Our common nature is a musical journey with Yo-Yo Ma and me, Ana Gonzalez, through this complicated country.

We go into caves, onto boats, and up mountain trails to meet people, hear their stories, their poetry, and of course, play some music, all to reconnect to nature and get closer to the things we're missing.

Listen to Our Common Nature from WNYC, wherever you get podcasts.

Hi, it's Lynn Rosetta, Casper, and you're listening to The Splendid Table,

the show for people who love to eat.

Our program is produced by American Public Media and brought to you by Mars,

for generations making chocolate from 100% pure cocoa butter.

When we talk Thanksgiving and its table of pure Americana, we forget

something. We're a nation of other. I mean, except for Native Americans, all of us originally

come from somewhere else. I mean, all of us were at one-time foreigners. In a way,

chef Marcus Samuelson is a poster boy for this take on Americana. He was born

in Ethiopia, raised in Sweden, came to America in 1991 for nine months, and he never left.

Well, he's recently done a cookbook about what we Americans really are. It's the new American table. Marcus came to town to teach

some classes. We met up at the stove while he was prepping. He had two skillets going. The cutting

boards had piles of cubed butternut squash, onions. He had just put a turkey breast in a roasting

pan, and he came back to the counter

to slice up some collard greens. So what are you doing? You've got a pile of bacon, a heap of

bacon. I'm going to do a really nice turkey breast that we're going to do some stuffing with

and some collard greens, and I'm going to cook with some coconut milk.

You know, I'm an immigrant to this country and I love Thanksgiving because it's a holiday

where, you know, you celebrate around food, but from immigrants, most of us, we don't really

focus that much on the turkey. We will have a turkey there because you want to sort of celebrate

...