Spoiler alert ahead about the Feast of the Seven Fishes!
(It doesn’t exist in Italy!)
Yes, it’s true!
Do southern Italians eat fish on Christmas Eve? Yes, and it’s called La Vigilia (the Vigil) but there is no fixed number of dishes. Plus, southern Italians eat fish all the time; it’s a staple here. (I’m spending Christmas in Italy this year.)
The Feast of the Seven Fishes is an Italian-American invention, one of the many dishes and traditions that has morphed over the years, like chicken parmigiana.
Where did the number seven come from? No one definitively knows but the number seven has a lot of significance: there are seven sacraments – as well as seven deadly sins. And it took seven days for Mary and Joseph to get to Bethlehem before Jesus was born.
Did I grow up eating it? Actually, no. My Sicilian grandfather could not abide the smell of fish, therefore, my grandmother never made it, which meant my mother never learned to cook it.
But I adopted the feast in the early 80s when I first started hosting Christmas Eve dinner – and it was truly a feast!
Because I did not grow up with a “tradition” around this feast, however, I could make whatever I wanted. I would vary some of the courses each year except the main course which was always a baked red snapper stuffed with shrimp and scallops.
In many families, there is a strict adherence to a particular menu, which might include frutta di mare (a cold seafood salad), fried shrimp (or sardines) spaghetti alla vongole (clams), cozze (mussels), baccala (salt cod), and maybe even lobster tails.
Some people don’t make seven courses but instead will make a fish stew, like a cioppino, and include seven different types of fish.
I’ve also created the feast with friends which is always a lot of fun, plus there are more hands for the work to go around. We have a couple of staple dishes we always make: tapenade (with anchovies), frutta di mare, crab cakes, linguini vongole and roast fresh cod with potatoes, tomatoes, and olives, but each time we integrate a few new dishes too.
After any Italian holiday dinner, there are the requisite roast nuts, fruit, fennel, digestivi, etc. as well as dessert and coffee.
And no Southern Italian Christmas table would be complete without a panettone, a sweet, dome-shaped, bread-like cake. Traditionally they were either plain, or studded with raisins and candied fruit. Today, however, you can find a variety of panettones in the store. My favorite is with pistachio or hazelnut cream – to die for!
No matter what your Christmas dinner traditions may be, we should not lose sight of what brings us all to the table: being with our loved ones and celebrating the birth of Jesus.
Wherever you find yourself this Christmas, I wish you a joyous holiday season and a heart full of hope for the coming year.
Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo!
(Of course, I do want to know what you’re eating, so please tell us in the comments!!!)
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A beautiful and heartwarming story from a woman with the warmest heart. I’m holding out for your red snapper and l will hunt down your pannetone.
Awww thank you, my friend! I would be honored to make the red snapper for you! And I look forward to my next Christmas with the Miklatek-Johnson clan! I am so blessed to be an honorary member of your family. Buon Natale!