food Lucky Number Seven
Make Christmas Eve an Italian Feast By Morgan Banno
As a chef, I love the cooler feastfilled holidays and welcome any excuse to cook or experiment in the kitchen. As a chef who married into a New York Italian family, I have a whole new appreciation for what all is involved in the family dinner production, particularly at Christmas. Because let’s face it, Italians know how to make holidays all about the food. And the Feast of the Seven Fishes is the epitome of an Italian family dinner. The origins of the Feast are hotly debated as to whether the tradition is authentically Italian or if Italian immigrants adapted the tradition with their own American spin around 1880-1924. In Catholic-dominated Italy, La Vigilia (the vigil) is the hours-long Christmas Eve celebration awaiting the birth of Christ
on Christmas Day. It was a day of with pasta. For appetizers, start abstinence from eating meat and with baked clams, fried smelts and instead, observant Catholics noshed baccala with tomatoes and capers. on the fresh seafood that celebrated Next, pan-seared scungilli over a the bountiful Italian coastline. tossed arugula salad with lemon vin Different Italian families will give aigrette. Shrimp cocktail will enliven a variety of answers as to the fish the palate and prepare your taste in the dinner preparation but the buds for seafood cioppino, musmost commonly sels and pasta, or face it, Italians shrimp pomodoro. used seafoods are: Let’s vongole (clams), know how to make holi- And for the pièce baccala (salt cod), days all about the food. de résistance, try frutti de mare crab-stuffed lob(shellfish), capitone (eel), calamari ster tails or spicy lobster fra diavolo! (squid), scungilli (conch) and aragos If you’re feeling ambitious and ta (lobster.) ready to impress the in-laws with Seeing as the Feast is a minia nostalgia-fueled dinner, serving mum of seven courses, it’s wise to the Feast of the Seven Fishes is a be strategic in your menu planning. delectable culinary blend of family Work from lighter food to heavier tradition and religion. But if the holdishes; salad counts as a course; idays are your time to unwind with and not every dish has to be served friends, leave the Italian cooking to
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theGabber.com | December 23, 2021 - December 29, 2021
