Thanksgiving, celebrated on the third Thursday of November, is a time of getting together with family and eating good food. Some of the traditional foods served include turkey, pie, potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and green beans. But many Americans that come from other cultures have different foods on this holiday.

Zander Zheng, freshman, has Peking duck with his family. Peking duck is a traditional Chinese food that has been prepared since around 500 A.D. and was a favorite food of many Chinese Emperors. “My mom makes the best Peking Duck. The skin is thin and crisp, and the meat is so nice and tender that it melts in your mouth,” Zheng said.

Many people include dessert in their Thanksgiving meal, and a common dish is pumpkin pie. Ryan Chatterley, freshman, has Grasshopper Pie, which originated in the Philippines and was introduced to the American culture in the early 1900s. Nowadays, the pie is not actually made with grasshoppers, but it was made with real grasshoppers as late as the 1960s. “This is an amazing chocolate-mint pie,” Chatterley said. “We don’t add grasshoppers, but it’s still good.”

All of these foods, even though they are not “traditional” Thanksgiving foods, are still part of who we are.