Taking the flip side of it: When I was in grad school (in the US), I mostly hung out with the international students. All of them knew that Thanksgiving was the American harvest festival, and that like all harvest festivals, it was traditionally celebrated with a big meal, and they knew that turkey was traditionally the centerpiece of that meal… and that’s all they knew. We always ended up having quite an impressive array of multicultural side dishes, and even the turkey was usually in some rather non-American style (I was especially fond of the Indian curry turkey).
Substitute “Jakarta” for London and the above is still true. Over the past few years my book club, which is always about 50% non-American (currently we have Indonesian, Swiss, and Australian members) has had a tradition of meeting at my house for a full Thanksgiving dinner sometime in November. It’s one of our annual highlights.
Mine is illegal now, though. You’re not allowed to kill pigs without a veterinary, a licensed facility and whatnot. Total bummer.
I had a roast chicken in Brazil with a guy from New York and a gal from Pennsylvania. It was a pretty weak event.
I made T-day dinner for a Spanish family and a German family when I was in those respective countries. A local commissary made it pretty simple.
A buddy and I made a big dinner for our entire detachment in Japan. [del]Stole[/del] borrowed a stove from the local public works and borrowed a Weber, and had turkey and ham in the warehouse. Good times.
I’ve also had Thanksgiving in Portugal (we had 20 guests!), Belgium, Mali and Uganda. At three of those, the housekeepers were local hires and assisted with the meal. They’d all seen it before, of course, as they had worked for American diplomats prior to us, but they all seemed a bit bemused by it, probably because of the sheer quantity of food.
I could be wrong, but I always assumed Thanksgiving became a public holiday rather than Christmas because of the separation of church and state. And so Thanksgiving has become a bigger event in the US. But in Europe and elsewhere Christmas is a big public holiday so that’s the big winter feast/celebration.
Wrong?
Thanksgiving is a harvest festival. Those are found in many cultures. Christmas is a winter solstice celebration, also common around the world, and as much of a public holiday as Thanksgiving, a long time went by before anyone brought up separation of church and state.
I was in Australia for Thanksgiving of 1983. I had a group of Aussie friends and one of them decided to do a Thanksgiving dinner for all the Americans on the project. She did a great job. I volunteered to stay after and help her clean up and wound up spending the night, so I have very fond memories of that particular Thanksgiving.
My parents were born and raised in teh United States, and while they haven’t lived there since 1981, we still celebrate thanksgiving every year. My (non-American) wife cheerfully took over cooking and hosting duties some years back, because she loves Thanksgiving food, and makes a killer turkey with stuffing. It’s nice having a holiday without all the stress of Rosh Hashanah or Passover - no arguing about which side of the family we’re at, no insane pre-holiday shopping.
Most of the ingredients for the holdiay food is available, although you usually have to order a whole turkey in advance. Apparently we’re not the only ones to celebrate - the guy at the deli counter at the supermarket once asked my wife why all these Americans were suddenly ordering turkeys in late November.
In 1989 I celebrated Thanksgiving with pomegranate crepes at an Azerbaijani café in Leningrad, along with the rest of my study abroad program. No turkey, but it was delicious and a nice change from Soviet dorm food.
Once I happened to be visiting my Salvadoran-American college roomie in small-town England right before Thanksgiving, and we decided it would be fun to do an early Thanksgiving dinner for her British husband, their kids, and a couple of British friends. The turkey was kind of a bust, though; it was the first time I’d done the turkey myself, and I didn’t defrost it properly (we bought it the day before and it hadn’t had time to thaw). Combine that with a semi-functional convection oven, and it was a tad rare. We ended up making soup with much of it so at least it would be fully cooked.
The rest of the food came out fine, though, and the Brits particularly enjoyed homemade whole-berry cranberry sauce. They couldn’t understand why brussels sprouts were a common tradition, though, because to them that was what you ate when you were poor.
Some of my most memorable Thanksgiving celebrations have taken place far from North America. I’ve had some wonderful Thanksgivings in Russia. Once a friend and I were planning the menu and were having difficulty tracking down a large enough turkey. She heard through the grapevine that a certain supermarket had received a shipment of large turkeys. Her husband happened to have their car that day so she called him at work, insisted on talking to him (which meant interrupting an important meeting) and told him he had to go immediately and buy a turkey. He said he had initially thought some terrible accident or other emergency had happened, since she generally didn’t pull him out of important business meetings. But he quickly saw that this was a matter of urgency and sped off to buy the bird. That was a great Thanksgiving. 
Maybe my view is skewed by the way news about Israel is reported in the US, but I had the impression that there was a sizable number of transplanted Americans living in Israel.
I’m a bit surprised and amused that so many people celebrate Thanksgiving overseas. I can see that the holiday would be attractive in any culture.
How readily available are turkeys around the world? They’re dirt cheap here in the US, raised primarily for the Thanksgiving season. After Thanksgiving frozen turkeys (and the fresh ones left over will get frozen) are practically given away. Of course it doesn’t have to be a turkey, a large chicken will do. I had Thanksgiving at the home of Orthodox Jews a long time ago and they served a couple of large chickens because they weren’t finding kosher turkeys. Everything was just as good, although obviously no sausage stuffing.
But turkey cold cuts are very popular. year 'round. Is there any sandwich shop worth mentioning in the US that doesn’t have turkey on the menu?
England, Belgium, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Italy. And Australia.
They tend to congregate in certain areas, like Jerusalem and the West Bank. While there are established American commuinities here in Tel Aviv, and in Haifa where I grew up, they aren’t that many of us in terms of numbers.
You may be right. Looking for some figures I found this little factoid:
“In 1970, 50% of all turkey consumed was during the holidays, now just 29% of all turkey consumed is during the holidays as more turkey is eaten year-round.”
In general, there has been an increase in the consumption of ‘white meat’ in recent years, both because of it’s lower cost and health consciousness.
I am still curious if turkeys are available so readily and inexpensively world-wide.
Israelis eat more turkey per capita than any other country in the world, almost twice as much as Americans.
Is that because of the whole ham thing? Pork being the most widely eaten meat, generally, IIRC.
I remember eating in a Kosher place many moons ago where “tham” sandwiches were served. Smoked Turkey was supposed to taste like ham.
Turkey’s a versatile meat. You can make turkey hot dogs, turkey shnitzel, turkey shawarma, turkey pastrami and lots more. Seeing as beef is expensive here, and pork is rarely eaten, it fills a big niche.