The Feast of The Seven Fishes
Christmas tradition
Photo courtesy of Americans Sicillians Italians (Facebook group)
Some moments in my life are etched deep in my gray matter and will forever stay there. One of my earliest memories of Christmas Eve was as a toddler. It was more than 65 years ago. I toddled into my Italian grandmother’s bathroom, and lo and behold, lying in a shallow pool of water, in the bathtub was a live swishing, thrashing eel!
I screamed bloody murder because to me this looked like a giant sea serpent. It was swimming in my grandmother’s bathtub. And it was for dinner that Christmas Eve.
Well, not for me!
The serpent would be somehow prepared along with six other types of seafood. I don’t remember anymore from that day.
As I grew, a fond tradition of my Italian family on Christmas Eve was the Feast of the Seven Fishes. We would have a multi-course seafood dinner. Seven is symbolic of the seven sacraments.
This tradition soon was passed on to my mom. She would be the chef for the Christmas Eve meal for the entire family which included grandmas, aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Throughout the years, we were served shrimp, scallops, calamari, clams, smelt, octopus, mussels, crab, and always some type of whole white fish stuffed with a delicious mixture of garlic, parsley, melted butter, and bread crumbs. The fresh jumbo shrimp were served with cocktail sauce. Scallops were always seared perfectly in butter. The hundreds of smelt were deep-fried to a crisp.
All the cousins would brag about who ate the most smelt. They were like potato chips. You could never eat just one. Calamari or squid was prepared in a tomato sauce and served with linguini. We never called it squid. It was pronounced calamad. Clams were served on ice with fresh lemon and hot tobasco sauce.
My mom would drive to DiCola’s Seafood Market on Western Avenue in Chicago. It still exists today. It has been operating since 1933. She would purchase seven different types of fish for the approaching Christmas Eve dinner.
One year, my mother thought she would make octopus as one of the dishes. She was always up for a challenge. She bought a whole octopus, with a head, eyes, ink, tentacles. I watched her with a disgusted look on my adolescent face. She was so struggling with this creature. She had to clean the entire, I don’t know, what do you call an octopus? It’s not a fish. I will have to google the correct name for this sea-dwelling creature.
Okay, an octopus is part of the cephalopod mollusk family. Who knew? It is supposed to be a delicacy. No, thank you. I was still tormented by the eel in the bathtub when I was a babe.
My mom questioned some of the older Italian aunts, how to prepare octopus? She was instructed to sever the head and discard. The tentacles had teeny tiny suction cups that would have to be pulled off. She struggled the entire day with this. As I recall, she told me how sore her fingers were. Also, her fingers were black because of the ink. By the time dinner came, my mom was exhausted but everyone was impressed and congratulated her on the octopus.
She never made it again. Plus she had six other dishes to prepare for the evening meal.
One Christmas Eve, Mom made Cioppino. This is a seafood stew in white wine tomato broth served with hot crusty Italian Bread. This was a hit! Also, she was able to throw everything together in one pot, simmer and serve. She probably had all seven fish in this dish. Genius!
Last but not least came the dessert. My mother always made cream puffs. The puffs were filled with a decadent creamy custard that she made herself and frosted with a simple chocolate frosting. No instant vanilla pudding here!
We also had biscotti. These are twice-baked oblong cookies flavored with anise oil. Not anise extract. It was pure anise oil purchased from the local pharmacist. There is a huge difference between anise oil and anise extract. Biscotti are best dunked in coffee or wine or if you’re lucky, Anisette which is a licorice-flavored liqueur. To this day, I make the original biscotti recipe which was handed down to me from my grandmother and my mom and now my daughter has it. Although it is a challenge to find anise oil.
By the time dinner and dessert were finished everyone was in a food coma. Still, the night was not over. Midnight mass would start in an hour. You had to arrive early to get a close parking space and a good seat. You never wanted to miss the Christmas choir music that the singers had been practicing for months.
By communion, you could hear an unusual sound vibrating our church. It was snoring from men, women, and children. Suddenly we were aroused from our sleep at the end of Mass to the festive jubilation of the song “Joy to the World.” It was now after 2 am. We were still stuffed from dinner and cranky because we were tired but when exiting our church, we were blissfully surprised to see the freshly fallen new snow. It was quiet and serene and absolutely beautiful. It would be a white Christmas after all. This picturesque scene graced my family most years. Living in Chicago chances were good you would have a white Christmas.
Sadly, my family tradition has slowly disappeared as the years have passed. My family is displaced across the country. If we are fortunate to be together on a holiday, it is much easier to go to a restaurant for dinner. But this tradition has such wonderful memories for me and it is probably one of the reasons why I love cooking so much. Seeing the pleasure in our loved one’s eyes is the best present.
By the way, my mother the master chef never made eel!
