Here's the question:
Have you ever cooked an American Thanksgiving meal in Korea, turkey and all? My Western friends and I decided that we wanted to make a Thanksgiving dinner for our Korean friends, and I'm a little bit stumped about the turkey. This may well be purely a matter of this being my first time cooking a turkey and not knowing what I'm doing. I do have some questions about turkey in Korea, though.
1. Where is the best place to get a turkey? I might already know the answer to this. We might be able to get a turkey from someone one of us knows in the American military. I've heard that's the cheapest. But, if we go to CostCo, are we likely to find a fair deal for a turkey?
2. Once we actually get a turkey, will we be able to find a roasting pan in stores in Korea? Or would we be better off trying to borrow one from a church or other institution that might serve a Thanksgiving dinner? (Our dinner is on Friday, not Thursday).
I have never tried and I think it's great that you are, but Korea is not the easiest place to start learning how to make a proper American Thanksgiving dinner. My advice? Don't mess with it. Not only will it be extremely stressful, but I doubt that you'll find all the ingredients to do it well and, of course, the oven is another problem. If you don't have an oven in your apartment, you're setting yourself up for disaster.
You could go the Costco route (and probably find a big pan there as well), but I can't speak from experience. Two years ago (when I was searching), there were no turkeys to be found. That doesn't mean they're not there though as things might have changed, but again, finding the turkey is only the beginning.
In 2008, Kimchi Ice Cream said,
Apparently if you can get a Korean friend to call a turkey farm (assuming there's one near you--a farm, not a Korean friend, lol--there is one that's not too far from our university) you can ask a Korean friend to call for you and buy a turkey. The farmer will, for a fee, kill the turkey, de-feather it, and then deliver it to your place
I doubt that you have time for this though, so if you want your Korean friends have a good meal, then I'd suggest taking advantage of
10 Magazine's list of places to get a good Thanksgiving dinner. Most of the places are reasonably priced, well-cooked and a lot of fun.
Now, you do have one more option:
ordering a turkey/Thanksgiving dinner from a hotel. We did this last year and it was affordable, fed over 15 people and it was delivered to us at the time of our choosing. Many major hotels will be serving turkey and if they are not, they'll make it for the occasion. We customized our entire dinner and it was fantastic. If you want to eat at home, go this route.
I'm sure other people have many other routes they'll be going, so please share. As for me, well, I'm not a big turkey fan, so my wife and I will be enjoying a Brazilian Thanksgiving dinner this year.
Good luck though!
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