Think about the typical Thanksgiving day for a moment. For most of us, it’s the day when family members gather in the kitchen to prepare an obscenely large feast while playfully harassing one another and bickering over long-buried family drama.

The ordeal culminates with the entire extended clan sitting down for an eating marathon around a long dining room table—or a collection of smaller tables arranged in a long row and covered in mismatched tablecloths. A special day for some, it sounds like an ordinary Sunday for most Italian-Americans. An Italian-American Thanksgiving meal mimics the typical turkey day in many ways.