gatherings, and American Family Dinner content giving the holiday a distinctly British makeover.
With this fast-growing appetite for Thanksgiving, S. Lucia Kanter St. Amour, a fifth-generation Italian-American author who lives in San Francisco, shares what makes Thanksgiving special, as well as a recipe for anyone who wants to cook something from scratch this Thanksgiving – American or not!
Lucia’s new historical fiction, dual timeline novel The Covert Buccaneer (featured in TLS and LoveReading’s Book of the Month) blends history, culture, and family legacy. For her and many other Americans, Thanksgiving means chaotic kitchens, generations talking over each other, slightly imperfect recipes passed down from grandparents, and the kind of heartfelt rituals and games that bind families together.
“Growing up in the ’70s and ’80s, Thanksgiving in my family was never quite the glossy magazine spread; it was quite the feast, sure. But also a slightly unhinged circus, which is probably why the Thanksgiving chapter in The Covert Buccaneer feels so alive. I didn’t need to imagine much. I just… rearranged reality,” explains author S. Lucia Kanter St. Amour.
“My real-life family Thanksgiving today looks a lot like it does in my novel—and while still not glossy, it’s certainly Instagrammable in the way followers appreciate authentic glimpses into others’ private lives. From a slightly too-small kitchen to a visiting parent drifting through the cooking zone, opening cupboards as if searching for a portal to Narnia, someone knocking over something essential, and multigenerational opinions—solicited or not.”
In the book, one of the main characters, Ellie, is cooking her final Thanksgiving in her grandfather Enzo’s Berkeley home while juggling nostalgia, grief, blistered hands, and a surprise visit from the man she’s been cautiously falling for. In Lucia’s own life, Thanksgiving has always been a collision point between memory, identity, and whatever unpredictable characters show up that year: “usually family, sometimes a stray friend or visitor, always barely controlled chaos”.
With an estimated 170,000 citizens living in London, and rising interest in Thanksgiving food and traditions, this old family recipe will prove popular this Thanksgiving – or any time during winter as a warm, home-cooked comfort meal.
RECIPE: Lucia’s Family’s Butternut Squash Soup
INGREDIENTS
- 1 large butternut squash, peeled and cubed
- 1 yellow onion, chopped
- 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 4 cups vegetable or chicken broth
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp pepper
- Optional: a splash of cream or coconut milk
- Optional: pinch of nutmeg
How It’s Done
1. Toss squash, onions, carrots, and garlic in olive oil, salt, and pepper.
2 . Roast at 400°F / 200°C for 35–40 minutes, until caramelised.
3. Blend roasted vegetables with broth until velvety.
4 . Warm on the stove; finish with heavy cream or coconut milk if you like.
5. Add a faint dusting of nutmeg for panache.
Passed-Down Pro Tip From Lucia’s Italian Nonna:
Roast your vegetables first. It concentrates their sweetness and saves you from a flat, cafeteria-style soup.
Feature Image by Element5 Digital on Unsplash
