Feast of the Seven Fishes
Southern Italians around the world celebrate Christmas Eve with a Feast of the Seven Fishes (festa dei sette pesci), also known as the vigil (La Vigilia). It is a meal that typically consists of seven different seafood dishes. This celebration is a commemoration of the wait, Vigilia di Natale, for the midnight birth of the baby Jesus.
The most famous dish Southern Italians serve is Baccalà (dried salted cod fish) and you will find this fish on most celebration tables. Reasons for celebrating with such a simple fish as Baccalà is attributed to the greatly impoverished regions of Southern Italy. Other fishes you will see on the table are calamari, shrimp, clams, mussels, crab, lobster, eel and whitefish, bass or other type of fish, but each region of Italy or family follow their own recipes.
For instance, on December 24, la vigilia di Natale, Giuseppe Scarlata's family will sit down to a feast dominated by seafood. In their Trapani home on Sicily's west coast, they typically start with an array of antipasti, among them marinated octopus and squid salad, smoked swordfish and thin slices of cured tuna called bresaola di tonno. And, as Giuseppe points out, that's just the beginning.
Fiorangela Piccione, who lives in Siracusa, often prepares a fritto misto (mixed fry) of lightly battered and fried fish and vegetables such as artichokes, fennel and potatoes. Pasta might be dressed with a sauce of clams, cuttlefish with their ink, or mussels, while eel is simmered with tomatoes and capers. Also likely to be on the menu is a wonderful baccalà and potato stew.
In Katia Amore's part of Sicily, near Modica, everyone eats what's known as pastizzu or ‘mpatata in dialect—a pie with a fish and vegetable filling (shark and zucchini, for example) topped with a pastry or a bread-like crust. During the holidays in Sicily, cooks often carry these concoctions to the house of a friend or relative for the Sicilian equivalent of a potluck.
The custom of an all-fish Christmas Eve dinner is particularly meaningful to the many Italian-Americans who emigrated from southern Italy. Growing up in New York in the ‘40s, Kathy Manfredi Mackie remembers the sense of anticipation as her Sicilian-American mom and aunts worked for days on the preparations and her Calabrian dad shopped for fish on Arthur Avenue or Sullivan Street. The meal kicked off with a roasted red pepper and anchovy antipasto and, on another platter, caponata (an eggplant salad) circled like a wreath around a savory heap of canned tuna. Scungilli (large marine snails) were in the picture, as were angel hair pasta with shellfish, squid or tiny shrimp. The main course might be, lobsters, prawns or baccalà. “We ate late and, just before we started, someone blew out the candles on the tree,” remembers Kathy.
Her family still holds to the Feast of Seven Fishes tradition, but when her large four-generation family gathers around the table these days, the meal is simpler. The main course is cioppino, a spicy fish soup Kathy and her daughters Shevaun and Kelly make with seven kinds of fish, shellfish, and crustaceans.
If there's a conclusion to draw here, it's the freedom to take what you please from the patchwork of Italian traditions to create your own fish-centric holiday celebrations. Below are some ideas to get you started.
Italians serve their feast in courses (see Italian Courses):
Antipasti - appetizers
Primi - can be a risotto, a soup, or a pasta
Secondi - seafood main dishes, usually accompanied by vegetable side dishes
Dolci - dessert, these are popular: Panettone (Italian Christmas Bread), Cannoli, Tiramisu, Christmas Honey Fritters (Struffoli)
Serving Christmas Eve dinner in courses can take hours. Each course - Antipasti: antipasto platter, appetizers; Primi: risotto, soup and/or pasta(s); Secondi (Main Course): fish entree(s) and vegetables; and finally Dolce: dessert(s) & coffee. Antipasti is usually served with wine or other drinks in the living room. Starting with the Primi course, everyone is seated at the table. After each course the plates are cleared, and the next course is served.
Some Traditional Dishes
Mixed Seafoods Baccalà Calamari (squid) Clams Mussels Oysters |
Shrimp Crab Other recipes: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/mario-batali/linguine-with-crab-radicchio-and-garlic-recipe/index.html Lobsters Fish: whitefish, flounder or other type of fish, cod is traditional in some families Secondi (Main Course) |
The Seven Fishes Throwdown with Bobby Flay (serving 3 dishes)
Bobby Flay's Recipes
- Salt cod fritters topped w/ lobster and clams in tomato sauce
- Black squid ink risotto w/ prawns
- Steamed stripe bass w/ yellow Spanish romesco
Frank Pellagrino, from Rao's in New York, Recipes
- Fruita de mare - cold seafood salad (calamari, shrimp, lobster, lump crab in an olive oil and lemon dressing)
- Lobster Fra Diablo w/ Linguine
- Classic Brazino Sotto Sale, an herb stuffed Mediterranean sea bass baked under salt crust with parsley and lemon juice sauce
- Other dishes he mentions on the show: Octopus Salad, Baccalà and Potatoes, another Baccalà dish, Stuffed Lobster, Tocheco?
Rao's “Throwdown Menu” inspired by “Throwdown with Bobby Flay.”
- Antipasti: Cacciuco Toscano, a seafood soup with lobster, shrimp, calamari, sea bass, PEI mussels, cockles, clams and scallops in white wine and tomatoes broth over a Italian garlic bread.
- Primi: Linguini All’aragosta (lobster)
- Secondi: Brazino Sotto Sale, a Mediterranean sea bass baked under salt crust
Mario Batali's Feast of the Seven Fishes Menu for Epicurious
http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/holidays/christmas/batalisevenfishes (includes recipes for all dishes)
"In Italy, most of the meal would be served buffet-style," says Batali. "Italians don't mind their food being room temperature. This allows you to make almost everything ahead." The exceptions are the pasta dishes, which should be cooked at the last minute and eaten immediately. To serve the meal the traditional way, have the antipasti out for guests to snack on as they mingle. Then seat the guests and serve them the pasta course. Then, set out the rest of the dishes (main courses on one table, desserts on another) and let guests graze as they decorate the tree, open presents, or otherwise celebrate.
Antipasti:
- Clams with Oregano and Bread Crumbs (Vongole Origanate)
- Marinated Fresh Anchovies (Alici Marinati)
Pastas (Primi):
- Linguine with Clams (Linguine con le Vongole) - similar to Linguine w/ Clam Sauce but w/ 1 can whole San Marzano tomatoes in juice added
- Spaghetti with Mussels (Spaghetti con le Cozze) - similar to Mussels in White Sauce, some recipes call for fresh cherry tomatoes
Secondi:
- Salt Cod with Tomatoes and Capers (Baccalà alla Vesuviana)
- Jumbo Shrimp Marsala House-wife Style (Gamberoni Casalinga Siciliana)
- Eel with Olives, Chiles, and Capers (Anguilla Livernese) - Batali stresses that this is an essential part of an Italian Christmas Eve celebration. "To most Italians, it would practically be sacrilegious not to have it,"
- Broccoli Sautéed in Wine and Garlic
Dolci (dessert):
- Chocolate Chip–Orange Cannoli (Cannoli di Ricotta)
- Christmas Honey Fritters (Struffoli)
Feast of Seven Fishes from Deborah Mele, Italian Food Forever
Antipasti -
Breaded Clams or Mussels,
Seafood Salad,
Cured Salmon
Primi -
Lemon Pasta With Shrimp,
Seafood Lasagna
Secondi -
Grilled Octopus,
Whole Fish Baked In Salt
This is another family's tradition: "After a lot of back-and-forth, this is what I found out Grandma traditionally made:
- shrimp cocktail
- deep fried calamari
- clams casino (remove clams from the shell, chop and cook with olive oil, garlic and breadcrumbs; return to shell and cover with grated cheese)
- baccala (stiff salted fish, boil to remove salt, add to tomato gravy)
- linguini with mussels and white clam sauce
- scungilli (snails) in marinara
- baked stuffed lobster
Alternatives to any of the above: raw oysters, baked stuffed haddock, or some other breaded white fish. What else? A lot of Italian bread, eggplant parm, but no meat."
