Prince Albert Says Mom Princess Grace 'Insisted' on Turkey at the Palace for Thanksgiving in Monaco

Having experienced a traditional Philadelphia upbringing, Monaco's Princess Grace insisted her children appreciate their American heritage. During their childhood, this meant month-long visits to the Kelly home on Henry Avenue and summers at the family's Jersey shore compound.

In the kitchen, this included sharing her love of pancake Sundays, Philadelphia-style scrapple, and, of course, Thanksgiving.

For her preferred scrapple, family members recall, Princess Grace turned to smuggling. Scrapple, best described as a hearty breakfast food, has devotees just as blood puddling, boudin or haggis have theirs. There are innumerable variations, but the best known Eastern Pennsylvania/DelMarVa regional recipe calls for the dish to be formed like a meatloaf from those parts of a pig which even the NFL cannot find use, cornmeal and spice.

It is refrigerated afterward with slices, pan-fried as a sausage patty — again, it's for those with hearty appetites.

According to Grace's nephew Chris LeVine, the royal would regularly end her visits to Philadelphia by wrapping up portions of scrapple in the family kitchen and placing them in her handbag. Once back in Monaco, the Oscar-winning actress would attempt to have the dish replicated, explaining to the palace kitchen that the result was supposed to resemble terrine or paté.

Transporting the Thanksgiving holiday posed equal problems, even for a Princess.

When Grace arrived in Monaco, turkey — which is a native North American bird — was a continental rarity. While yams and pumpkins were available and the English had already begun a fair Dickens-styled Christmas turkey tradition, turkeys didn't really hit the table until the '80s in France and Monaco.

Turkey farming was very much a small French cottage industry in Princess Grace's day, literally involving small cottages and intrigued farmers. To purchase one, you often found your way by word-of-mouth to one of the very few poultry shops which supplied the specialty, being certain to place your order by mid-October.

Continuing the family holiday tradition, Grace's son Prince Albert has introduced the holiday to his twins, Prince Jacques and Princess Gabriella, but admits his practice is "on and off." The American holiday (which falls in the week after Monaco's Nov. 19 National Day celebrations) sometimes gets shorted, he says, "because other commitments get in the way, sometimes travel schedules, and so we don't celebrate every year."

"We used to in my Mom's day of course," he adds. "We either had a Thanksgiving lunch here at the palace or we would join the American Club over there on the Riviera or the Monaco/USA Association. They had Thanksgiving luncheons either at the Hotel de Paris or in another location and so we would participate in that."

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The delicacy was a treat, he recalls. "Turkey wasn't common on European tables. We had turkey in the '60s and '70s because these organizations which had links with the US, of course. But, it was virtually unknown in France and there was very little of it."

He adds, "But Mom insisted and if we didn't have turkey at the palace for Thanksgiving, we would have it at Christmas time."